Some of my favorite low cost therapy activities!

I did a guest post for Carrie's Speech Corner about my favorite low cost therapy ideas! 

Check it out!

You can grab a copy of the freebie I included HERE! 

What are your favorite low cost therapy activities?

Expressive Fiesta

Just finished a new expressive language activity using the same "fiesta" clipart as the Formulating Questions Fiesta! I call this new activity Expressive Fiesta and it targets older students. While it's labeled as an expressive activity, it can also be used to target WH questions, vocabulary skills, auditory comprehension and sequencing. 

First you need to cut out these 6 pictures and affix them each to a side of a die:

Then each student is given a worksheet like this:

Students will roll the die and pick up a corresponding detail card. The cactus means you pick up a WHO card, the guitar means you pic up a WHAT card, the maracas means you pick up a WHERE card, the chili pepper means you pick up a WHEN card, and the sombrero means you pick up a WHY card. The student then fills in the details on the worksheet. Examples of the cards are below. WHO, WHAT, and WHERE cards  have pictures!

Once the details are all filled in, the student creates a story. He/she can write it out or verbalize the story. Other students might be asked to re-tell the story or asked questions about it. An example page is included in the activity:

Let me know what you think!  You can get this activity HERE!

Happy New (SLP Materials) Year!

Just a reminder, I am participating in the SLP New Year sale January 2-3 (the genius idea of Kristin from [simply speech.])! ALL of my materials will be 20% off!! 

See all my materials HERE!

I have posted a lot of new materials in the last few days in an effort to get more up prior to the start of the sale. Here's a quick summary of the activities I haven't had a chance to do blog posts on yet:

• Bee-utiful Antonyms: Similar to Bee-utiful Synonyms freebie, but double the amount of antonym pairs!
• Click! What's the Pic?: Targets receptive and expressive language skills. Receptive Game: orange camera cards have a description of an item that corresponds to a green camera card. SLP/student reads description and finds the corresponding green camera. Expressive Game: student chooses a green camera and describes it so that a peer/teacher can guess the item
• Formulating Questions Fiesta: Targets asking WHAT, WHO, WHERE, WHEN, and WHY questions with fun fiesta theme!
• Homework SMILES: Grammar and Articulation: Large homework packets with no graphics. Each HW sheet is a half sheet that can be easily copied and sent home for more practice. 
• Mirror-TIC: R: Targets /r/ in its many forms, but you have to hold the cameras up in front of the mirror to read it correctly! Cameras with words only and words/pictures included!
• Pick a Pocket Auditory Memory and Figurative Language: Auditory memory targets words and sentences. Figurative language targets similes, metaphors, and idioms.

Hope everyone had a great time ringing in 2013! Here's to making 2013 a great year! :) 

Get a mirror for MIRROR-TIC!

I am so excited to share a new activity idea I thought of last night. I think it'll become a hit in your therapy room, as well as mine! I really wanted to use this camera clipart from Maree Truelove that I used for my Click! What's the Pic? activity (blog post soon). In the process of trying to think up another area to target, I happened to think about how you hold cameras up when you're about take a picture. BAM! It hit me: write the words so that when you hold it up in front of the mirror, the words are shown correctly.

I played around to figure out how to do this and finally figured it out!

I decided to focus on /r/ first! This is what the cards look like:

Weird looking, huh? BUT THE MAGIC HAPPENS WHEN YOU HOLD THE CARD IN FRONT OF THE MIRROR! Have your students pretend to take a picture in front of the mirror and the word will appear correctly for them. If they say the word correctly, they keep the card. Watch out for the "broken camera" cards. 

There are 18 cards for each variation of /r/ including: prevocalic, ar, ire, ear, er, or, er. Each camera color corresponds to a different variation of /r/ so it's easy to keep them separated. Because I know a lot of people prefer picture stimuli, I also included 12 cards  for each variation with pictures and writing that look like this:

There are only 12 pictures for each because it's difficult to find pictures for a lot of the /r/ words! In total, you get 84 picture cards and 126 cards with just writing. 

ALL THE CARDS NEED TO BE HELD UP TO A MIRROR IN ORDER TO READ*

I hope you like this different kind of activity! Comment below and let me know what other sounds you'd like me to create next! Get the activity HERE!

Multiple Meaning Mail

I'm already seeing Valentine's Day themed materials! My new activity is called Multiple Meaning Mail. While I created this with Valentine's Day in mind, it is something you could use year round. 

While we live in a world where e-mail is used much more frequently than "real mail," I sometimes miss getting actual letters and sending postcards (see my Articulation Postcards if you miss them too). 

Included in this activity are 20 envelope cards with a multiple meaning word. 

You can't mail a letter without stamps! Each of these letters requires 2 stamps. The stamp cards each have a meaning that with match one of the envelopes. When completed, each envelope will have 2 stamps!

It's a simple concept, but a different way to work on multiple meaning words! Get it HERE!

HOMEWORK? HOMEWORK!

I'm guessing that most SLPs try to give weekly homework, especially if you work in the schools. I did a survey on Facebook to see if there was interest if I decided to create some homework packets. Articulation, grammar, social skills were all requested, so I decided to tackle articulation first. This packet is different from my other activities, because I wanted it to be easy to print (black and white) and copy. It also turned into a very large packet!

I call this packet Homework SMILES. 

See picture below for a breakdown of the entire packet:

For most sounds, there are 4 different HW pages for each position of the sound. I broke the blends up and provided 2 pages for each different blend (i.e. SN, SK, etc), plus 4 pages of mixed blends. I also added a blank page that you can easily make your own!

The picture below is an example of what the HW pages look like. They are half sheets to help conserve paper. Again, they can be printed in black and white so there are no graphics (other than the smiley faces):

There are a total of 146 different ready-made HW sheets! I am hard at work creating one for grammar and language! Comment if you like what you see and want more! 

Get the packet HERE! (It will be included in the 20% off sale on Jan. 2nd and 3rd) 

Pick A Pocket Auditory Memory

Auditory memory is a skill that several students on my caseload seem to have difficulty with. After seeing some "pocket" clipart from Ashley Hughes, I decided to create an activity based on auditory memory of words AND sentences called Pick a Pocket: Auditory Memory:

The games can be played separately or together. The goal is to try to earn a pocket in all 5 colors: purple, green, red, orange, and blue. Placemats included to help students keep track of the pockets they've earned:

Be careful of the "ripped pocket" cards because they require students to put a pocket back:

A visual is included for both words and sentences. Strategies are included to help students remember the words:

For the word game, there are 3 words that the SLP/teacher readers aloud to the student. Once completed, the student must recall all three words. If he/she is able to recall all 3, they keep the pocket. Below is an example:

Below is the sentence visual with a reminder to listen for key words:

Examples of the sentence pockets are below. Each pocket features one sentence with a corresponding question. If the student answers the question correctly, they keep the pocket!

2 pages of blank pockets are also included in the event that you want to add your own! You can get this activity HERE!