Speech Trading Post

Some of us bloggers got together to do a Speech Trading Post (shout out to the ladies of Sounds Like Fun for coming up with the idea!) where we swapped materials and used them in our therapy sessions.

I got the chance to take Angela & Kim from Speech Trading Post's "Bugs & Slugs" pack for a test drive.  I spend several weeks doing bug-themed activities, so I was excited to try this out because it involves MINIMAL prep, and I was even MORE excited that some of it was a no-print/no-prep option! (Because with 30+ kindergarten transition meetings on top of all the annuals and evals this time of year-- Ain't nobody got time for prep!).

The no-print portion of the packet can be used in iBooks on the iPad, so it's easy to pull up whenever you need it! It is a very colorful mini book highlighting a different bug on each page/slide with fun facts about the bugs.  It definitely grabs the kids' attention because of the vibrant colors, and you're incorporating some non-fiction work into therapy, too-- win win!

Cute bugs and WH questions-- yes, please!  Great way to work on comprehension.  Angela & Kim have a page included with comprehension questions they came up with, or you can use your own. With younger kids, you can ask questions as you go along, asking comprehension questions as you read, but with older kids, you could wait until the whole slide is read, or after several slides are read.

Another feature of the packet I loved targeted basic concepts & following directions.  If you have younger students, you probably work on following directions and spatial concepts quite often. 

This activity is played like Simon Says, but "Queen Bee" says directions instead of Simon :)  This activity can be easily adapted to be more simple, and played without the "Simon Says" component to just work on spatial concepts (Put the bee below the jar;  Put the dragonfly in the jar), but if you need to add a twist to make it a little more challenging, "Queen Bee says" is where it's at :)  I liked that there was just 1 page of bugs to cut out and the jars were just in easy rectangles for cutting out.  Hardly any prep time involved!

The other thing I really liked about this packet was the roll & color page. I forgot to take a picture of a finished, colored page, but you can see what it looks like below!

I love open-ended activities because I can use them with a variety of goals.  I have some kids that LOVE coloring and others who love anything competitive-- so for some, we just colored, and with others, in groups, we saw who could get all the bugs colored the fastest!

Kim & Angela are graciously letting me give away this pack to another lucky follower, and I'm throwing in my Spring Print & Go Packet into the giveaway, too. Two packs that cover a variety of goals with minimal to no-prep options-- you can't go wrong there!!  To enter to win, head over to Instagram and comment on the giveaway post with your email for a chance to win. A winner will be chosen at random on Sunday evening.  

  

March Madness! Win a TpT Gift Certificate!

Many of you know, as you can tell from my blog name, that I love my Kansas Jayhawks.  While our football team is generally less than stellar, Jayhawk fans can always look forward to basketball season and March Madness!

This year, two Kansas teams are in the same bracket division in the NCAA tournament-- the Jayhawks & the Wichita State Shockers.  While I'm a Jayhawk fan, a fellow SLP blogger, Elizabeth over at The Speech Owl, is a WSU Shockers fan, and our teams are playing against each other this Sunday, 3/22! We thought it'd be fun to get our blog followers in on the March Madness!

So, we're giving away a $10 TpT gift certificate to one lucky follower! All you have to do to enter below is pick which team you think will win (::cough::Jayhawks::cough::), and you'll automatically be entered in the random drawing! You can gain additional entries by following us on our Facebook & TpT pages, too!

We will announce the winner within 48 hours of the end of the KU/WSU basketball game on 3/22, and will contact the winner via the email registered with GiveawayTools.

Good luck, and let the Madness begin!!

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Chicken Soup for the SLP Soul

Imagine this scenario:

You’re a first year SLP—ready to take on the world after 6 years of school including 2 years of practicums behind you.  You’re a little nervous about being out on your own, but confident enough to know that while you don’t know it all, you know enough to be plenty competent in order to do your job.  You’re ecstatic that you’ve landed your first job!

Then... “Oh by the way, these several parents of children on your caseload are not happy because their kids didn’t get the services they should have last year.  It happened before you ever came and is something you had absolutely nothing to do with, but you’ll need to put out some of these fires.” 

Um.. What?! That was terrifying for me as a shy, quiet, first-year SLP trying to get my sea legs! I had no idea what I was walking into!

One of these particular students who didn’t receive consistent services that year was a little girl with Apraxia.  Her teacher had told me that the year before, she basically “squawked” because she had such difficulty with her speech. 

I first met the freckle-faced cutie pie with Apraxia at a “Meet the Teacher” night before school started.  She was a bit shy, but we were able to talk a little bit, and I adored her right off the bat! Then, I chatted with her mom and she asked about my previous experience.  Cue hundreds of butterflies in my stomach as I desperately tried to remain confident when saying that it was my first year.  I figured after the prior school year's debacle and some lack of speech progress the year before, that a brand-spankin’ new, first-year SLP was probably not what she was hoping for!

The night went well enough, but I was still really nervous about the whole situation when I got home that night.  My husband gave me a pep talk, though, and told me, “Just do your job, and they’ll have to love you.  You’re awesome! You got this” (Thanks, hubs!)

So, that’s what I did.  I "did my job," and both me and that little girl worked our tails off that year.

I remember the day when she finally mastered the /y/ sound we had been working on.  She had a w/y substitution, so the word “yeah” always came out “wah.”  To show off, her teacher and I asked her questions like, “Are you beautiful?” “Are you smart?” “Are you funny?”  It was so fun to see her just beaming with pride and self-confidence, answering "yeah" or “yes” to all of those questions.  She never seemed to struggle with /y/ after that! ;-)

I'll never forget when her /L/ sound popped into a word one day, too. Her name had an L in it, so it was a pretty big deal! I remembered her mom telling me at the beginning of the year that whenever someone would ask her daughter's name, that her daughter would turn to her and ask her to say it, because she said she "couldn't say it right" Well, let me tell you-- She was rockin’ those /L/ sounds like nobody’s business by Spring!

About a year or so later, in May 2013, on the first official Apraxia Awareness Day, I stood next to her mom at the kindergarten graduation program. She gave me the sweet card pictured above, letting me know how much she appreciated me and the difference I’d made in her family's lives (I still keep it in my desk, and pull it out to re-read on the extra tough days for a smile!).  Together, we stood there, and watched that same freckle-faced cutie who used to squawk and be embarrassed to even attempt to say her name, sing with her peers in her end of the year kindergarten graduation program.


And that moment, right there, is why I am an SLP. Moments like that far outweigh the negatives, and I can't imagine doing anything else for a career!

Want more stories to warm your heart or make you laugh? Hop on over to the next blog, and keep reading! Don’t forget to keep collecting numbers at the end of each post so you can add them all up at the end and enter into the raffle for some AWESOME TpT gift certificates!   My number is:

Happy Hopping!

Thanks Felice at Thedabblingspeechie for organizing this awesome hop, and thanks to all of these ladies who shared their sweet stories!

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