Therapy Planning Made Easy(er)

The daily
 schedule.

I always strive to become more efficient. One area that I always struggled in were the transitions between groups - putting away materials from the previous group while trying to pull out the needed materials for the next always wasted a minute or so of precious therapy time. This year I'm trying something a little different.

Before therapy started this year, I went to all the classrooms to take pictures of my students (for the Guess Who poster). I took these photos and spent some time putting them into cute little digital frames on my computer, printed, laminated, and stuck some magnetic tape onto them. This made them adhere to the white board.

Our materials for the day.

When I get to work in the morning, I pick out the pictures of the students I see that day and stick them onto the whiteboard in the order that I will work with each group. Next to their pictures, I will write a little note of what the general plan is that day. I then pull out all of the materials we will need that day and stick them in a little crate that I bought at Walmart for less than $2 and put it by the therapy table. That way, I can easily access all of my materials throughout the day, keeping them organized and in one place, which makes clean-up easy and fast.

I know, it seems like such a simple thing... being an SLP sure comes with a steep learning curve, doesn't it?

~Viola

Playroom Entertainment Game Review #2: Herding Cats

Herding Cats - get it here!

Note: This post contains affiliate links.

Being a cat-lover, I was excited when Playroom Entertainment sent me a copy of "Herding Cats" for review. This card game can be played with 2 to 6 players aged 6 and up.

The object of the game is to create a herd by matching three Cat cards to a same-colored Cowdog card. The player who has collected the most herds after the draw pile runs out is the winner.

To play, all of the cards are shuffled and placed on the table. Each player starts out with three cards. On their turn, a player must play a card (if they can't, they place a card onto the discard pile). At the end of their turn, players draw a card to ensure they always have at least three in their hand. If a player has a Cowdog card, it can be placed on the table. Players then try to match same colored cats to the Cowdog card until there are at least three cats, at which point the player gets to keep the pile. The player with the most cards at the end wins. There are also special cards: "Stampede" cards allow a player to search through the discard pile and remove all of the cats that can be immediately played on any Cowdogs that are currently on the table. And "Wild Cat Lady" cards substitute a cat of any color.


Example of game play.

This game is great for articulation / drill & kill therapy because gameplay is easy to learn and turns are fast. It would also be an great activity while working on the /k/ sound ("cat, "cowdog", "catch"). The cards are slightly thicker than regular playing cards, aiding in durability, and the illustrations are pretty cute. This is definitely another great addition to the games shelf at work!

~Viola

FREEBIE! 1st TPT anniversary!

Today marks my first TPT anniversary! TPT has truly changed my life, making me a better therapist, as it is unlikely that I would have put as much thought and effort into creating new therapy materials as I had without it. I love getting feedback from people who have purchased some of my products who share how my materials have helped them and their students. It truly is priceless. As a big celebration and "Thank you", I am posting a FREEBIE: WH-Questions Pizza Party!

I hope you enjoy :).

~Viola

Feeling Jittery

Available here.

Note: This post contains affiliate links.

I always feel a little nervous about the first week of Speech therapy after the summer break - lots of new students to get acclimated to, new behaviors to tackle, trying to get back into the groove, etc. I'm sure some of my students feel the same way about returning to school, so I thought the perfect way to ease back into our routine would be to read the book "First Day Jitters" by Julie Danneberg with some of my students. This is by far my favorite Back-to-School book, mainly because of the unexpected surprise ending.

The story describes the main character feeling apprehensive about her first day at her new school because she is worried the other kids won't like her. At the end, when she finally makes it into the classroom, my students were stunned to learn that the main character is the teacher! This book is great for introducing vocabulary such as "jittery", "apprehensive", "surprise ending", "unexpected". I also used it to teach the students that feeling nervous is a universal emotion, and adults may feel that way, at times, as well.

My students and I brainstormed situations that make us feel jittery, and drew pictures for these situations.


Zombie nightmares make this 1st grader feel jittery..    ...and math makes this 2nd grader feel anxious.

This was a fun and easy intro activity for the new year!

~Viola

Playroom Entertainment Games Review #1: Barnyard Buddies

Barnyard Buddies - get it here!

Note: This post contains affiliate links.

I received some generous game donations over the summer and need to catch up on writing product reviews! One publisher who contributed is Playroom Entertainment, a company that offers several preschool and family games that help develop logical and critical thinking skills.

The first game I will be reviewing is "Barnyard Buddies", a card game that capitalizes on quick cognitive skills. This game can be played with 2-8 players and is deemed appropriate for children ages 5 and up.

The game consists of 50 cards - 25 animal cards and 25 herd cards. Each animal card has a picture of one of five farm animals in a different color. The herd cards contain four of the five different animals in different colors. It is the players' job to determine which color animal is missing on a herd card -- the winner is the person who figures out the most missing animals.


Example of game play.

To play, all of the herd cards are placed upside down in the middle of the table, while the animal cards are spread face up around the herd card stack. One player turns over a herd card and everyone tries to identify the animal that is missing as well as the color. Whoever manages to find the animal first, receives the herd card as a point. In the example to the right, the face-up herd card shows a yellow horse, purple cow, green cat, and red goat. The missing animal is therefore the blue dog, since that color and animal are missing from the herd card.

A nice variation to make the game more challenging is to play it "reversed": place the animal cards in the middle and scatter the herd cards around. Players then need to find a matching herd card for each animal card.

The quality of these cards is very sturdy, which makes it a great game for little hands! I like this game because it is a great way to work on colors as well as promote logical thinking skills. You can use this game for students who are working on exclusion and turn-taking as well. It would also make a great activity for a farm theme!

Stay tuned for more great game reviews for this and other companies!

~Viola

SLP Nightmare: Scheduling

Truth.

While I generally like the first few weeks of the new school year (meeting new kids, feeling refreshed after summer, opportunities to start anew, etc.), there is one thing that is a struggle without fail every single year: Scheduling.

Trying to fit 50/+ students into your week while having to work around PE schedules, computer lab, library, OT, resource schedules, lunch, recess, AND trying to avoid pulling struggling students out of core academics is the stuff nightmares are made out of. And when you think you have successfully figured it out, you realize that somewhere there is a conflict that will make pulling the student out during that time impossible. Over the years I developed a system that makes it easier (although not simple, by any means). I figured I would write about it to help those of you who are still working on coming up with a scheduling strategy that (sort of) works.


Post-its with student names
and a poster board schedule

I start by making post-its with all of my students' names, one for each weekly session (so if a student has Speech twice a week, there will be two post-its with their name). I also color code their names based on their needs (language vs. articulation vs. social skills). I begin grouping the post-its based on which students I want to see together.

Distributing students
onto the schedule

Next, I draw a weekly schedule onto poster board, sectioning off the different time slots for Speech sessions. I then write different teachers' availability onto the sections of the poster board, so that I know which students can be pulled when. Last, I distribute the post-its onto the times that work for a student. Having the names on post-its works great, since you can easily re-arrange them if needed (and trust me, you need to). I usually try to have some flexibility on Mondays for testing, make-up sessions, consult, writing IEPs, and social groups, since we have so many Monday holidays.

I'm always glad when it's over. If you've discovered an easier way to schedule, please let me know! I still have a headache from this year's efforts!

~Viola

Back-to-School Night Activity

Guess Who - Speech Kids edition

We had our Back-To-School Night this week and I chose to participate for the first time (I was unable to do this in the past because I couldn't accommodate more than three adults in my Speech room). I had a great time meeting parents old and new, and wanted to share a fun activity that I had prepared for this event with my fellow SLPs: Guess Who - Speech Kids edition!

This was a fun guessing game that challenged my Speech students' parents who dropped by to identify their child based on their smiles. To create this activity, I took pictures of all of my speech students, cropped out their mouths, and placed the pictures inside a digital frame. I then printed and laminated the pictures and stuck them onto poster board with Velcro (this will allow me to re-use this activity with different students in the future). On the back of each mouth I placed a picture of the student, so that parents could check their answers. Yes, it was a time-consuming project, but so worth the effort. I'm still missing a few kids who come from off-campus, so I left some room on the bottom and will add them later.

I was surprised at how well these parents did! Most of them used the patterns of missing teeth to guide them. This was a fun activity that really set the tone for this year. I think we will have a lot of fun! I spent a large chunk of my summer on Pinterest and have all kinds of ideas of what to do in Speech this year!

Next week I will have to show this to my students and see if they can identify themselves.

~Viola