Speech Therapy Fun: Articulation

Showing posts with label Articulation. Show all posts

Monday, March 14, 2016

Common Objects for Uncommon Speech Therapy: Pencil 'Lead' Therapy

Speech Therapy Fun: Pencil 'Lead' Therapy

I am so excited for the first post of my new series, 'Common Objects for Uncommon Speech Therapy'! To read about this new series, click here. I hope you and your students enjoy these pencil activities as much as we did! All you need for each of these activities are pencils, picture cards or task cards and the free download provided by me!

Activity #1 - The Dot 'Pencil' Game

Ages: Any

Materials: Pencils & Picture or Task Cards

Goals Addressed: Any

Set Up: Place cards evenly spaced on a large table or the floor. Place pencils in between each card, so that they are all connected. See pictures.

How To Play: Have students take turns taking one pencil off at a time. Continue to have students take a pencil until one card is completely 'uncovered' or untouched by a pencil. The student who 'uncovers' one of the cards first has to either say that word 5 times (for articulation goals) or complete the task on the card (for language goals).

If they correctly complete their task, they get to keep the card. If not, the next student gets to try. Whoever correctly completes the task first, gets to keep the card. The students can continue taking pencils until another card is 'uncovered'.

Once all cards are uncovered and all tasks are completed, the student with the most cards wins!

Activity #2 - Spin A Pencil

Ages: Children who are able to spin the pencil correctly

Materials: Pencils & picture/task cards that have matching pairs

Goals Addressed: Any

Set Up: Place one card from each match in a large circle and place a pencil in the middle. Pass out the remaining matches to each student and have them place the cards in front of them facing up.

How To Play: Have students take turns spinning the pencil. Once the pencil stops spinning, the student has to say that word 5X or complete the task on the card that the pencil is pointing to.

If the student has the match of that card, they get to pick up the card and place it with their match. If not, it is the next student's turn. Continue to take turns spinning the pencil and completing the tasks. The student who gets all of their matches first, wins!

Activity #3 - Find The Pencils

Ages: Any

Materials: Pencils, Articulation Word List (free), Free Printable

Goals Addressed: Articulation

Set Up: Write the numbers 1-6 on the erasers of the pencils. For a group of 3 students, I had four pencils for each number. I also threw in three pencils with the number 10 to make it more difficult.

How To Play: Give each student their own copy of the Pencil Game worksheet. Place all of the pencils on the table with the erasers facing you, so that the students can't see the numbers. Have your students take turns each pulling one pencil. When the students pick a pencil, they have to say their sound/word/etc. the amount of times as stated on the pencil. Once they correctly say their words, the student gets to keep the pencil and place it on their worksheet. If that pencil number is already covered, they have to put the pencil back in the pile. Have students continue to take turns until one student fills up their entire worksheet to win the game!

Free Download

I hope you enjoyed the first post of the series Common Objects for Uncommon Speech Therapy! Just a reminder that you can also participate in this series by suggesting materials for me to use. Just leave a comment with your suggestion!

Monday, February 29, 2016

Common Objects For Uncommon Speech Therapy

Why did I want to become a speech pathologist in the first place? The answer for me was that I wanted to be able to use my creativity to help my students communicate.

Well, working in a low income district for the past few years has been a wonderful experience, but it has really challenged me to use every bit of my creativity! I don't receive any money for materials, games or fun things for my students, which I think is pretty much the story for most districts. So, due to the lack of funding for speech therapy, I am starting a new monthly series on my blog called, 'Common Objects For Uncommon Speech Therapy'!

Here's the best part of this new series...I am open to using your suggestions! Leave a comment on this post with what you want me to use to create an activity or craft idea to be used in therapy. You can suggest materials that you have in your speech room or you can just come up with some crazy suggestions...the harder the better :) If I pick your idea, I have to use the materials that you suggested.

Here are a few rules about your suggestions:

1) They have to be safe materials that can be used with kids (obviously no sharp objects, poisonous, etc.)

2) Choose anywhere between 1 and 4 materials.

3) Materials must be less than $5. I will be buying the materials, so I need to be able to afford them!

4) Each month, leave you suggestion on the new post for the next month's idea.

5) Your materials will be the main focus of the activity. However, I might also use common office supplies such as scissors, crayons, etc.

That's it! I am so excited to start this series as I think it will be challenging and exciting to see what materials I will be using! I will start the series next week with, 'Pencil Lead Therapy'!

Oh and of course, to make things just a little more fun, if I pick your materials, you will get a $10 credit to my TPT store!

Monday, February 22, 2016

It's Time To Become The Student!

Tables Turn: When Students Become The SLP

I am always trying to think of new and creative ways to keep my students engaged during articulation therapy. I just wrote a new blog post called 'Tables Turn: When Students Become The SLP' on the Speech Spotlight Blog. Personally, I had a lot of fun with this idea and I hope you will too! Check it out HERE!

What is Speech Spotlight? It is a collaborative blog of 10 different speech pathologists who share their knowledge with you!

Monday, January 18, 2016

Dollar Store Speech Ideas

I am joining in on this fun link up by Kristin from Talkin' With Twang!

Every time I go into the dollar store, not only do I always come out with so much more than I initially planned on buying, but I also come out with some great therapy ideas! As a therapist, the dollar store has become my favorite store! Currently, I am in charge of doing evaluations at work, so I only see 5 kids for actual therapy. Unfortunately, I cannot do all of these therapy activities with my students, but I can always blog about my ideas and hope that they will help inspire you!

During my previous shopping spree at the dollar store, I spent $9.54 and came out with some fun everyday and holiday crafts and activities! These first two items, I didn't purchase, but I highly recommend that these are staples in every SLP therapy room. First, I recommend the microphone which is a great way to inspire kids to speak louder, work on articulation or just to motivate them to participate. Second is foam dice. They are perfect for the little ones and I have found that even older students like them!

Now, onto the fun stuff that I purchased...

St. Patrick's Day Items Valentine's Day Items Everyday Items

For the every day items, I bought pipe cleaners, Minnie Mouse puzzles and bracelet jewels.

I am not sure how I will use the pipe cleaners yet, but I had to buy them!

The Minnie Mouse puzzle came with 4, 6-piece puzzles. In my mind, this was perfect for some category therapy! Here's how I would do it.

First, pick out 4 categories that you want your students to work on. For this example, I chose colors, food, animals and transportation as my categories. Then, I wrote the corresponding words on the back of each piece. During therapy, have your students put the puzzles back together, but with the words facing up. If you have younger students, you might have to help them put the actual puzzle together once they separate the words.

Once the puzzles are together, slide them off of the desk onto a book/box/cardboard and flip the puzzle over. It will reveal the final picture and if your students were correct!

I also bought these connecting jewels from the dollar store.

You can do so many activities with these! You can have students sort them by color, shape or both.

You can also have your students make bracelets by letting them add a link for each task they complete (saying a sound 5x, answering a question, etc.). If you have boys, have them make the bracelets for their mom, grandma or aunt. This would be a great mother's day activity!

As always, the dollar store was fun, exciting and inspiring! Thank you Kristin for this great blog link up! What are your favorite dollar store items?

Remember to subscribe to my blog to find out what I will be doing with these fun, dollar store finds!

Monday, December 14, 2015

Time to Celebrate with AMAZING GIVEAWAYS!

It's a wonderful time of the year and for me, this week is extra special. It's my one year 'blogiversary'! This time last year, I faced my ultimate fear of being judged and putting myself out there...I started this blog. If you know me personally, you know that writing has never been my strength and that I am a very shy person who doesn't like to be in the spotlight. So, starting a blog was my ultimate 'face your fears' endeavor. However, I have found that it has been nothing short of an amazing experience and I am so happy that I did it! I have met (online & in person) some amazing SLPs and bloggers, made amazing new friends, learned a lot from other bloggers, become a better SLP, reaffirmed why I love this profession and so much more!

Here are a few pictures of my year as an SLP blogger!

Our exhibit table at the ASHA 2015 conference in Denver!

My husband and I in Denver for the ASHA convention.

The amazing Swag Bag that we gave away! I wanted to keep it all!

I met these amazing SLP Bloggers & TPT sellers!

Tami from TLC Talk Shop!

SLP Bloggers who became instant real life friends! TLC Talk Shop
and Sweet Southern Speech!

Mia McDaniel from Putting Words In Your Mouth and Ashley Rossi from Sweet Southern Speech!

To celebrate and to say a big 'thank you' to all of my supporters, I am having an ULTIMATE BLOGIVERSARY GIVEAWAY! For this giveaway, over 30 AMAZING SLPs donated their phenomenal products for you to win.

Enter any or all of the prize packages below. I just ask that you look at the products before entering and make sure that they are something that you will use!