If I had a Speech Room . . .

I don't have a speech room. I have had many speech rooms in the past, but don't need one now. I have a desk, a filing cabinet, and eight wonderful colleagues who share my space. 

However, if I had a speech room . . . . 

• I would search the web for decorating and organization ideas. Pinterest and blogs are the best! Check out my previous posts Arranging Your Speech Therapy Space and Back to School for a lot of links. 

• I would keep it simple, free from clutter and visual distractions. So many of our student's behavior and learning is improved when visual distractions are decreased. Allie's room at 5678 Communicate is my favorite room yet! Go to her blog to see several posts with pictures of her attractive, but clutter free room.  

• I would cover my desk.  For of my 30+ years of teaching, my desks were old and well used.  
  

  You don't need to spend a lot of money to revitalize your old and rusty desk. Just cover it with contact paper, wrapping paper, fabric, bulletin board paper, or maybe paint. Click on the blogs below to see many creative ways to brighten your desk.  
                      

SIMPLY 2ND RESOURCES 

Fun in First

The Ramblings of a 5th Grade Teacher

The Lemonade Stand

Erica's Ed Ventures

Everybody is a Genius

• 
  

  I would use free items found at Teachers pay Teachers for bulletin boards and other room decor. Here are just a few. 

"SPEECH" door decoration

Inspirational Speech Language Therapy Room Quote Posters - Freebie

Speech Therapy Binder Covers 2014-2015: FREEBIE

Speech Room Style (FREEBIE!) Bulletin Board Lettering & Cut Outs

Speech Room Signs

156 Classroom Labels - Multi-Colored Polka Dots on Turquoise Themed

Classroom Door Decor - Back to School

Diana

© 2014

"clipart clip art." clipart. Web. 10 Aug. 2014. 

Tuesday's Treasure Box: Another Wonderful Book by Pat Mervine

There are not many books written about children with speech and language disabilities; however, Pat Mervine just published her second book related to speech and language.

The Mouth with a mind of Its Own is a wonderful book about a child (Matthew) who struggles to be understood. Pat illustrates the child's thoughts and feelings when his speech is unintelligible. Matthew is introduced to a speech-language pathologist and the process of speech therapy. 

This would be the perfect book to introduce speech therapy to new students as well as when discussing goals with current students. Parents, siblings, and teachers of students with unintelligible speech would also benefit from reading this book. 

Congratulations and thank you, Pat!

AND, if you haven't seen Pat's first book, How Katie Got a Voice (and a Cool NewNickname), it's a must read!

Diana

© 2014

Summer Speech and Language Activities

I've been away for about four weeks and just realized that many of you reading this blog will be ending the school year soon! 

I updated my website Six Weeks of Summer Interactive Speech and Language Practice Activities. This website was designed to pass on to parents as a resource for summer speech and language activities. This list contains daily interactive computer activities, printable resources, links to reading lists, activity calenders, and tips for parents. Some FREE apps are also included on the site. You can access it here or at the tab at the top of my blog. 

I hope that this site saves you some time and makes those last few weeks of school a little less stressful.

Diana

© 2014

Tuesday's Treasure Box: A Bargain for a Very Good Cause!

It's spring break and I had not planned to post this week; however, I just saw Katie Yeh's Cure for JA SLP Bundles at Playing With Words 365.  

Each bundle of 26 SLP TpT downloads is only $20 and that $20 will go to the Arthritis Foundation.  Kudos to all of those SLPs who donated their wonderful creations! 

Check out these great bargains at Katie's site now! 

Diana

  © 2014

Tuesday's Treasure Box: If you like Pete the Cat . . .

An Amazon Affiliate Link

If you like Pete the Cat, Kizclub.com has story props for Pete the Cat: I Love My White Shoes and Pete the Cat: Rocking in My School Shoes. 

To learn more about Kizclub's amazing resources that can be easily used for speech and language therapy, check out my post Have you visited KIZCLUB?

Diana

© 2014

Tuesday's Treasure Box - Educational Apps for Kids - Free and Discounted

 My PlayHome Stores 
FREE Today

Smart Apps for Kids just posted 101 FREE and Discounted Apps. This is a blog I follow daily as they post many apps relevant to our profession.  There will be a lot of great discounts in April - Autism Awareness Month so sign up for their FREE APP ALERT. 

Diana

© 2014

ABCYa.com - A Wonderful Therapy Resource!

Make An Easter Egg allows children to decorate and hide eggs. Choose an egg, decorate it with paint, stickers, and/or letters. Put a toy in the egg and hide and find your eggs. Good activity for follow directions, using descriptive words, answering WH questions, and using words that tell location. Use two laptops to make a very motivating barrier game!

Visit ABCYa.com to find a nice variety of open ended activities that can be used in speech and language therapy. 

Build A House allows you to structure therapy for almost any lesson.
Students choose house parts, trees, and other outdoor items.
Work on articulation, plurals, and where questions and location words.
Ask why questions, increase utterance length and follow directions. 

Find stories at for children in kindergarten to 5th grade.

Build a house. 

Make a pumpkin, a snowman, a gingerbread house, a pizza and a cake. 

Create a car and a robot. 

Students can create their own word clouds, crossword puzzles, and word searches. 

Find many activities for phonemic awareness. 

Numerous counting and math activities are a great way to practice target sounds. 

Skills for students in upper grades include subject verb agreement,
parts of speech, antonyms, synonyms and homonyms.
These students could create a crossword puzzle with vocabulary words
or create a word search of target words for articulation practice. 

Have you used this site for speech and language therapy? If so, comment below to share your ideas. 

Diana

© 2014

Tuesday's Treasure Box: Word Clouds for Your Therapy Sessions

As I was playing with my new app, Word Clouds by ABCYa.com, I thought of all of the ways that you could use word clouds in therapy - story vocabulary, classification, describing, articulation practice . . . 

Word Clouds was the only FREE app of its kind that I could find in iTunes. However, it is free for only a LIMITED TIME!

Not to worry though, I just tried Tagxedo, Wordle, and Word Clouds for Kids; all websites that allow you to make FREE word clouds on your computer. I liked Tagxedo as it allowed for the most customization. Word Clouds for Kids was the easiest to use and Wordle fell between the two, with some customization. These sites would be perfect to project on your whiteboard for group work or to use as independent centers. 

Other SLPs have been using these word cloud websites for quite some time. Check out the blog posts below to see their great ideas!

• See how Abby at Schoolhouse Talks uses Word Cloud at ABCYa's website for articulation and language activities in her post Word Cloud Creations.  

• Maureen, at The Speech Bubble, shows us how to use Tagxedo in Using Word Clouds for Describing: Tagxedo Tutorial. 

• Visit LiveSpeakLove where Lisa Geary writes about four websites that she has used to make word clouds in her post Fun with Word Clouds. 

Enjoy!

Diana

© 2014

Spring into Speech and Language with 25+ Free Resources

It was officially spring just a few days ago and the weather couldn't be nicer in my neck of the woods! Here are some FREE spring activities to start out the season. 

Speech Time Fun has FREE Spring Association Activities.  

Find Spring Mini Books at Carl's Corner.

Spring Prepositions And Vocabulary- Dora The Explorer, from Speech Language Play, will be a favorite for the younger set. 

Find a variety of spring ideas at Speech Gadget.


At 2 Gals Talk . . . about speech, spring activities take place outside. 

There are some excellent suggestions for parents and SLPs at Speech and Language Kids. Listen to the podcast and/or her read her Spring Speech Therapy Activities Notes to learn how this SLP incorporates following directions, multisyllabic word practice, sequencing, and vocabulary skills into her spring lessons. 

Not just eggs at Spring Egg-stravaganza! Lisa, at LiveSpeakLove, features a Spring Bingo, a spring pragmatic activity, and /s/ stimulus cards. You can download visuals for making a bunny, a cute chick, a flower garden and more. 

Download FREE Spring and Easter Bingo boards at Heather Speech Therapy.

Some of my past spring related posts include:

Forty Fabulous Flower Activities for Speech and Language  

A Dozen Ways to Talk About Rain in Speech and Language Therapy

  

Eggs and Birds for Speech and Language - Free Downloads and More

  

More Eggs and Birds - Links and Apps

  

Bugs - Just Crawling with Ideas!   

Try out Cindy Meester's unique Bobbing our way into Spring!!! 

Find adapted books and more in Ruth Morgan's Springtime Collection at Chapel Hill Snippets.

The Spring Vocabulary List: Speech and Language Activities at Sam's Blog is perfect for parents. 

Sesame Street has activities for every season. Introduce your vocabulary or concept by showing and talking about one of the many video clips found at this site.  Use the ready-made playlists or search for "spring" to see more than 40 video clips, songs, and games for the season. Click here to see an example of a video that might be a wonderful introduction to a lesson about plants and seeds. 

As always, I like the Preschool and Toddler Activity Calendars at Preschool Express. These are such practical resources for parents. AND, look at the Spring Story Skills at Story Station. These suggestions for parents are also good therapy ideas. 

Check out these links at Scholastic and Reading Rockets for some great spring read-alouds.

KizClub has ready-to-print story props for over 75 popular children's literature selections. Spring titles include books such as Quick as a Cricket, Rain, The Very Hungry Caterpillar, Skip through the Seasons, Whose Baby Am I?, and Spring is Here. 

Find many, many teacher/student made spring books with beautiful photos at Tar Heel Reader. 

Don't forget to search for your spring themed books at WeGiveBooks.org. I found many books about butterflies, flowers, and bugs. 

Printable spring ready-mades at Speaking of Speech.com and SET-BC will save you so much time!

At last check, Teachers Pay Teachers had more than 100 FREE spring activities under the speech therapy specialty. I searched for "spring," but search specifically for your spring theme and I am sure that you will find even more!

An Amazon Affiliate Link

Make Learning Fun has activities to use with the book Wake Up, It's Spring! by Lisa Campbell Ernst and the Spring Emergent Reader is a good repetitive book for early language learners. 

And last, but not least, the clip art in this post came from MyCuteGraphics where you will find FREE clip art for printing, scrap-booking, teacher created lessons, craft projects, your blog and more!

Diana

© 2014

Clip art from MyCuteGraphics 

Free App February: More Tools for Therapy

Check out these great tools for therapy!

 GuidedVideo is regularly $29.99 and as of today is still free. Get it quickly! This extremely useful tool could be used to reinforce a variety of speech and language skills. The description at the iTunes site may leave you wondering, but check out video at the website GuidedVideo.com and you will definitely want this app.


Quizlet allows you to create flashcard sets for your students that are not just flashcards. I find making the flashcards on the Quizlet website is easier and you have more options. Pictures and voice can be added. Log into your Quizlet account on your iPad to see the flashcard sets that you made on the website. Games provide fun reinforcement for students to practice vocabulary and a variety of skills. AND there are many flashcards/activities made and shared by SLPs - search "speech therapy." 

Educreations was my favorite find in 2013. Check out my earlier post to see how it can be used in speech and language therapy. 

  

Haiku Deck Create stories with photographs for your little ones or let older students easily create their own stories using their own photos. Create and talk about "how to guides," make articulation decks (or ask your students to make them) or use these easy to make presentations to teach new vocabulary. 

Bitsboard is a customizable app for teachers to create flashcards and more with images and audio. The free Bitsboard app comes with 3 FREE games - Flashcards, Explore, and Photo Touch. Other games can be purchased for $.99 each or all for $2.99.  However, the free version has so much to offer and is ideal for language learning. Use the many photographs to create your own activities or choose one of the ready-made activities in the "Shared" catalog. 

Create comics with Story Me. Turn your photos into cartoons and add speech bubbles or captions. Students can create comics of themselves, story characters and more. This app is perfect for all kinds of vocabulary activities. Take pictures of students performing actions and put the verb in the speech bubble. When teaching synonyms, take one picture and write a synonyms in each several speech bubbles. Just think of all the options!!

Diana

© 2014

Free App February: Use Cats, Dogs, and Other Pets to Elicit Speech and Language

The children we work with love animals of any kind. Try using these "animal apps" to elicit speech and language. 

Use Cat Effects to stamp pictures of cats on any photograph. Create stories, answer where questions, and learn prepositions. 

Glad that Sago Mini Pet Cafe is still free - A great app for your young students. Talk about foods, describe using colors, and tell likes and dislikes. 

Baby Animals Lite by Playrific gives you videos, photos, books, songs, and interactive activities to elicit speech and language for so many activities.

Lil'Kitten Shopping Cart Game  Show understanding of food groups and the concepts more, less, and equals as you shop with Lil' Kitten. Students could discuss best prices, location of foods, and more. A good way to measure carry-over of language skills and phonemes in spontaneous speech. 

 Laugh and Learn™ Animal Sounds for Baby and Laugh and Learn™ Where's Puppy's Nose? are made by Fisher-Price for very young children. Work on cause and effect, joint attention, body parts and animal names and sounds

I have written about TinyTap in a previous post. With TinyTap, Make Games and Learn create your own activities or use any of the over 50 free pre-made animal activities at Tiny Tap's Market Place. 

Diana

© 2014

Free App February: ChatterPix Kids

ChatterPix Kids, by Duck Duck Moose, is in a class by itself. Take photos of your favorite stuffed animals, toys, friends, pets, or any object. Add a line for a mouth and record your message. 

Perfect for auditory bombardment - take pictures of 10 or more toys and record appropriate words. 

Have pictures set up and ready to record. Let students in centers practice target phonemes while independently recording. 

Enjoy!

Diana

© 2014

Free App February: Cars and Trucks

Playrific apps, Cars Lite and Firefighters, Fire Trucks, and Fire Safety Lite contain games and videos, originally found on the web, but grouped together for your students on the iPad. 

Use Cars in Sandbox: LITE to teach concepts such as forward, backward, go stop, pick up, in, and out.

Sort it Out 1 - Sort vehicles that go move in the sky, on the road, or on water. 

Toca Cars has only been free for a few weeks so grab it quickly. This app allows for much creativity and many opportunities for expressive language. 

Planet Go - Label and describe the vehicles seen on the free flashcard set.

A Funny Car Wash Game for Kids  - Wash, wax, and dry two free cars. Practice verb tense and using describing words such as shiny, dirty, clean, wet, and dry. 

Road Vehicles - Move vehicles to appropriate destinations.

Peekaboo Vehicles - Listen to the sound and predict the identity of the of the vehicle behind the cloud.  

Enjoy!

Diana

© 2014