Tuesday's Treasure Box: Another Wonderful Book by Pat Mervine

There are not many books written about children with speech and language disabilities; however, Pat Mervine just published her second book related to speech and language.

The Mouth with a mind of Its Own is a wonderful book about a child (Matthew) who struggles to be understood. Pat illustrates the child's thoughts and feelings when his speech is unintelligible. Matthew is introduced to a speech-language pathologist and the process of speech therapy. 

This would be the perfect book to introduce speech therapy to new students as well as when discussing goals with current students. Parents, siblings, and teachers of students with unintelligible speech would also benefit from reading this book. 

Congratulations and thank you, Pat!

AND, if you haven't seen Pat's first book, How Katie Got a Voice (and a Cool NewNickname), it's a must read!

Diana

© 2014

Tuesday's Treasure Box: Word Clouds for Your Therapy Sessions

As I was playing with my new app, Word Clouds by ABCYa.com, I thought of all of the ways that you could use word clouds in therapy - story vocabulary, classification, describing, articulation practice . . . 

Word Clouds was the only FREE app of its kind that I could find in iTunes. However, it is free for only a LIMITED TIME!

Not to worry though, I just tried Tagxedo, Wordle, and Word Clouds for Kids; all websites that allow you to make FREE word clouds on your computer. I liked Tagxedo as it allowed for the most customization. Word Clouds for Kids was the easiest to use and Wordle fell between the two, with some customization. These sites would be perfect to project on your whiteboard for group work or to use as independent centers. 

Other SLPs have been using these word cloud websites for quite some time. Check out the blog posts below to see their great ideas!

• See how Abby at Schoolhouse Talks uses Word Cloud at ABCYa's website for articulation and language activities in her post Word Cloud Creations.  

• Maureen, at The Speech Bubble, shows us how to use Tagxedo in Using Word Clouds for Describing: Tagxedo Tutorial. 

• Visit LiveSpeakLove where Lisa Geary writes about four websites that she has used to make word clouds in her post Fun with Word Clouds. 

Enjoy!

Diana

© 2014

Tuesday's Treasure Box: Snowbots and More!

If you like to use literature selections in therapy, you will like this link. No Time for Flash Cards posted Best Children’s Books We Read in 2013 and I want to read every book. 

Don't forget to read the comments section of that post as at least two more really good books are mentioned. 

Diana

© 2014

Tuesday's Treasure Box: My Gingerbread House

This was my gingerbread house for several years of "after Thanksgiving lessons." 

Yes, it's tacky, but students in the early childhood classes loved it.

Simply add a door and windows to a folding display board, add Velcro strips, and invest in some dollar store holiday items. Many of my items were cast-offs. 

Pair with a book about a gingerbread house and teach the adjectives big, little, noisy, rough or bumpy, smooth, hard, and soft. Students chose a holiday decoration, used one or more adjectives to describe it, and then placed it on the board and told its location (next to Santa, over the window, etc). 

Introduce the adjectives by presenting objects (rock, cotton, sandpaper, and bells) with pictures. 

Enjoy!

Diana

© 2013

Tuesday's Treasure Box: Between the Lions

Discover a wealth of resources at Between the Lions on PBS Kids. Games, stories, video clips, lesson ideas, and so much more. 

Look at Find It!, the index that sorts the activities by skill, subject, and curriculum.

Practice describing, talk about feelings, expand vocabulary, make sentences, and play phonological awareness games.

The video clips of songs such as Hung up on H, Get Your Mouth Moving, and Sloppy Pop can be used when teaching phonological awareness.

  

Play Synonym Sam's Lab, Hopposites, and sort categories while playing The Messy Attic.

Print a word wall and a variety of matching games.

My favorite part of the site is the Stories page where you will find animated Folktales and Fables such as Three More Little Pigs, Stone Soup, and The Little Red Hen. 

Enjoy!

Diana

© 2013

Tuesday's Treasure Box: TEACHERS pay TEACHERS

TEACHERS pay TEACHERS is my Tuesday Treasure as I have recently talked to several SLPs that did not know about TpT and a few others who did not venture to TpT as they thought that they would have to "pay" for all items. 

TEACHERS pay TEACHERS is a wonderful resource for materials. Not only can you find materials made by SLPs (who understand what we do), you can also find many curriculum based activities that show us what our students/clients are doing in their classrooms. Many materials are FREE and most others are very inexpensive. 

Two nights ago, I put "speech therapy" into the search box at TpT and found 8694 items. Of those, 2070 were FREE and 5583 were under $5.00.  

You can search by grade level, price and subject.  You will find white board activities, all kinds of forms for data and lesson plans, and any kind of speech / language activity imaginable.

Learn how to navigate TpT by visiting SLPs on TPT Resource List, a November 2012 post at Speech Room News. In addition to navigation tips, you will find a list of 83 SLP TPT Stores.  

Enjoy!

Diana

© 2013

Tuesday's Treasure Box: Make Learning Fun.com

If you haven't seen this website, you are in for a treat!! Make Learning Fun.com is one of the best early childhood resources on the web and all of it's wonderful ideas and activities are FREE. 

I love the literacy activities! The Emergent Readers are also great for emergent talkers. Every time that I visit the site, I find something new! 

Today I found

• Many Pete the Cat activities
• Very cute button sorting cards that should have been in my last post (20+ Resources for Classification and Categorization)
• An entire section dedicated to Eric Carle books 
• Story Sticks for Popular Books
• Sign Language Readers and other sign language resources
• Suggestions for adaptations for children with physical disabilities. 

Those activities are just a very small portion of what's available on the site. There are activities for every theme imaginable and for most of the popular young children's literature selections. 

AND, the most amazing fact is that this website is a one woman show! Jo Kramer calls this website her hobby. Thank you, Jo!!

Diana

© 2013