Cause and Effect Task Cards Easy Prep for Back to school

Back to school themed interactive Cause and Effect Task cards are now on TpT!  Find them HERE!

Great for Grades 1-3.  Very engaging and easy prep product!  Plus they are 33% off as a BTS school thank you until 9/9/15 at 9 pm est.

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Organizing tips for all those TpT purchases

If you're like me, you are always perusing Teachers Pay Teachers for new materials.  If you follow me on Instagram, Facebook or here then you know I make a lot of materials, too!  Click HERE for a link to my TpT store if you want to check any out.

There came a point this summer where I had piles of newly laminated materials spilling all over my house!  Don't get me wrong, I was really excited to use them all but my OCD self needed to get seriously organized.  So I did! Check out these tips to keep your materials organized.

1. Use theme-therapy.  
I love themes.  Both the kiddos and myself get excited to use holiday and seasonal materials.  I actually plan my entire year of therapy around themes! I try to find great books to go along with each theme.  (more on books later!) I pick a theme for each month and assign materials to accompany it.  I store each individual material in a large manilla envelope (from DollarTree).  I put worksheets and handouts in a large clear envelope labeled for each month.  I store all materials in BIG clear tupperware bins, separated by month.  I label everything.  Each month, I pull out the clear envelope and all the manilla envelopes of materials I have for that month.  Easy!

Here is an example of the themes I use.
September- Back to school/ Fire Safety
October- Fall/ Halloween
November- Explorers/ Thanksgiving
December- Christmas
January- Martin Luther king, Jr Day/ Groundhog Day
February- Snow/ Valentine's Day
March- Penguins/ Pirates/ St. Patrick's day
April- Spring/ Fish/ Earth Day
May- Lifecycles/ Bugs
June- Summer

2. You need binders! 

I try to always buy Avery Economy Binders at Walmart. They are under $2, have plastic binder sleeves and front pockets.  I organized all of my non-seasonal/ non-themed materials by intervention target or administrative topic.  My binders include Phonology, Articulation, Fluency, Phonemic awareness,  Social skills, apraxia, parent handouts, ASHA CEUs, CCSS, Reading Comprehension and Phonics. I put everything in sheet protectors so I can make easy copies!

3. Bins!
Homegoods, Target dollar spot and Dollar Tree are great places to score inexpensive bins.  I use large bins for special things like Sensory materials (felt food, play doh, etc).  I also use small bins for special office supplies (like the amazing chalkboard clips I found at Michaels)!  Buy some printable labels at the dollar store for an extra snazzy look!

4.  Books, books, books!
I can never have enough children's books!  I love using books in therapy.  I create many book companions to address literacy precursors.  It makes hitting those CCSS of vocabulary, sequencing, cause/effect, problem/ solutions, etc very easy!  As I mentioned, I use themes in therapy.  So, I organized all of my books by the month I will use them.  I separated the months by using paint sticks from Home Depot! Free, easy and organized!

Thanks for reading and I hope you picked up some organizational tips! Leave a comment if you'd like to get a better look at anything specific.

Happy Back to School!

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Flash Freebie!! The Four Seasons: Vocabulary, Describing and Comparing/Contrasting Activity

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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Leveled Reading Intervention: Dolch Sight Word Interactive Activities

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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It's Teachers Pay Teachers Back to School 2015 Sale Day!!

I will be stocking up my cart...stay tuned to see what I buy!

And check out my products all 28% until August 4th.

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The Day the Crayons Quit Book Companion Literacy Precursor Activities On Sale 20% off until 7/26 at 8pm est

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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Friends of the Library Programs

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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