What's New at Speech2u: April/May edition

Once a month, I take some time to share what I've been working on.  I completely forgot to post last month, so I'm catching you up on the last two months of products. 

Nothing Minimal about these Pairs: Fronting/Backing:
This is the third product my minimal pairs products. This one focuses on fronting/backing.  It includes 55 different minimal pair sets, sentences containing minimal pair sets, rebus stories and memory homework sheets. 

I Want My Hat Back: 
This was my first book companion.  I wrote about this book last month HERE.

Intelligibility Checklist: 
I love to use checklists during assessments.  This is a checklist I made up years ago to describe what is impacting my student's intelligibility.

Silly Name Quizzes:
I love those silly quizzes you find on Facebook (ex. What's your pirate name?)  I figured my clients would like them too.  Here is the vocalic and prevocalic /r/ version.  I'm hoping to have additional versions posted by the end of next month.

Easter Conversational Starters & WH questions:
I really like these products to check generalization for WH questions as well as a fun way to address articulation carryover during sessions.

Next month I'm thinking a lot of narratives and sequencing.  Check in often for activities, products and posts about sequencing!

Enter to win your choice of one of my new products below!

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What really happened to that rabbit?: 2 Great Books for Inferencing and Theory of Mind.

I've always loved reading.  As a child, I used to get grounded from the library.  (Probably not the most logical parenting choice, but it was the 80s.)  In junior high, I remember going up to my friend's cabin for the week.  We both packed one suitcase full of clothes and the other suitcase was full of books.  I'm not talking high quality literature.  I'm thinking it was a lot of Sweet Valley High and Fear Street books.  We each read our suitcase full of books and then switched and read the other person's books.  I'm not even sure that we went outside.

I don't have as much time for reading as I used to-and I tend to geek out on Speech Pathology books more than I should.  But I still love to pick up children's books.  I was really excited when I found the book, I want my Hat Back by Jon Klassen last fall.  Recently, I found another book, "This is Not My Hat" by Klassen.  My son, who rarely wants to read a book twice has been a little obsessed with these books too.  

Each of these books features a "surprise ending" and characters that do not act as you might expect.  They both offer opportunities to practice inferencing as the ending is not clearly spelled out.  I want my Hat Back is great for working on some Theory of Mind tasks.  

Each book his written in short clearly sentences which makes it great for working on early sentence structures and an easy book to read within a single session.  I Want My Hat book has lots of examples of question forms followed by polite acknowledgements.  This is Not My Hat uses several "Even if" statements that could be used to work on more complex sentence structures.  

I don't want to give a lot away because I think both of these books are really fun to read and experience on their own.  

I enjoyed I Want My Hat back so much that I ended up making a book companion for it.  I actually made the whole packet almost twice because I had just finished all of my directions and bonus activities and my computer timed out.  *Sigh*  I know my husband wants to help-but you know what's not particularly helpful?  Asking if I saved it.  And then talking about how you save things all the time.  Says the person who should have SAVED her document several times during the four hours she was working on it.  

I ended up with a 50 page product which is minimal color especially for end of the year budgets.  (Does anyone have an end of the year budget?)  

Have you read either of these books?  How do you use them in therapy?  Let me know by commenting below!  I love to hear other people's ideas.  If you like this post-or if you are always looking for good therapy books like I am, please consider sharing this post with others via twitter or Pinterest.  

What's in your cart: Linky party

Jenna from Speech Room News is hosting a "What's in Your Cart" linky party for the upcoming TPT sale.

 I'm always interested in seeing what other people are buying.  I usually find some pretty awesome products!

Here's my shopping strategy for this time of the year.  I'm looking for some home programming stuff-summer homework packages or calendars are awesome!  I also stock up on a few products that require more set up.  I figure these are good to pull out and prep on a rainy summer day. 

I just bundled and renamed my Roll-a-sound products.  I found a set of 50 blank dice on Amazon for pretty cheap.  So I made up 16 mm dice template for sticker paper.    

Then I added the stickers to the dice and printed off the game boards.  

My plan is to prep these this summer so that I have a bunch of games to use in the Fall.   My "Shake It, Roll it & Say It Artic-zee bundle is 20% off the individual price and will be another 20% off for the TPT sale.  

Now for what's in my cart:  

Articulation for Reading and Conversation from Nicole Allison of Speech Peeps.   I've got a lot of students who are at the reading level with their sounds.  I thought this would be a great quick print end of the year activity for some of my students.  

Extra licenses for Mia McDaniel's Tackling Apraxia CVCV-Early Sounds Edition:  I'm lucky enough to have a volunteer that comes out.  She helped me prep this packet so I'm getting her a license so she can have her own copy.   I saw some of my coworkers eyeing it too-so I may have to pick them up a license also!  

I'm also picking up her articulation cans expansion packet-Another great rainy day activity.  My kids have loved the first version so I'm excited to add to the collection!

I've been looking for some new conversation resources for some of these kids.  Conversational Topics & Turn-Taking from Looks-Like-Language sounds intriguing.  Plus, I'm always excited to see new seller's products!

 That's what's in my cart now-I'm sure I will add to it before the sale is over.  How about you?  What are you picking up?  

Head over to The Speech Room News to see what some of my other SLP blogger friends are picking up.  If you don't have a blog, you can link up a list on Facebook. 

Take the TPT Plunge-linky party.

Felice at the Dabbling Speechie is hosting a take the TPT plunge linky party.  It's a post to encourage people who may have picked up a lot of freebies on Teachers Pay Teachers or Teacher's notebook to take the plunge by purchasing a full product.

I started looking at TPT when I was doing virtual therapy-it was so easy to go and pick up some materials to use for my sessions.  I'll admit that it took me a little while to actually purchase a product.  But once I did, I was hooked.  I purchased my first product in April 2012.  Since then, I've purchased 118 more products.

Here's how the linky works.  Each blogger is going to write about 2 products that they've purchased that they use frequently.  Then they will also post about one of their best sellers.  This way, you get a lot of recommendations for tried and true products.

Two of my favorite purchases:

1.   WH Questions with visual choices by Teach Speech 365.  I love this product for introducing WH questions.  I use it with a lot of my clients that benefit from visuals.  I know that some of my colleagues have seen this and ended up purchasing their own copies.

2.  Match It Quick-Vocalic /r/ from PSST!  Let's Talk.  This is a fun activity to pull out and get a lot of practice on vocalic /r/.  Each card contains pictures of vocalic /r/.  You pick another card and have to find the one picture that matches.  There is a fair amount of prep if you want to cut out the circles but it's worth it.  Very fun and motivating for my clients.  

And now for one of my best sellers:  

Don't be a Zombie: Pragmatic/Nonverbal Language:  60 pages of pragmatic language practice.  

Have you already taken the plunge?  Head on over to the Dabbling Speechie to link up.  I'd love to hear about your favorite products below.

What's new at Speech2U: March Edition

Once a month, I take a few moments to share what new products I've been working on.  Things continue to be hectic around here on the work front but I've been slowly plugging away at a new Interactive Flashcard product for Multiple Meaning Words.

These products are some of my favorites.  I'm trying to help children on my caseload learn abstract concepts by providing concrete visuals and systematic practice.  These can work with students in early elementary as well as older learners with cognitive disabilities or those on the autism spectrum.

One of the things that I struggle with when first starting to work on the idea of multiple meaning words is that many of my kids don't read.  But I also find that these same learners tend to think of language in more black and white terms and have difficulty understanding that words that sound the same could mean different things.

This product includes 120 homophones/homographs with teaching slides, word maps, sentence completion tasks, child friendly definitions AND homework pages.

I worked hard to maximize page space which means less cutting and prep time too!   

That was all I got accomplished last month.  But I'm excited to be a part of Playing with Words:365 fundraiser for juvenile arthritis.  Katie is offering 2 bundles from your favorite TPT sellers for only 20.00 a piece.  And the money goes to a great cause.

I'm giving away one copy of Interactive Flashcards: Multiple Meaning Words.  You can enter below to win your copy!

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Sunday Scrambling: St. Patrick's Day Activities and a FREEBIE!

Anybody ever had vertigo after a cruise?  It's a really weird feeling.  Too bad I can't do all of my therapy laying on my side-or can I?

I spent some time this Sunday organizing my activities for this week:

1.  Shamrock Shakes: 

Mmmmm.....I used to love getting a Shamrock shake from McDonalds.  This I'm going to try making "Shamrock shakes" with some of my older clients.  I love Kale shakes and think that I can probably convince some of my clients that the kale leaves are from Shamrocks.  We will work on sequencing, vocabulary and verb tense forms.  Plus it's a great way for me to use that extra blender my husband thought I wanted one year.

2.  Rainbow Gold Toss:  
I used a similar game with plastic spiders and a spider web rug this fall.  I love quick and easy games that are also motivating.  I picked up the rug at Target's dollar spot and borrowed the gold from my son's secret stash of gold things.  (gold coins, fools gold from colorado, gold pirate earring and some costume jewelry he pilfered from my room all stored in a pirate box-I kind of love that he's already categorizing things.)

I'll let them come up with their own rules OR we will just try to throw the gold into the bucket of the rug.

3.  St. Patrick's Day Conversations and the Blarney Stone:
I'm going to try to find a rock to paint green from under the massive amounts of snow in our yard.  It's finally starting to thaw out.  It's been SO cold that we actually found a giant icicle in my attic this week.  I hadn't heard the legend of the Blarney Stone before.  Apparently whoever kisses it with be gifted with eloquence and persuasiveness.  Pretty much my whole caseload could benefit from that-including me!  Not sure that I will be able to motivate any middle schoolers to kiss it but maybe we can change it to whoever holds it in the speech room is given the gift of gab.

5.  Shamrock Freebies!

I feel so lucky to have the opportunity to make these products and am so grateful for all of the great feedback I've gotten lately at my Teachers Pay Teachers and Teachers Notebook stores.  As a super big Thank you, I made a double Shamrock Freebie for my blog readers: 

You can get it by clicking HERE!

Do you celebrate St. Patrick's Day in your Speech room?  Let me know what you are doing by commenting below.  If you like any of these ideas, please consider taking a minute to pin this post by clicking on the Pinterest button below.  

Happy Birthday to me and What's in my cart

I had a pretty good birthday over the weekend. I'm getting to be the age where I need to use the Super Duper Age calculator to figure out how old I am. I actually did use it awhile ago to figure out how long I've been practicing. My husband did not get me a dehumidifier and a car vacuum from Walgreens like he did a few years ago. I'm going to be honest here-I may not have used Michelle Garcia Winner's social fake that year. I may have been a little more up front with my feelings.

Just for fun, I'm going to tell you about the Target cheesecake.  About 5 years ago, my husband bought some cheesecake from Target-I think it was the Market pantry kind.  It was pretty bad.  But I used my good social skills and just pretended like it was fine.  Then he got it the next year.  I ate a little bit and then said, "You know, I really don't like this cheesecake.  It tastes kind of funny."  He got it the following year again.  Having told him the year before, I felt like I had the right to have a big reaction to a small problem.  So I didn't eat a bite of it, told him I didn't like it and threw it in the garbage.  On my 40th birthday, he got it again!!!  What?  I was so upset.  He said he didn't remember that I didn't like it and that he was really busy and didn't have time to go anywhere else.  I asked him why he didn't get a cheesecake factory one and he said, "Well that one cost a lot more."  We had a lot of discussions about cheesecake and big birthdays and expectations.  I'm pretty sure I was at a 5 for part of that discussion.  The reason I bring it up is that this year, my husband went to a local bakery to pick up a cake.  They were out, so he picked up cupcakes.  These cupcakes are delicious.  But he woke up on my birthday morning and was so concerned that cupcakes wasn't going to be right that he went to another bakery and still couldn't get a cake.  So that's how I ended up with 6 cupcakes, a chocolate raspberry tart, and 6 pieces of chocolate for my birthday.

This post isn't about birthdays but it is about a big milestone.  Teacher's Pay Teachers is having a 3 million teacher sale 2/27 to 2/28.  These sales are great because not only are the individual stores on sale, but they also offer an extra 10% off your purchase.  It's a great time to stock up on products to get you through the rest of the year.

Jenna from Speech Room News is hosting another "What's in Your Cart" link party.  This is a chance for us to share some items we are thinking of purchasing.

First off, here are a few new products that I have that you may want to check out:

Minimal Pairs: /S/ blends and Final Consonant Deletion are my two newest products.
Each one contains more than 50 sets of minimal pairs as well as rebus stories, minimal pair memory homework, 15 activities for each targeted sound, and minimal pairs sentences.  I'm really excited to have something so comprehensive to work with some of my clients!

St. Patrick's Day Conversation Starters and WH Questions is my newest addition to my progressive wh question/conversation starter packet.  These are really fun to use for articulation carryover or as a quick language activity.

You can also save money by purchasing the bundle.  This bundle is progressive which means the price increases as I add more products.  But if you buy now you will get any future additions for free PLUS you save 20% off purchasing each one individually.

Finally, this is still one of my favorites from last year:  It's the SPEECHIE awards.  This is great product to use during awards shows or at the end of the year as a wrap up activity.

This activity focuses on categorization, comparing and contrasting, multiple meanings and synonyms.   One of my favorite activities is the Synonym Movies.  Can the student figure out the movie.  Here's an example.  What movie is Frozen Water Era?  Comment below and I will pick a winner when I get back from vacation. (leaving on Wednesday-I can't wait!!!)

You can also save money by purchasing the bundle.  This bundle is progressive which means the price increases as I add more products.  But if you buy now you will get any future additions for free PLUS you save 20% off purchasing each one individually.

I've been adding products to my cart since the last sale.  Here is what I've been looking at purchasing during the next sale:

Tackling Apraxia by Mia McDaniel:  These look great for motivating a particularly tricky client of mine.

Zap!  Irregular Verbs by The Speech Bubble looks like a great way to drill some of my students who are tired of the same old syntax cards.

Inferencing Detectives by Miss Speechie  I'm always looking for new products targeting inferencing.

I've picked quite a few little ones, so I thought I would check out this double bundle from Super Power Speech:

Another one that looked great for the younger set is Snappy Snapshots by Carrie Manchester. 

Finally I am really interested in this Youtube companion packet from Jenna Rayburn.  I love that it uses QR codes to link to the videos-that makes it so easy:

I'd love to hear what's in you cart.  Head on over to the new Speech Room New's site to link up or find out what everyone else is purchasing.

Social Skills Materials: {linky party}

The super talented Jenna over at Speech Room News is hosting another Love it and list it linky party.   This month's theme is Social Skills Therapy Materials.

I've been working with students and clients with autism for 17 years now.  I love working with this population and have accumulated an entire bookshelf filled with social skill materials and books.  Did I hear someone say hoooooooooooooooarder?  

THE BOOK:
For therapy, one of my favorite books is We can make it Better by Elizabeth M. Delsandro.

This book contains a variety of short stories where one of the characters exhibits some unexpected behaviors.  You work through the story, having your student or client identify unexpected behaviors and then explain how each participant is thinking and feeling.  When you get to the end of the story there is a natural consequence.  For example, if you laugh at your friend, refuse to help them, and play by yourself-they are probably going to go home.  But here's the best part:  They give you an alternate ending.  So once you've gone through the story-you go back and correct the mistakes.  Then the story ends with a more positive ending.  If you work with children with Autism or social thinking challenges-you need to get this book!!!!

THE KIT:
Most of the materials in this kit are designed to complement Michelle Garcia Winner's Social
Thinking® Curriculum.  To learn more about the Social Thinking® and the vocabulary listed below please refer to her website: www.socialthinking.com.

To organize my cabinet, I started by getting all of the same type of storage boxes so that they stacked easily.  I typed out the materials in the kit, labeled it Social Skills and then used contact paper to secure the sheet to my container.  These are the materials in my Social Skills Box:

1.  Balanced Weight Scale from Learning Resources.  To work on conversational turn taking and balanced conversations. 
2.  Jello Brain Mold I purchased from Target after Halloween to work on Flexible Thinking©  and also the ideas of different kinds of Social Smarts©. 
3.  A Rock and a Flexible Brain© purchased from Social Thinking®.
4.  Mini Magnifying glasses purchased at a party goods store to focus on looking for social clues or being a Social Detective. 
5.  Giant Body parts purchased at the dollar store to focus on Whole Body Listening concepts and Thinking with your eyes©.
6.  Magnetic Poetry Emotion Faces.  I like these because it breaks it down to what are the eyes feeling/what is the mouth feeling.
7.  Shoe NotePads to go with Jenna Rayburn's In your Shoes Pragmatic Download as well as other perspective taking in your shoes activities.
8.  Chalkboard paper thought bubbles I purchased at Michaels.  

THE APPS:
I really like Hamaguchi App's Between the Lines series for working on tone of voice, sarcasm, perspective taking and idioms/slang.  The Hamaguchi apps are the best for allowing you to customize to fit your students.

The Social Express is another great app that really targets social skills aligned with Michelle Garcia Winner's Social Thinking® curriculum.  It is expensive but they do put this app on sale.

THE BLOGS:
Blogs are some of the best places to find great, practical ideas for use in therapy.  I am in awe of each of these bloggers.  I know this totally dorky-they are like blogger celebrities.  The information they have provided has changed my therapy for the better.  If I met them in real life, I would probably faint.  

Jill Kuzma's SLP Social and Emotional Skill Sharing Site:  Hands down the best social skills blog out there.  This is the first speech therapy blog that I started to follow.  There are tons of free resources, handouts and visuals to use when planning your social skills therapy sessions.  I'm fairly certain I have downloaded and laminated everything from her site.  Check out her Social filter download, her IEP goal ideas and her information on Perspective taking skills.

Autism Teaching Strategies:  This site is written from a mental health perspective.  It includes a ton of freebies as well as products for purchase.  The ideas and activities are motivating to children.  He is a coauthor of RYUU which is a creative and awesome social skills program which uses dragons and trading cars similar to Pokeman to engage students in conversations regarding social skills.  Check out the Green zone for conversation and his newest published product: The Conversation Train.

Autism Games: and Autism Games blog   These sites are no longer being updated.  But it is worth some serious blog stalking if you work with children who have difficulty engaging at all with you.  There are so many games and ideas to build interactive skills.  Plus she has a ton of videos for you to observe her therapy techniques.  These have a heavy RDI focus so it is probably not information you learned in school.   I highly recommend you take time to read it.  The information is FANTASTIC!  Check out the videos,  the parent tips and the why games are important in therapy.

TPT PRODUCTS: Shameless self promotion:
I have a couple of Social skills products-including a new one that is 50% off through tomorrow.

Visual Scavenger Hunts focuses on facial referencing, joint attention and following eye gaze.  It's 50% off until tomorrow night!

Don't be a Zombie Nonverbal Language focuses on Tone of Voice, gestures, personal space and personal hygiene.  

STAND up for good problem solving skills focuses on teaching the STAND model for problem solving and includes a variety of scenarios for practicing skills.  

Stoplight emotions focuses on teaching students how to recognize emotions and understand that there are big and smaller emotions.  Plus the illustrations were all done by my awesome husband.

Flip Flap Knock Knock Jokes focuses on teaching humor to children-progressing from visuals to auditory information only.  

Okay, I could probably geek out on this subject all night.  Thank you to Jenna (another blogger who I would probably die if I met in person because of her incredible awesomeness) for hosting another link party.  Do you have great resources for social skills?  Head over to her site and link up your blog of your Facebook page!