Fall and Halloween - Updated and FREE

Three years of fall and Halloween posts have been updated (October 2019). 
Visit these posts for FREE downloads and links to FREE activities.

What do you want to be? 

Tuesday's Treasure Box: Halloween Apps and Apptivities

  

Halloween is Just Two Weeks Away and the Pumpkin is Stuck on the Vine: Speech and Language Activities for Big Pumpkin by EricaSilverman

Describing Pumpkins

 

Speech and Language with the Big Green Monster

  

Pumpkins and Jack-o-Lanterns, A Free Download

Describing Gourds

  Pumpkin Spatial Concepts

Who Scared the Crows? - Customize Your Story

My Fall Book - A Free Download

Pumpkin Fun!

Story Props for The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid of Anything

Laminate Your Leaves!

Fabulous Fall Links

Diana

© 2015

Some graphics from Sweet Clip Art - http://sweetclipart.com/

Fire Safety

Updated October 2018

Fire Safety week begins tomorrow and I noticed that my 2012 post, Therapy in the Classroom: Part I, was getting many hits. It's not in the title, but the language activities involve fire safety and fire trucks. Find FREE PowerPoint books, a preposition activity, and much more - all links have been updated. 

At Teachers Pay Teachers, find almost 200 FREE items with a search for "fire safety." Check out the Fire Safety Vocabulary Cards from Teaching Talking and the Fire Safety - What ifs from Elementary Matters. 

There are many FREE fire safety apps in the iTunes App Store. Sparky's Match Game is a great activity to remind children to leave the house when they hear the smoke alarm.  

Sparky's Firehouse and Operation Edith are good apps to project onto a whiteboard. To maximize student language, you control the apps and students direct the actions. 

Sparky's apps, videos, and much more can also be played on any computer! Visit Sparky.org at the National Fire Protection Association's site for kids. 

Diana

© 2015

Back to School with the Mouse

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Most of you are back in school or thinking about returning soon. I started back to work this week and am putting together some language activities for Laura Numeroff's book, If you Take a Mouse to School. Here are some links to great budget priced (FREE) activities to pair with this book. 

Your students will love this animated version of If you Take a Mouse to School on YouTube. Check out Andrew Ghio's other animated books as well. 

At Teachers Pay Teachers find FREE If You Take a Mouse to School Visuals and If You Take a Mouse to School Spatial Concept Flashcards. 

Find more visual supports at Boardmaker Online  and look at my Why Question - Companion Activity for If You Take a Mouse to the Movies. It can easily be used with If You Take a Mouse to School. 

Kristen, at Pinning With a Purpose, used this book to teach her children the setting of a story. Her activity could be adapted to use in therapy to teach setting or where questions. 

Visit Kinder Gals to see their version of If You Take a Mouse to School. They use the book to introduce their students to school personnel and locations. 

Find free word cards (with visuals), a snack idea, and mouse craft at 1st Grade hip hip Hooray.


2 Teaching Mommies offers a free printable "school supply unit." The pictures can be printed and used for numerous classroom activities. The Which is Different Activity would make a nice why/how question activity. 


There are many activity suggestions for this book to elicit oral language at Promoting Success for You and and Your Students. Here are just a few.

• Look at the illustrations of the boy and mouse getting ready for school. Ask your students to tell what they do to get ready for school each morning. 
• Create a pretend story of a stuffed animal's adventures in school. 
• Do a simple science experiment (Adapt this for therapy by taking photos of the steps and allowing students to tell the procedure using the photos for support.). 

The interactive, printable book In My Backpack can be found at 4GASLPs. Recite "Backpack, backpack, what is in the backpack?" as you pull items out of a backpack. Students can name the items and answer questions about the functions of the objects.  I created a simple PowerPoint book to go along with the activity. You can download Backpack, Backpack here. 

Take pictures of student's backpacks and lunchboxes. Students can respond to the questions, "Whose backpack is this?" or "Whose lunchbox is this?" Responses might include mine, my, pointing to self or others, or possessive nouns such Mary's backpack.  

At MouseCookieBooks.com find activities, games, songs, printables and a teaching guide with over 40 activity ideas to use with Laura Numeroff's books. 

This book and other Laura Numeroff books are easily used for discussing wants and needs.

Have fun describing school supplies.  Use magnifying glasses or a document camera to inspect a variety of school supplies.

I hope that you found this post useful. My posts will occur about once each month - minus summer break of course. However, I am always looking for freebies and new therapy ideas and will share these weekly on my Facebook Page. 

Diana

© 2015

Hop into Better Speech and Language Month with these 40+ Frog Themed Links to Activities

Frogs can live in most habitats and climates, lay hundreds of eggs, breathe through their skin, and make very long jumps. AND, frogs can be found, as the main characters, in numerous children's literature selections making them the perfect candidates for thematic lessons.  

All About Frogs

The life cycle of the frog pairs well with sequencing, retelling, verb tense, and more. Search for "frogs" at We Give Books.org to find three online books about the frogs and their life cycle. 

Both Make Learning Fun and A Child's Place have free frog life cycle sequence cards in color and black and white. Carrie Manchester, at Carrie's Speech Corner has FREE Frog Life Cycle booklets in her TpT store. Find a Frog Life Cycle Craft at DLTK's Crafts for Kids.

Mrs. T, an incredibly creative first grade teacher, created a "frog facts" book on the iPad using, her student's frog pictures,  ChatterPix Kids, and Book Creator. Check out the video at her post, Frog Facts in Story Form on the iPad. Your students will love making a similar book. ChatterPix Kids is FREE, but Book Creator is $4.99. Save the $4.99 and a little time by using only ChatterPix along with the Photos app for no cost. Just create a album in your Photos app, and show as a slide show.  

If you are reading any of Arnold Lobel's Frog and Toad books, visit The Virtual Vine for a good comparison of frogs and toads. You will learn some new facts and find many frog themed activities as well. 

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Jump, Frog, Jump

See how Speech Gadget uses Jump, Frog, Jump in therapy.

I like the Jump, Frog, Jump stick puppets and word walls at Make Learning Fun. 

Teach color matching at Learning and Teaching Preschoolers' Jump Frog Jump Color Floor Game

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There was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Frog

The Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Frog {Book Pictures and Questions} from Autism Helper's TpT store. 

There Was an Old Lady who Swallowed a Frog story props by Curly Q Speech. 

Froggy

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Froggy is everyone's favorite! Did you know that he went to Hawaii? Read the FREE online version of Froggy Goes to Hawaii at We Give Books.org. Find a good wh-question activity for this book at the Utah Education Network and a FREE comparison printable for this book at Wise Owl Factory. 

Rebecca Bond does a nice job of reading Froggy Goes to Hawaii on You Tube. This might be a great way for students to review the book at home or in a center.

There are over 20 Froggy books. Here are links to activities to use with some of these books. 

• Pizza Hut's Book It site has Read and Do Activities for eight of the Froggy books. Vocabulary words, definitions, and wh questions are presented for each book. 
• FREE printable for Froggy Builds a Tree House at The Wise Owl Factory.com
• Story props for Froggy Gets Dressed at Kizclub.com. 
• Froggy Gets Dressed Lotto. 

Five Green and Speckled Frogs

Itsy Bitsy Spider and Green Speckled Frogs, visual supports for familiar preschool songs made by SLP Overloaded.

Find very cute story props (complete with a log) and a mini-book for Five Green and Speckled Frogs at Kizclub.com.

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Another cute printable to use as story props for Five Green Speckled Frogs can be found at Activity Village.co.uk. 

Here's a Poster for Five Green and Speckled Frogs from Make Learning Fun. 

Directions at Preschool Speechie's Green Speckled Frogs suggest that wikki stix be used as tongues so that the flies will stick to the tongues.

For Articulation

Nina McKenzie, at TpT, made this FREE, 39 page, Articulation Frog Toss Game  to use with s, sh, and s-blends. 

Feed the frog as you say the words with Final Consonant Flies from Kari Radovich (Rock Chalk Speech Talk). 

This portable Frog and Friends Virtual Hangman, from Tech 'n Talk SLPs, was designed for use in group articulation therapy, but can easily be adapted to any activity in which students take turns. 

AND, MORE!!! 

Where is Little Frog? - A book for Positional Concepts from Jessica Finch (The Speech Peach).

Leaping Lily Pads for Object Function from Kari Radovich (Rock Chalk Speech Talk). 

Look at all the frog themed ideas found at The Busy Speech Path's Pinterest Board - All About Pond Life. 

Hoppin' on Multiple Meaning Words from Pitner's Potpourri.

Emergent Readers Who am I? and Five Buzzing Flies are found at MakeLearning Fun. These will match goals involving sentence length, verb tense, descriptive words, and the concept "around."

Frogs and Flies: Quantity Concepts More, Less, Altogether from Speech Sprouts' TpT store. 

Frog Hop Barrier Game from Speech Path Track.

Build a Frog and Friends - Rainy Day Rewards is a no-print interactive activity designed for use on a computer or iPad. Use with an individual or small group as reinforcement with almost any lesson.

The Lost Button Story Sequencing Cards to use with Arnold Lobel's Frog and Toad are Friends: The Lost Button. 

Word World: Frog’s Rhyming Machine at PBS. 

I saw this old fountain with traditional ceramic Andalucian
frogs (Spanish tree frogs) at the Plaza de Espana in beautiful
Vejer de la Frontera while on my extended Spring Break.

Diana

© 2015

Six Weeks of Summer - Interactive Speech and Language Practice Activities

I have just updated my page, Six Weeks of Summer - Interactive Speech and Language Practice Activities. This page includes links and free apps easily available to parents with Internet access and/or mobile technology. 

Customize summer activities for your students by choosing apps and links to add to a calender, make a hotlist, or post the links to your web page. 

Enjoy!

Diana

© 2015

What's that Smell?

This is not a typical post for the Budget SLP, but something that needs to be passed on to all educators. And, maybe not just educators . . . 

I have a chemical sensitivity usually triggered by, but not limited to, fragrances. When exposed, my eyes and nose burn and I can often taste the chemicals in the fragrance. Extended exposure causes headaches and sometimes nausea.  In my home, most detergents, cleaning products, and personal care products are fragrance free.

I work in the special education world and have been overpowered by fragrances in classrooms, conference rooms, therapy rooms, and restrooms. Culprits include cologne or perfume (worn by parents, SLPs, teachers, and administrators), air fresheners, cleaning supplies, and insecticides. 

If these fragrances cause me such physical discomfort, how do they affect our young students with allergies and asthma? What about our students with sensory issues? 

Students with autism can be hypersensitive to odors. These students may also have difficulty communicating their discomfort. Inappropriate behaviors may occur as they resist being with a person or in a place due to what is perceived as an intense smell. Undesirable smells can even cause toileting issues, difficulty eating, and nausea. 

For your students' comfort (and possibly your co-workers’), consider removing air fresheners, take home the flowery soaps and lotions, and save your perfume for date night. 

Diana

© 2015

Mothers Day, Play-doh, Oceans, Summer, Sports, Visual Supports, and Links!

I use my blog as a quick resource at work. Last week when a link to visual supports did not work, I knew that it was time to update. I thought that I would be able to do this in a day or so, but now know that it will take many days and nights. I will post as I add and correct links. 

Beginning with my first ever post in 2012 - Both links now work at Parking Lot Games. Download free Parking Lot Games for articulation and language. Make your own with my templates.

  

Shape your therapy with Play-doh - New links and activities.

Find Mother's Day ideas, Sports theme - Part 1 and Part 2, Ocean activities and more for summer.

 

Visual supports can be found at Kizclub (great story props), the Miami-Dade CountyPublic Schools prekindergarten site, and a lot of links here!

Diana

© 2015

25+ Dinosaur Themed Resources for Speech and Language Therapy

Dinosaurs is a theme in our early childhood special education curriculum and a colleague recently asked me for some speech and language therapy ideas. The dinosaur theme is one that students always enjoy and there are so many great resources for speech-language therapy on the Internet.

Pteranodon, Alamosaurus, Yangchuanosaurus, Dimetrodon, Brachiosaurus, Zhejiangopterus, Ankylosaurus, and Zigongosaurus!  Definitely a good way to practice multisyllabic words and /r/ and /s/ sounds. Check out the Field Guide at Dinosaur Train on the PBS KIDS.org website. Learn how to pronounce all of those dinosaur names and know your dinosaur facts before beginning therapy sessions.  And, while you are at the site, look at the games and videos.

Play with your dinosaurs to teach verbs – eat, drink, sleep, jump, run, hop, walk, go, sit, stop. Take pictures of your dinosaurs eating, jumping, sitting, etc. Use the photos as visual supports or create a book. A nice example is Dinosaur’s Busy Day by Gaige at Tar Heel Reader. It would be fun to make a book with your students and “their” dinosaurs.

While you are at Tar Heel Reader, look at the many dinosaur books. Use them as is or download and modify to meet your student’s needs. Dinosaurs Lived Long Ago is perfect for early childhood groups.

Don’t have dinosaurs? Print and laminate the story props for Dinosaur Roar by Paul Stickland at Kizclub.com. If you have access to this book, use it to teach describing words - meek, fierce, fast, slow, weak, strong, short, and long.

Also at Kizclub, a dinosaur book to use in therapy or send home - expand sentences, work on vocabulary, ask and answer who questions. 

At Mother Natured.com, find Printable Dinosaur Masks for Prehistoric Play.

The FREE Colorforms app has a dinosaur themed playset.

  

Would a dinosaur be a good pet? Visit 123Child.com to see this activity. Follow up by reading the story Dino Store, a free interactive story app. This could turn into a good writing activity.

Speech Days in the Pre-K made a FREE Dinosaur Language Pack containing 19 pages that target categorizing, vocabulary, regular past tense verbs, and pragmatics.

FREE dinosaur themed items found at Teachers pay Teachers include

• Dinosaur Speech Sticker Chart and Coloring Page 
• Dinosaur themed Punch Cards for homework, behavior reinforcement and
  
  rewards. 
• Dinosaur Cut and Paste Activities – These would make cute therapy props for teaching the concepts open/close and tall/short.
• Dinosaur Foldable Early Emergent Reader
• Magic Tree House Book #1 (Dinosaurs Past Dark) Comprehension Packet. Nine pages with 3-4 comprehension questions for each chapter, a review, and a response page for the book. 
• Dino Sort! - a Game of Sorting and Classifying. Teach classifying by attribute while playing this very clever math game.

A dinosaur sensory bin would be one way to teach descriptive vocabulary such as rough, smooth, bumpy, hard, and soft. Check out the sensory bins at FantasticFun and Learning.com and Happy Hooligans.ca.

Find a paleontologist emergent reader at Making Learning Fun.com

Discover fun /s/ blend actions with dinosaurs while playing along with Keri at My SpeechParty.com. This is one of my favorite dinosaur finds. You and your students can play along with Keri during this 12 minute video while practicing s-blends, working on verbs, final consonant deletion, following directions, wh questions, and much more. It’s so much easier to get data when someone else is teaching. 

More from SLPs. 

• SaturdayNight at the Dinosaur Stomp from Miss Nicole Speech. 
• The Dinosaur Stomp! at Rock Chalk Speech Talk.
• Dino-rific: Dinosaurs in Speech Therapy from Speech Room News.
• Make playdough fossils at Carrie's Speech Corner. 
• HowTo Play With Dinosaurs In Your Speech Therapy Session from The Pedi Speechie.
• Eat Like the Dinosaurs!, found at Early Intervention Speech Therapy, is a wonderful way to work on classification skills. 

Read digital books at We Give Books.org. There you will find dinosaur books appropriate for the very young to age 10.  Three of several include Skippyjon Jones and the Big Bones, DK's Let's Look: Dinosaurs and  Meet the Dinosaurs.

If you are going to talk about volcanoes, look at V is for Volcano from Preschool Alphabet. The Classic Erupting Volcano would elicit much language, but using the Mini Volcanoes (with eye droppers) would be very conducive to group work. 

Enjoy!

Diana

© 2015

Graphics from Sweet Clip Art - http://sweetclipart.com/