With 2 weeks left of summer vacation, I am FINALLY getting organized to start the new school year.
I decided to start targeting more life skills in therapy this year by incorporating daily weather, seasons, days of the week and all that good stuff!
Check out interactive, differentiated Four Seasons Activity HERE on Teachers Pay Teachers!
It includes headers of the Four seasons for bulletin boards or centers, vocabulary card sort for each season (with and without pictures) and describing sheets for each season. You can use the picture cards to compare/contrast seasons, expand expressive language, etc.
As a thank you for following me, and a back to school gift, I am offering it for FREE for 48 hours, until 8/26 at 10 am est!
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Let's get REAL about literacy. I see WAY too many kiddos who cannot read. And by that I don't mean 5 year olds. I have SO MANY students in 3rd-5th grade who struggle with Fountas and Pinnell level D books. This is a problem.
I'm not labeled a "reading specialist" but as a SLP I know the underpinnings of language acquisition and reading skills. I believe that between phonemic awareness skills, phonics work and sight word memorization, we can get our students to READ!
I've dabbled in sight word instruction in my speech room before. But I wanted a leveled, measurable way to target sight words from beginning to end. With that comes my latest labor of love. I'm ready to share it with you! Find it HERE on Teachers Pay Teachers.
Here is a bundle of 37 weeks of leveled sight word activities. Each week targets 6 words through 4 interactive activities from Pre-Primer to Grade 3. Each activity is designed to use multi-sensory techniques to get students to memorize sight words through repetition of tracing, writing, identifying, reading and sentence construction. You can use this tool for ELA, classroom centers, Response to Intervention or Speech/Language therapy.
I have included Dolch sight word lists for each level, an anchor chart, evaluation forms for each student and binder spines.
For anyone who only needs 1 level, I have posted each separately on TpT. Click on the level you need below.
Pre-Primer
Primer
Grade 1
Grade 2
Grade 3
Feel free to post a comment or any questions you have!
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Check out this comprehensive book companion to be used with the book "The Day the Crayons Quit" by Drew Daywalt. If you don't know this book, it is an adorable book for elementary students. Each crayon writes a persuasive letter to its owner, convincing him to change the way it is used. It's a really cute, fun way to work on Author's Purpose, as well as many other literacy precursors.
Find it HERE on tPt.
The download is 37 pages and includes:
-Describing/ attributes page for each crayon
-30 Comprehension/ Auditory Memory Question Cards (laminate
and shuffle)
-3 Compare and Contrast Crayon Venn Diagrams (with choices
page included as a branching strategy)
-Cause and Effect Matching and Writing Activity (includes anchor
chart)
-Author’s Purpose Anchor Chart
-Persuasive Writing rough and final draft pages
-Bulletin Board Title Templates (with and without backgrounds)
Enjoy!
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I LOVE books. I love using books in therapy. There are so many amazing children's books out there. I love watching students really engaged in a story. I love working on literacy precursors (retelling, comprehension, sequencing, cause/effect, predicting) after and while reading a story.
Enter the problem. I love books so much, I want a ton of them. But books can be expensive.
I recently moved and found that my public library has an amazing used book program called "Friends of the Library". They are constantly collecting, sorting and selling used books. They sell hard cover for $1 and paperback for $.50. You don't even need to join the library to take advantage of this. Here is my latest score for under $5!
I highly recommend calling local libraries in your area to see if they have programs like this.
Happy book hunting:)
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I'm FINALLY starting to get organized for September....aaahhhhh! This includes updating weekly themes, monthly lesson plans, pursuing the Target Dollar Spot constantly and updating some of my own materials.
Last year, I used "Reasoning with Rain", an activity to target facts versus opinions, A LOT! My kids loved the activity and really "got it" after a bit of practice. I even made a cute bulletin board from the activity when we were finished!
I strive to make the best activities I can, but the font I used on this one gave some of my kiddos extra difficulty. And let's face it, most of my students struggle enough, they don't need a silly font to hinder literacy abilities! I just updated the FREE download with a fresh, easy to read font. Grab it HERE on TPT:)
Have a great weekend!
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When I walk into classrooms, many students raise their hand in anticipation and say "Me??! Is it my turn?". I just LOVE that feeling. As much as I would like to think they want to come to speech to learn, let's be honest, students need motivation. I have created a system of rewards that keeps students on track and progressing throughout the school year. I'm ready to share it with you!
First off, I buy a notebook for every student. I keep the notebooks in my speech room and have them organized by grade. Every morning, I pull out the notebooks for the students I am seeing that day.
On the inside cover of each notebook, I tape a motivational "sticker chart".
When I pick up new students for the first time, I explain that every time they come to speech and do their work, they will get a sticker to place on the chart. When the chart is full, they will get to pick a prize from the TREASURE BOX!
I also put full sticker charts on the "Speech Hall of Fame" hung on my door! Students love finding their old completed charts.
Now that I set the hook, I explain the rules. If a student is not doing the "right thing", I will give a warning and state the behavior I expect. If I have to give three warnings, that students will not get a sticker for the day. That's it! It's all about structure. Students know exactly what is expected of them, and what they can expect from me.
I have found this system works really well. Every day I hear things like "Look I'm getting close!" and "I only need 7 more stickers to get a prize!". On the flip side, some students say "I got two warnings today, next time I will follow directions."
Dollar tree and Target Dollar spot are my go-to places to make this reward system budget-friendly. I spend $1 on each prize. I have 50-55 students on my caseload. It takes 25 speech sessions for each student to win a prize. With the majority of mandates being twice weekly, most students are choosing 2-3 prizes per school year. So for about $150 for the year, students are motivated! Priceless:)
Tell me Tuesday...what kind of reward system do you use?
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I decided to start targeting more life skills in therapy this year by incorporating daily weather, seasons, days of the week and all that good stuff! 
As a thank you for following me, and a back to school gift, I am offering it for FREE for 48 hours, until 8/26 at 10 am est!
