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?

LOVE-ly Speech & Language Activities

It's almost February, which means Groundhog Day and Valentine's Day! I've rounded up a few activities from the past year that should work nicely in your speech room for the month of February!

Groundhog Day is February 2nd. I usually have at least a few kids working on positional concepts and they frequently get tripped up by above/below and in front/behind. My answer? Use this FREE activity to target these concepts with a fun groundhog theme! Click on the picture below!

Another groundhog freebie that is brand new is a NPST activity if you're new to these and want to try it before you buy it. To grab this one, you just have to like my Facebook page! 

One of the newest products to hit my store is a NPST (No Print Speech Therapy) activity called Broken Hearted. It targets conjunctions, context clues, and synonyms. 

Work on multisyllabic words with Multisyllabic Hearts (2-5 syllables). No pictures are included on this one, but the cards feature a heart for each syllable to provide your students with visual cues.

Target social skills with this fun conversation heart themed activity. There are 4 colored hearts that each target a different skill: compliments, asking for help, greetings, and ending a conversation. It's played like "pin the tail on the donkey" so your students can be up and moving! 

Work on multiple meaning words with Multiple Meaning Mail. Each envelope has a word and requires 2 stamps to be mailed - the stamps need to be matched with the envelopes.

I'll most likely be adding a couple more activities, but if you follow my TpT store or Facebook page, you'll be the first to know!

{Review} Let's Be Social App

Disclaimer: A copy of this app was provided to me; however, the opinions expressed are solely my own!

Let's Be Social is an app from Everyday Speech that sells for $14.99 in the app store. It features stories and related questions that cover a range of social topics including personal interactions, navigating the community, social behavior, handling change, and social relationships. You also have the opportunity to add your own lesson! Below is a picture of the personal interaction stories:

When you start a lesson, the SLP/student can read a short story:

After the story, the student is presented with multiple choice questions that are related to the story:

You can also add your own question: 

I tried this with my 2nd graders and it worked well. They were able to read most of the stories themselves and we talked about the story before going to the questions. They liked being able to select their answers within the app. We have been working on good listening behavior, so I made a story for that. You can add pictures, but you don't have to! I love that you can add your own questions and really customize it for your students. 

What I Liked:

-lessons are short which is great for some of my students

-the ability to add your own lessons and questions

-provided with a pretty good variety of stories to get started

-the format: story followed by questions to check for comprehension

-you could add simple questions vs. lessons for lower functioning students (object identification, prepositions, etc)

What I Would Change:

-I think this app could work well for middle and high school if more stories were provided that were geared towards upper level grades (you could do this yourself too)

-It would be great if you could upload short videos as the story!

Overall, I think this a great starting point if you're looking for basic social skills. You have the ability to build on and add your own, which is fantastic. You can add a student as a "skill set" and create personalized social stories. It's definitely worth checking out if you're not sure what social skills app is right for you!

Thank you to Everyday Speech for the opportunity to review this app!

A-HA Moment: Picture Frame = Barrier Game

Disclaimer: Affiliate links are included for your convenience.

I recently was cleaning out a random storage box and found this one of those plastic picture frames. It was empty and the SLP wheels started turning. A-HA! It's perfect for a barrier game setup. Oh, and really cheap!

I  made a simple background in powerpoint with graphics from My Cute Graphics (free) and printed 2 copies. I have the Melissa and Doug reusable stickers (pictured below) so I pulled those out to use.  I made sure to have 2 of the same item so that each student can have one. 

If you'd like to try this out, I have some free backgrounds for you! My picture frame is 10 inches high x 6.5 inches wide, so I made the pictures to fit those dimensions, but you could easily make your own if you have bigger ones. Grab your copy here: 

There is one for outside, under the sea, and a room in a house. 

The person sitting on the "backside" of the frame sees a slightly different image, so you might want to place your student on the "inside," but I don't think it's that bad! And who can argue with reusing something?!

Clinical Skills Confidence: Progress Reports

It's almost that time again for me. End of the quarter = progress reports. This is when I'm glad I do my best to keep my data binder organized, because I usually can grab this and start the daunting task of inputting all my progress reports. Here are my tips:

1. Don't wait until the last minute! This probably doesn't need to be said, who needs the extra stress of knowing you are quickly running out of time? I start thinking about them a few weeks before the quarter ends so I can make sure I grab data on all the goals/objectives. I take data on at least one objective every single session, so that's not too much more work. 

2. Make a list and check it off. I make an excel list of my kids at the beginning of the year with pertinent information like name, DOB, IEP date, disability category, and IEP goals/objectives. It's a lot of work in the beginning of the year, but it saves me time later. I copy and paste the names and print it out. As I'm going through the kids, I check off each name when I do his/her progress report.

3. Try to spread it out over a few days. If I get "in the zone" I can crank out 20 at a time. I try to tell myself "get through X number today and do the rest tomorrow." It's more manageable, plus we all know how tired our eyes get after several hours of staring at the computer screen.

4. Check in with teachers (if possible). They're busy putting in grades too! Most of the time, I'm in contact with teachers at least weekly, but if I've been wondering/concerned about how they're doing in the classroom, it's worth the extra 10 minutes to seek out the teacher to ask. We're coming up on the end of the 2nd quarter, so academic concerns are usually cropping up about this time. 

How do you efficiently manage progress report time? 

Love It & List It Linky

Disclaimer: Affiliate links are included for your convenience!

This month's Love It & List It Linky features social skills materials. Jenna kicks it off with her picks here. Make sure to head there to check out other SLP bloggers' picks!

Here are mine:

1. You Are A Social Detective!: This is probably on a lot of peoples' lists, as it's a great starting point for the Social Thinking Curriculum. The comic book format is engaging for kids and you can carryover the concepts into different environments.

2. Emotion Select: This is a $0.99 app for teaching basic emotions. It's a recent addition to my iPad, but I'm beginning to focus on facial expressions with a few of my students and this is a great starting point.

3. I've been doing weekly social skills groups with the autism teacher at my school. We have been using Cariboo as our "game" because it's adaptable for different levels. The main focus has been getting the kids to request their turn, wait for their turn, and pass the box onto the next person. If they're higher functioning, I can have them request the door they'd like to open. Unfortunately, they don't make this game anymore, but sometimes you can find it in local thrift stores!

4. Polar Bear Pragmatics: This is an activity I created and it's perfect for the winter months because it features adorable polar bears! It focuses on topic initiation, topic maintenance, appropriate responses, emotions, and tone of voice.

5. Talking Stick: At the beginning of the year, I had a pretty chatty group who would all talk over one another. My solution? I made a talking stick. I had a cardboard roll from something (you could use a paper towel roll) and covered it with washi tape. I used it with this group with the stipulation that only the student with the stick could talk while others had to be listening. Worked like a charm! I don't have a picture of it because it's at work.

There ya have it!

{Review} Social Thinking: Whole Body Listening

Graphics: Creative Clips

Disclaimer: Affiliate links are included for your convenience. 

One part of the Social Thinking Curriculum that I've really been focusing on is Whole Body Listening. It's described in Thinking About You, Thinking About Me and some other products as well. What is it?

Basically, what it sounds like. Listening requires us to use our WHOLE body, not just our ears. How frequently do we say "look at me?" I know I'm guilty of that! Just knowing that the person is looking at you though isn't enough! We have to use our eyes, ears, mouth, hands, feet, body, brain, and heart to listen. Whoa! This is a lot to take in for some of my kids, so I decided to break it down. On the Social Thinking website, there are a lot of resources, including the printable one below (click on the picture to check it out - it's about halfway down the page). 

Most of my students LOVE to color, so this was perfect. We talked about the various parts of our body that we use to listen. I cut up the parts and we did a matching activity and talked about each part. I wrote down each part does and we matched them before coloring in the different parts. You could easily do this with index cards - I just grabbed and used what I had on hand. 

So now, I feel like I could say use a cue like "eyes" or "brain" if I notice a student who's not listening. After doing this activity, I feel that will help my students think about themselves and think about others. Do you teach Whole Body Listening to your students? How?