One of the most popular activities in my speech room always surprises me.  It is a simple "feed the animals" game produced by Super Duper Inc.  The game is called Animal Buddies- Open Ended Motivational Box with Tokens . There are days when I ask my older students which game they would like to play while doing their articulation words.  I am always shocked when my fourth or fifth grade students ask for this game!  They love it!  All I do is make them say as many words as I choose (or sentences) and then they get to pick a couple of food items to feed to the animals. I recently came across a freebie by Lauren LaCour of busybeespeech.blogspot.com   called Hungry Hippos Artic .  This is a fun game that you can use as an articulation game or an open-ended motivational game.  I took all four hippos that are included in the packet and glued them onto an old tissue box.  Then, I bribed the art teacher for an exacto knife and cut out all of the mouths on the hippos.  I lamina...

My kids love to go on picnics.  In the summer, we'll pack up a basket for lunch and walk down to our favorite park.  My kids love the change of eating outside, and those regular peanut butter and jelly sandwiches just taste a little bit better.  When I saw a set of cute picnic clipart from MareeTruelove, I knew I had to get it and create something with it.  We have started working on some more WH type question with my ASD groups, and I thought this might be a perfect match.  So, I created: Going on a Picnic! A WH Question Activity     In this packet, you will get 90 different question cards.  18 cards for each of 5 question types (who, what, where, when, why).  Each card is labeled at the bottom with the type of question asked for easier organization.   There is a fun "picnic basket" mat to collect all of the different items.  Students answer a question, and if they get it correct, they can keep the picnic item card.  The student who collects all of the...

I was recently approached by Tatyana over at Smart Speech Therapy LLC to do a product swap/review.  I jumped at the chance to review her slide presentation titled, Differential Diagnosis of ADHD in Speech Language Pathology .   I have a new student this year who has probably the most significant case of ADHD that I have ever seen, but, I always wonder if something was missed.  Does he really have ADHD, or is it something else?  This packet that Tatyana has created answered a lot of my questions, and is full of great information. The Goals and Objectives of this presentation are clearly presented and definitely covered in the packet.   After the Goals and Objectives are clearly stated, Tatyana presents the following information to you: Overview of ADHD Describes core symptoms of ADHD (Inattention, Hyperactivity, and Impulsivity) ADHD Statistics-  Wow!  Did you know that as of 2007, 5.4 million children ages 4-7 years of age have ever been diagnosed with ADHD?!? Wh...

Every season, I have made an activity that focuses on third person pronouns.  First there was Winter People Sentences , then Spring People Sentences , and now I have Summer People Sentences: 3rd Person Pronouns (he, she, they). This is a simple activity that just has the students "give" an item to the boy, girl, or pair of kids.  Students place the item in a box under the character, and then create a sentence such as, "She has a flip flop" or, "He has a grill."  There are three mats that have visual sentence starters, and three mats that just have a blank space for the item card.  The blank ones are available so that students may create their own sentences without visual cues.   Example of Mats with Sentence Starter: Example of Mats without Sentence Starter:    Example of Item Cards: I have decided to try something new with my freebie, and make it available only on my Facebook page.  All you have to do to get this great free pro...

One of my favorite books to read with students is Sheep in a Jeep by Nancy Shaw.  This book is a great way to work on rhyming words.  The sentences in the story are really simple, and have mainly one syllable rhyming words.  I wanted to make a phonemic awareness book companion to use with this awesome book. Sheep in a Jeep: A Phonemic Awareness Book Companion is a 20 page packet that focuses on the phonemic awareness skills of rhyme, blending, and segmenting. The packet starts out with a rhyme awareness activity:   Next is a rhyme generation activity: The next activity focuses on sound blending (onset-rime):   Last is a segmentation activity: All of the words in these activities come right from the book.  Students are highly engaged when activities are geared toward such a fun book! You can get this packet of activities at my Teachers Pay Teachers store HERE . Hope you and your students enjoy these activities! Jen       ...

This weekend, I got to attend a music festival called Bottlerock in Napa, CA.  It was a four day concert series full of incredible bands.  It was of course beautiful weather the entire weekend, and the bands were awesome!  I really only got to see two days- that little thing called "work" kind of got in the way! While I was there listening to the music and not really being able to talk to my friends unless I was yelling, I started looking around.  What I saw kind of surprised me.  There were lots of little kids.  Then, I noticed that a majority of parents had their little ones ears covered with headphones!  I thought, WAY TO GO PARENTS!!!!  It was so loud there, and the exposure was literally hours upon hours of very loud noise.  You could hear music from the main stage probably about 1/2 mile to a mile away.  I wish I would have thought to use my decibel app on my phone to see what the reading was! Here are examples of the headphones that I saw kids wearing.  Both s...

Are you looking to take your speech therapy sessions outside? Try a scavenger hunt on your playground! During our social language group, the school social worker and I took our students out for a playground scavenger hunt and we had so much fun! First, we made a scavenger hunt schedule for each student.  They needed to find each piece of playground equipment on the playground and check it off their list. We encouraged the students to play with each other and wait for friends at the end of each piece of equipment. After the students completed the scavenger hunt, we went back inside and worked on our conversation skills.  The students asked each other, "What was your favorite piece of playground equipment?"  This is a skill we have been focusing on for months now, and the students are getting MUCH better at directing questions to each other and orienting themselves toward each other.  They are even getting better and asking and answering questions without visual supports! ...

Last week, I introduced a freebie that focused on yes/no questions.  This week, I want to introduce you to a great app, Comprehension Aphasia  from Virtual Speech Center, that also focuses on increasingly complex yes/no questions and directions.  When I was first approached about this app, I thought that I would not review it because, "I don't work with people who have aphasia."  Then, I looked at the preview information, and realized that this app will not only work for people with aphasia from a stroke or other brain injury, but it will also work for my students with receptive language difficulties and autism.  So, I downloaded the app, and WOW!  This app is jam packed with was to target both yes/ no questions and following directions. When you first open the app, you select START, and then select a student you will work with.  You then choose the goal area you would like to target.  You have many, many areas to choose from. This app includes more than 1,7...

This winter, one of the kindergarten teachers at my school showed me a fun game called Roll Say Keep.  The game focused on reading sight words.  I thought it was such a cute idea, and instantly thought I could turn it into an articulation game.  I looked on Teachers Pay Teachers to figure out who to credit for the idea for this game, but there were many, many versions out there.  If you search Roll Say Keep on TpT you can find some fabulous sight word games (maybe to share with teachers at your school). I created Roll it, Say it, Keep it: Articulation for the following sounds: F, V, S, Z, K, G, and Th. Roll it, Say it, Keep it is a simple dice game that uses a game mat and item cards.  You can laminate the game board and cards.  Cut out all cards (there are divider cards included for easier organization).  Students place a card on each spot on the mat and then roll the dice.  What ever number they roll is the number of the card that they say.  In my articulation version, I hav...

We are finally having beautiful weather here in Michigan, and it is making me feel great!  I am excited about finishing up the rest of this school year, and I am also excited about Better Speech and Hearing Month!  How about a freebie and a giveaway today? I have a freebie for answering yes/no questions.  It is a pretty simple activity that I am using with some students with ASD.  There are 24 cards and a yes/no mat to use as a visual.       You can get this FREEBIE HERE!   I also wanted to do a GIVEAWAY in honor of summer being well on its way!  I am giving away two copies of my Summer of Speech and Language Calendars .  You can enter in the Rafflecopter below.        a Rafflecopter giveaway Hope you have a great rest of your week! Jen...