Thank You Notes Freebie

It's November and that means it's a time to be thankful. One of the things I'm very appreciative of is that my parents taught me to always write thank you notes for things that I received. In this age of technology, it might be a lost art. I think it's important to teach kids to write thank you notes, so I created a freebie just for that!

 There is a sample thank you note with indicator arrows for important pieces to include:

There are writing prompts:

There are also social language questions that can promote discussion:

Plus, a blank template to write a note:

Click the picture up at the top of the post to be taken to the freebie!! Enjoy and be thankful!

Inexpensive Basic Concept Books [freebie]

Graphics: 3AM Teacher and Creative Clips

Disclaimer: Affiliate links are included for your convenience.

After the big TpT sale in August, I promised a freebie as a thank you for all who purchased from my store. And then I promptly forgot about it until now! Never fear, though = the time is here!

Basic concepts are something all children need to understand. During my CF, I made these inexpensive basic concept books that I can't believe I haven't shared yet! I purchased some little photo albums (also called brag books) at Walmart and labeled them with basic concepts, such as "hot/cold, more/less, wet/dry, etc." I generally focused on a couple pairs at a time, until I felt that the child had mastered the concept.

These are similar to what the photo albums look like, I think I got them for around a dollar each. Patterns don't matter:

I inserted pictures in each sleeve that illustrated the concept. Here's where your freebie comes in. I included pictures for hot/cold and hard/soft, so you can easily make some of your own. Best part? You don't have to laminate these since they're going into the sleeve! Click the picture below to get your copy! 

Ice Cream-y Cones

The summer is flying by much too quickly for my liking. Some of you might even be back in school. I have until the end of August before I go back, but am just beginning to get a taste of actual summer vacation now since I worked ESY. Today, I'm sharing a freebie that has an ice cream theme - it screams summer!

I call this activity Ice Cream-y Cones and it targets story retell, by helping students pick out the character, setting, problem, and solution of a short story. They can then use the completed cones as visual cues to retell the story. There are 5 stories and ice cream scoops with character, setting, problem, and solution to match with the correct cone. 

Grab your copy here!

The story page indicates the color cone that matches each story:

Hope you enjoy this freebie!

Pronoun & Verb Popsicle Sticks

Hello July! I can't believe June flew by so fast. Maybe it was because we were in school for most of the month. This freebie is something I made a couple months ago and have used a lot, so I thought I would share. I call these Pronoun Popsicle Sticks. Cut out and laminate the circles and affix to a popsicle stick. I put them all in a jar and had my students pluck them out. We practiced pronouns, verbs, auxiliary verbs, etc. 

It was a great way to shake things up a bit! I hope your summer is off to a great start! I know I have been a little quiet lately, but that's because I've been busy attending weddings, preparing for ESY and trying to get a little pool time! 

Grab your copy by clicking the picture below:

Find & Fix Task Cards [freebie]

June?!?!?! This month, my Speechie Freebie contribution are some task cards. Why? Because once we hit June, the light at the end of the "summer vacation" tunnel is getting larger. I'm not there yet, but I'm getting closer.

I created these task cards because I have several students who are working on irregular past tense verbs. I think it's crucial for them to be able to identify if a sentence sounds correct or incorrect. Each task card has one sentence with an incorrect verb that they need to find and fix. Download yours here!

Example of a task card:

Father's Day Freebie

It's June 1st, which means Father's Day is coming up! Well, not until the 15th, but I like to think ahead. I'm also still in school for pretty much all of June, so I usually do some sort of craft activity for both Mother's Day and Father's Day. This year, I decided to create something that you can grab for free. I call it a DAD Adjective Collage.

It's very simple. Print the DAD sheet (page 3) and a copy of the adjective strips (page 4) for each student. They can choose to cut out whichever adjectives they feel best describe their dad or add their own on the blank strips. Glue the adjectives within or around the DAD and color/decorate as you wish. 

Adjective strips:

You can also discuss synonyms, antonyms, and put the words in sentences if you wish. This way, your students will have something unique to give to their dads on Father's Day! Enjoy!

Thank You + Freebie + Giveaway

Last week marked another TpT site wide sale! The buzz these sales create is amazing. I am beyond grateful for anyone who made a purchase from my store (during the sale or anytime). 

I picked up what I mentioned in this post and managed to find a couple other things:

Cariboo Cards from Kathy Grover: I have and love this game! 

Let's Make Analogies From Speech with Sharon

So now I'd like to offer a freebie and a giveaway as a thank you! The freebie focuses on story retelling, which is something that so many of my students struggle with. I created these to help them practice this skill. Use these “stick-ups” when you’re reading a book with your students. I included a variety of terms that you might use in your classroom, so feel free to just use some of them. When reading, you students can put the “stick-up” in the book to mark a character, the problem, an emotion, etc. When you’re ready to have them retell, they can turn back in the book and find that detail. I call them “stick-ups” because I designed them so they would stick up out of most books! 

This is an example of how they might look:

Grab your copy here and don't forget feedback if you like them!

And now for the giveaway! Enter below for your chance to win 3 products of your choice from my store (bundles excluded)! 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

May Is BHSM!

May is Better Hearing and Speech Month! This month, I decided to create a freebie that would showcase what SLPs can do with a cute puzzle theme. You can hand this out as a information sheet or share it with your colleagues!

Click on the image below to download your copy!

SLPs can work on so many different skills in so many different settings, it's overwhelming! Use this month as an opportunity to let co-workers, parents, and other professionals what SLPs do!  

Clinical Skills Confidence: Banish the "video games" answer!

Graphics: My Cute Graphics

I don't know about you, but my sessions frequently begin like this:

Me: "Hi XXX, how are you?"

Student: "Fine."

Me: "What did you do over the weekend/last night?"

Student: "Played video games."

Sigh.

This seems to be a highly popular response. Everyone's entitled to their own opinion about technology, particularly video games. However, I got tired of hearing this response. So I decided it was time to do something about it. I'm ok with getting that response, but if this is what interests my students, then I should use it to my advantage!

What does that get you? A freebie! And maybe you'll be saved from that same response too!

I put each of the circles on a popsicle stick and put them circle side down in a cup. Students are warned as we are walking into the room that if they answer my question about their weekend with "I played video games," they will be required to pluck out the sticks and complete the corresponding language task (I decided beforehand how many I wanted them to complete). To grab your copy, click here.

I also had the students write down some of the video games they play, so I could find out more and maybe know what they were talking about for the next time. I'd love to know if you plan on trying this!

Speechie Freebies Debut!

I have been invited to be part of Speechie Freebies and I'm super excited! I can't wait to start collaborating with some other awesome SLP bloggers to bring you tons of freebies. For my debut, I wanted to offer a freebie that went along with my popular mirror activities, like the ones pictured below (click on the picture if you're interested in any of them). 

Mirror-CHICKS is a cute spring themed freebie that requires the use of a mirror. The chicks want to plant things in their gardens, but they need your help (and a mirror) to determine what 3 things to plant. Use this for language development, auditory memory, or vocabulary! Click the picture below to grab your copy!

Example of the cards:

I look forward to sharing more freebies with you as a Speechie Freebie's collaborator! 

Clinical Skills Confidence: Classroom Observation [freebie]

Graphics: My Cute Graphics

Font: http://teachesthirdingeorgia.blogspot.com

SLPs in the schools need to have an understanding of how students are functioning in the classroom environment. In order for a student to qualify for speech/language services in the schools, there needs to be an impact in the classroom. 

How can you determine if there is an adverse impact? 

We can use standardized tests of course. But they often are not enough. I also like to use a teacher questionnaire and do a classroom observation. I decided to create a short form that you can grab and use during an observation rather than furiously scribbling down notes about what you're seeing. Grab the freebie here! [don't forget feedback]

This article from ASHA highlights what elements are important for a comprehensive speech/language assessment. 

Check out Speechie Freebies for more awesome SLP freebies!

Do you do a classroom observation? What do you look for? 

Clinical Skills Confidence: Speech Note [freebie]

Some of my parents like to have more back and forth contact than just a quarterly progress report. Usually the requests are few and far between, so I'm happy to oblige if they want more routine updates. I decided that I wanted to create a simple one that I could just copy and write on. So that's what I created! You can grab a copy for free too - just click on the image below:

I included 2 different versions. One has a notes/homework section, the other includes a strength and weakness area. I think it's important to highlight strengths whenever possible (not just at progress report time). On the 2nd version: exciting = something great that the student did during the session, keep fighting = something the student still needs to work on. 

I hope you find this useful! 

Peek At My Week 1/31

Full disclosure - this week was disjointed. We had a professional development day today, so that always throws me off a bit. End of the quarter means progress reports (check out my tips for those here). I managed to get "in the zone" and got mine done. Hooray!

I did try out the Let's Be Social app on Monday with a few of my kids, and it went very well. If you're interested in the app for yourself, read about my experience here. I haven't had an A-HA moment in quite awhile, but I had one on Sunday! <--- check it out because you'll get a freebie! 

Next week, I'm hoping schedules and such will get back to normal. I'm planning on taking some time to plan for next month. I'm trying really hard to plan smarter, not harder (#2 of my 2014 resolutions). To do this, instead of planning for each week, I'm trying to plan for the whole month. We'll see how it goes. I may have to just try 2 weeks to begin with. 

Several of my kids have goals for irregular plurals. These unfortunately require a lot of drill, because they're...well, irregular. I've noticed my kids have a really tough time with the nouns that have the same singular and plural form. So I made a poem that you can grab for free! Just click the picture below!

Back to normal next week! What was your week like?

Song Lyrics in Speech Therapy

Graphics: Lovin Lit

I hope everyone had a good Christmas (if you celebrate it) or at least some time with your families!

Who doesn't love music? I wanted to share another therapy idea that I plan to use in the new year. Song lyrics! Plus, you get a freebie out of it, so definitely keep reading! 

First, I downloaded a free app called SongFreaks - this can be found here. You can search any song and it will bring up the lyrics. I searched Wheels on the Bus as a demo. 

The great thing is that if there is a YouTube video, you can also watch it through the app (you'll need an internet connection though). I thought this would be a different way to practice articulation and language skills. I made up some basic worksheets to use, that can be downloaded here. 

Kids can find words with their sounds - and then take the worksheet home for more practice.

 Kids who have language goals can look through the lyrics and find words/phrases they don't know. This would be a great activity to use context clues to try to figure out the meanings of words. They can find words that have multiple meanings, synonyms, and antonyms using this worksheet. You can always create your own worksheet if these don't fit your needs too! 

I think this will be a fun activity to try in January! What do you think?

Clinical Skills Confidence: 14 Early Developing Morphemes

Let's take a short trip back to graduate school and discuss Brown's Morphemes. These were identified by Roger Brown and detail morphological and syntactical elements of expressive language. Caroline Bowen has more details on her website, which can be found here.

There are 5 stages to Brown's Morphemes. Mean Length of Utterance (MLU) is expected to increase as a child's age increases. I frequently refer to these morphemes, especially with younger students. For whatever reason, I will always remember the difference between auxiliary and copula. Side note: you may receive puzzled looks if you throw these terms into everyday conversation! It's ok, fellow SLPs understand. Auxiliary means supplementary so there is always another verb, which means it's a copula if there is no other verb. Remember, these all refer to the "to be" verb. Contractible means it can be shortened (ex. he is swimming --> he's swimming), while uncontractible means it can't be shortened (ex. he was mad). 

I have created an informal screener for these 14 morphemes. It's been on my to-do list for awhile and I finally got around to it! Please note that this is not a standardized tool, it is simply meant to provide a baseline when looking at the expressive language of a child. Click the picture below to be taken to the link to download your screen (it's FREE):

A tracking form is included:

 An answer key for the screener is also included:

 Each page looks at one morpheme. The box on the left contains a target visual and verbal example to read to the child. The boxes on the right are for the child to respond to. There are different formats for this, depending on what the morpheme is. 

I truly hope this is something you can use! Feedback is always appreciated!!