For the first time, I am providing summer extended school year services for a few of my students. I compiled a collection of summer theme resources to help support my lesson planning. These materials are perfect for continued distance learning or for future in-person speech therapy. The goals I am targeting focus on articulation/phonology, describing vocabulary, basic sentence structures, following directions and WH questions for early elementary students. Check out the themes below for some ideas.

THEME:  CAMPING

Books

• A Camping Spree with Mr. Magee by Chris Van Dusen (For in person therapy, check out my interactive notebook book companion.)
• Don't Feed the Bear by Kathleen Doherty (This No Prep Book Companion can be shared on screen and paired with an app with mark-up/annotate tools.) 
• Up the Creek by Nicholas Oldland

Boom Cards™️

• Camping Language
• Camping Articulation
• Articulation /s/ Blends Choose a Theme
• Interactive Boom Book Piper Goes Camping

No Prep Worksheets
(These are static PDFs that lend well to screen share paired with a digital spinner like this free one. I also use mark-up/annotate features on screen to make it interactive.)

• Camping Language
• Camping Articulation

Additional Resources/Ideas

• Find a camping background doing an image search and add it to your teletherapy platform, if able. It provides a therapy session in itself. Even better, search for a camping picture scene with various elements.
• Do a quick search for free camping speech therapy resources on TPT.
• There are also many activities you could do for in-person therapy, like toilet paper roll craft binoculars, making s'mores, pitching a tent/fort, having a pretend campfire, fishing using a magnet and paper clip to catch target words, or using a flashlight to shine on targets.

THEME:  BUGS

Books

• Fireflies by Julie Brinckloe
• Please Please the Bees by Gerald Kelley (Boom Cards™️Story Check Deck)

Boom Cards™️

• Bug Language
• Bug Articulation
• Articulation /s/ Blends Choose a Theme
• Interactive Boom Book Piper Catches Bugs

No Prep Worksheets
(These are static PDFs that lend well to screen share paired with a digital spinner like this free one. I also use mark-up/annotate features on screen to make it interactive.)

• Spider Language
• Spider Articulation

Additional Resources/Ideas

• This packet has open-ended printable games and ideas for a bug theme. 
• Check out the National Geographic Kids insect site to get kids talking!
• Bug crafts are always a fun in-person therapy idea, too.

THEME:  BEACH/OCEAN  

Books

• Down to the Sea with Mr. Magee by Chris Van Dusen (For in person therapy, check out my interactive notebook book companion.)
• Nugget and Fang by Tammi Sauer (Check out this One Page Language Book Plan.)
• If You Ever Want to Bring a Piano to the Beach, Don't! by Elise Parsley

Boom Cards™️

• Ocean Describing Attributes, Has/Have, Is/Are
• Articulation /s/ Blends Choose a Theme
• Interactive Boom Book Piper Goes to the Beach

No Prep Worksheets
(These are static PDFs that lend well to screen share paired with a digital spinner like this free one. I also use mark-up/annotate features on screen to make it interactive.)

• Shark Language
• Shark Articulation
• Multi-Syllabic Words (Share on-screen or use the printable interactive activities in-person.)

Additional Resources/Ideas

• This packet has summer barrier activities for in-person therapy. 
• Search for live beach cams for on-screen sharing.
• Follow directions to draw a sandcastle.

THEME: PICNIC/ICE CREAM

Books

• Carla's Sandwich by Debbie Herman (Boom Cards™️Story Check Deck)

Boom Cards™️

• Interactive Boom Book Piper Gets Ice Cream

Additional Resources/Ideas

• Try taking a Ben & Jerry's Virtual Tour.
• In-person ideas include making ice cream and having a pretend picnic.

I am looking forward to my summer-time themes. Thanks for reading. I hope some of these ideas help to support your summer lesson plans!

Read more »

Sparklle SLP

Yes! Another chance to share my favorite books to use in speech therapy. January is the perfect month to make a resolution to start using books in therapy.

*This post has been updated to include some teletherapy and digital solutions!

If you have been reading this series (Don't forget to head back to December for links to months in the first half of the school year.), the books I share can be used for traditional elementary caseloads and often for your entire caseload and for multiple weeks, using one book. For me, currently, pushing into classrooms has changed my pace to reflect that of the teacher's and focus to a single grade level per book. 

Here’s the list of books I have in my January bin.

This post contains Amazon Affiliate Links.

Snow Day! by Lester L. Laminack

Where is Home Little Pip? by Karma Wilson

Snowmen at Night by Caralyn Beuhner

Tacky and the Winter Games by Helen Lester (January or February)

Learning to Ski with Mr. Magee by Chris Van Dusen

Flight School by Lita Judge

Sneezy the Snowman by Maureen Wright

Check out these YouTube Videos for use in teletherapy (no affiliation and always preview prior to using in therapy).

Sneezy the Snowman

Flight School

Here’s what I target with just about EVERY book:

→Sequencing, retelling, summarizing, story grammar/elements (character, setting, problem, events, consequences, ending/solution)

→Tier 1 describing, Tier 2 vocabulary, synonyms & antonyms

→Comparing & contrasting/similarities & differences

→Basic concepts, direction words, temporal concepts

→WH questions-basic and inferential

→Inferencing-social/pragmatic

→Verbs & pronouns

→Sentence generation-higher level structures, conversational, expansion

→Articulation

Here are my "top targets" for each book.

Snow Day!
Predicting
Inferencing
Summarizing
Describing

We all wish for snow days, am I right? Your students will love the unexpected twist at the end of this story. Here is the link to my book companion.

Where is Home Little Pip?
Describing
Where questions
Tier 2 Vocabulary
Social Inferencing

Curiosity will attract the listener to this story. The descriptive language and character feelings make this a great language and engaging read aloud. Check out my companion activities, here.

Snowmen at Night
Predicting
Describing
Rhyming

Have you ever wondered what snowmen do at night? This is a great book to spark your imagination. Check out this FREE language expansion booklet to use with this book.

Tacky and the Winter Games
Summarizing
Problem/Solution
Sequencing
Verbs

Tacky is a classic character. His uniqueness and zest will have your students entertained through his winter sport adventures. You can find quick prep activities to go with this book, here.

Learning to Ski with Mr. Magee
Story Grammar
Predicting
Rhyming
Tier 2 Vocabulary

I truly adore the Mr. Magee books. These are books that can be read over and over again! In his winter adventure, find out who might be better suited for skis. Take a look at my interactive notebook companion.

Flight School

Problem/Solution
Growth Mindset
Social/Pragmatic

This is a great book to pair with a penguin unit in the classroom. Penguins aren't built to soar, but this one has a dream! Check out my companion activities, here. This product now includes a Google Slides(TM) version!

Sneezy the Snowman

Problem/Solution

Basic Inferencing

Rhyming

Past Tense Verbs

Check out my Boom Cards(TM) Book Buddy Deck for this book. I've include just the right amount of activities to support language development for your early elementary students. Target WH questions, story sequencing/retell, vocabulary describing, rhyming, basic sentences, categorization, and concepts.

Have I missed any of your favorites? I already have my eyes on a few new ones!

Read more »

Sparklle SLP

The Frenzied SLPs are offering some fresh speech therapy ideas for spring! I'm lucky enough to be on spring break and headed for warmer weather with my family! I had spring fever early on in Ohio with our warm February, so I was already thinking about spring therapy planning!

I love using themes and literature in therapy. This year I have also found myself gravitating toward interactive notebooks and craftivities to accompany my therapy targets and themes. Spring is no exception and my list of themes keeps growing.  To round out this school year, I'll be finishing up my basketball theme, dabbling in some Easter-related activities, bringing out the camping theme, and ending with baseball! Around Easter, I have spring-themed plans using the book Miss Rumphius by Barbara Cooney, an inspirational story about the Lupine Lady who spread lupine seeds and beauty everywhere she went. I was also Pinspired by this craft from I Heart Crafty Things (more on that below).

To accompany Miss Rumphius, I have created interactive notebook companion activities. The vocabulary in this text is rich and the story is captivating for younger and older elementary students. Among other targets using this book, I will focus on inferencing, summarizing, articulation in reading and conversation, irregular verbs, and defining.

I'm no artist and so my first attempt at the craftivity sample turned out to be a "pretty W" as my own kindergartener helped to shape my decision with her honest comment.

Instead, I opted for creating a coloring or stamping worksheet. You can thank her for the freebie!

Speech, language, and open-ended craftivity included.

I've also explored the sensory bin speech craze as well, only after cleaning up way too many spills, I have opted for more of a garland-type fill. My local dollar store seems to have garland for every holiday!

Garland works well as I use the bin mainly for hiding target skill cards or our reinforcement activity game cards. I neglected to take a picture of my prepped Eastery spring bin before I left for spring break; however, I picked up some decorative mesh and small glittery foam eggs.

I'll also plan to add some flower petals, toy garden shovels and gloves. Picking cards while wearing garden gloves surely is a lot more engaging!

   

What are your fresh ideas for speech therapy this spring?

An InLinkz Link-up

Read more »

Sparklle SLP

As I sit here listening to the college basketball games in the background, I am getting even more excited for my therapy plans this coming week.

I'm using a new to me book, Salt in His Shoes:  Michael Jordan in Pursuit of a Dream by Delores Jordan. (no affiliation). I created a minimal prep book companion to go along with the text. It includes a variety of speech and language activities for mixed therapy groups, suggested K-3. I've pinned a read aloud too. 

For reinforcement and movement, I happen to have a mini basketball hoop on my door (similar to this one).

Suggested ways I use the hoop in my speech room:

Allow a set number of minutes following skill and drill practice-I set a timer for 2 minutes, work with one student for articulation drill and allow others to take turns shooting hoops. Then switch students.

For younger students, I stand at the front of the line and do 5 quick drills and then allow a shot, move to the end of the line, repeat process!

For students working on language tasks, I usually do the lesson and then allow 3-5 minutes of a continuous line of shooting for students in the group.

Here is a free app that will allow for 45 seconds of basketball fun should you not have a speech room or to accommodate some push-in or quick hallway drills! My boys love this app!

{via}

My SLP friend from All Y'All Need has these basketball language activities for younger and upper elementary students. My copies are already printed and ready for use!

It's also a short and extremely busy week for me. The light at the end of the tunnel is spring break! Happy hooping it up in speech therapy to you!

Read more »

Sparklle SLP

Do your teachers use novel studies within their classrooms? Have you considered novel studies within your speech room? Maybe you already have a fondness about using books in therapy. Or maybe you have an aversion because you can't see spending all that valuable therapy time reading a book during your session. Let me take a moment to share my experience.

A novel study is defined as an in-depth study of an author's work through guided reading and independent activities. Many classroom teachers use novel studies regularly, even in the primary grades. What better way to bring the curriculum into your speech room or bring your speech and language support into the classroom than through extended novel studies. SLPs bring knowledge of communication development and language underpinnings necessary for literacy success. SLPs always exhibit "guided reading" when we do read-alouds, teaching a text in ways that are related, yet different as compared to a classroom teacher. I always exaggerate target speech sounds for auditory bombardment, emphasize target grammatical structures that reoccur within the text, and scaffold to aid understanding of vocabulary and higher level language contain within the text. 

If you have read this little blog before you know I do have a fondness for using literature books during speech and language therapy sessions within my speech room. I pair popular children's books with book companion activities that I have created targeting speech and language objectives. This year,  I've been spending more time in classrooms. As I'm working with my students in one particular classroom, I'm noticing these fabulous novel studies happening. The read aloud usually ends just as I enter the room and then the students begin independent activities surrounding the text. What I realized was that my obsession with using literature books in therapy was actually more relevant than I sometimes led myself to believe. I too, stressed over the time I spent reading the book during my already short therapy session as well as at my limited tallied data collection. Often I told myself to ditch the books and go back to straight skill and drill. What kept me buying books and creating new companions was the active interest my students showed during therapy with books.

Simply stated, literature books offer thematic content, varied vocabulary, plentiful sentence structures, higher level language, social lessons, and speech sound targets galore. Check the objectives on your students' plans and decide if these categories fit your needs. Let's take a closer look at a novel study from classroom to speech room.

Over the last two weeks my students have been working with The Wild Christmas Reindeer by Jan Brett. Some of the 2nd grade classroom teacher's targets included:  cause and effect; the "lesson" of the story; and non-fiction (reindeer) research.

Product Source

Using this same text (that the teacher already read and discussed with her students:), I created activities that matched my students' therapy targets. (I actually used this text with all my 1st-3rd grade students covering plans for roughly 30 students on my caseload). It is not necessary to have a formal book companion pack, rather I am discussing what I have targeted to give you an example of the wide variety of objectives that can be addressed using one book.

Articulation/Phonology Targets:
auditory bombardment of target sounds
writing target words from the story (sorting into beginning, middle, and end) for quick drill
story retelling for carryover
student read aloud for articulation in reading

Morphology/Syntax:
emphasis of target structures within the text
practice with target sentence structures using the vocabulary from the text
retelling using story grammar elements for narrative development
recall of sentences from the story
pronouns, verbs, conjunctions, compound and complex structures

Sample activities from The Wild Christmas Reindeer Book Companion

Semantics/Expressive & Receptive Language:
tier 1 vocabulary for targeting category, function and attributes
tier 2 vocabulary for targeting synonyms, antonyms, multiple meanings, and context clues
"WH" questions
inferencing
barrier activities
linguistic concepts
figurative language

Pragmatics:

character feelings

social inferences

reader's theater

While our therapy time with students is limited, our role in literacy development makes our services relevant to student needs. When children have problems acquiring language, they are at risk for difficulty in learning to read. Bringing novel studies from the classroom to the speech room achieves a collaborative role and ultimately the goal of academic success.

What are some ways you bring novel studies from the classroom into your speech room?  I would love to learn your experiences. You can download The Wild Christmas Reindeer Speech and Language Speech and Language Book Companion FREE until Christmas 2016 if you want to start preparing for next year!

Read more »

Sparklle SLP

I'm in LOVE with so many Valentine themed books which makes it so hard to choose one for therapy.  I might think of a way to extend the theme a bit, but I can always use Old School Speech's quick tip for keeping track of which books I use this year by adding a little sticky note to the cover with the school year.  Until I figure it out, I'll share some therapy ideas for I Love You Stinky Face by Lisa McCourt.

I'm once again linking up with Scarlett for Wild About Books Wednesday.

Although I am not affiliated with this book, I truly adore the Stinky Face books.  I've been reading this particular book to my son since he was a little guy.  It's truly perfect for active imaginations with big worries.  Lisa McCourt writes about a little boy that relentlessly asks questions inquiring if his mama would still love him if he were to present as a number of different creatures with unique character traits.  So, when he asks if she would still love him if he were a super smelly skunk, mama continues to offer detailed responses to show her unconditional love.

This book offers rich vocabulary and detailed descriptions perfect for defining and describing.

I am always in need of practical carryover activities for past tense verb usage {both regular and irregular verbs} in which this book offers ample opportunities for retell of what mama would do to show her affection if really her son transformed into a swamp monster or alligator or cyclops.

Sequencing events as well as summarizing using the Somebody Wanted But So Then {SWBST} strategy are also easily addressed using this book.

Addressing character feelings throughout the story is a great way to work on perspective taking.

Stinky Face asks a great deal of questions.  Students can work on asking their own questions or creating their own creature with descriptive details.

Articulation groups can practice discrimination by listening for target sounds in words and then practicing correct production at the word or sentence level as well as through retell of the text.

I have also created a book companion.  I must say it is becoming a bit of an addiction!  I just can't stop!  This book companion includes a variety of activities to address vocabulary, verb usage, articulation, summarizing and retelling, asking questions, describing, following directions, and answering comprehension questions.

If you download the preview, I have included Roll & Color Hearts for your use as a freebie!  Whether you read I Love You Stinky Face or another Valentine themed story, this is an easy reinforcement activity to use when targeting any skill!

Thanks for stopping by.  Do you have any favorite Valentine themed books?  I'd love to add them to my collection.  Don't forget to check out the other book recommendations over at Speech is Sweet!

Read more »

Sparklle SLP

I've been pumping the literacy into my speech room this year and as any SLP would, I am always second guessing self-reflecting on the effectiveness of my therapy choices.  One special little 1st grader was so excited to see me after break, especially because he was thrilled to tell me about his Christmas gift.  Luckily my therapy plans included time to discuss winter break happenings using this TPT freebie.  We were nearing the end of our session and I suggested that we might have time for another activity.  He squealed in delight about the possibility of me reading them another story!  Did he just say the perfect line to this SLP or what?!  He absolutely did not ask to play a game {and if you are an SLP, you totally know we do more than play games}.  I assured him there would be more stories to come.  And that my friends solidifies my quest to continue with books and therapy companion activities.

So, in linking up with Scarlett for Wild About Books Wednesday, I bring to you another in the old lady series, There Was a Cold Lady Who Swallowed Some Snow by Lucille Colandro.  Although I am not affiliated with this book, I truly adore her series.  So, I've scoured TPT to bring you a collection of freebies that may just be what your lesson plans ordered!

Emergent Reader Freebie

Following Directions Freebie

Snow Experiments Freebie

Snow Day Quick Drill Freebie

Snow Senses Describing Activity Freebie

Snowy Speech Articulation Freebie

Snow Day Language Fun Freebie

Roll a Snowman Reinforcement Freebie

If this isn't enough for your needs, I have also created a book companion.  I love creating and using these companions in therapy.  Clearly, at least one little guy agrees!  Whether you purchase my companion, one of the many others created by SLPs, or just plan to read the book within your speech room, this is a great text to target retelling of events, regular verbs, and of course describing a snowman!

Don't forget to check out the other book recommendations over at Speech is Sweet!  If you'd like to win a copy of my book companion, just comment below and I'll let random number generator choose one winner!

Read more »

Sparklle SLP

I finally made it to a Wild About Books Wednesday Linky! hosted by Speech is Sweet.  I have enjoyed reading these posts and totally have been wanting to jump on this awesome adventure.  

I'd almost bet most of you reading have read Miss Nelson is Missing by Harry Allard?  A classic book and actually one of my all time favorites.  I want to think I am more like Miss Nelson, but Miss Viola Swamp, can she really get results?  Absolutely admirable!  Well, when thinking of my upcoming football theme, I've been totally into book companions, so Miss Nelson Has a Field Day was a perfect choice for a new material.  In this story, a football team that hasn't won a game all year, gains a new coach.  Any guesses who the mysterious coach might be?  

I was drawn to this book, not only for its theme, but also for the generous amount of figurative language included.  Can I tell you how much my 4th and 5th graders have enjoyed the higher level picture books?  I was a bit skeptical, but they are totally into the stories and discovering the vocabulary within.  This just makes my heart go on a series of back handsprings!

Here I present to you my newest book companion!

Contained within the companion, including both color and black and white materials, is a collection of activities targeting articulation (word lists and word cards for elementary age sounds, plus an open ended worksheet), sequencing events, comparing and contrasting, describing vocabulary as well as higher level vocabulary, following 2-step directions (color and black and white versions), 'wh' story comprehension questions, pronouns (color and black and white), figurative language (phrases and definitions on colored cards), a roll and color page, and an open ended football reinforcement activity.

I grabbed a copy of this book in my school library.  Give it a try!  I am sure your students will enjoy the humor.  Talk about the figurative language contained within the book and even draw up a Venn diagram to compare and contrast Coach Armstrong and Miss Viola Swamp.  

Check out some other books over at Speech is Sweet today and every Wednesday!

Read more »

Sparklle SLP