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!!

Entry-Form

Community Helpers: Project-Based Learning

This year, my school district implemented Project-Based Learning (PBL) as everyone's professional development project for the year.  If you're not familiar with Project Based Learning, it's a teaching approach that's very student-driven rather than teacher-driven, and students explore a real world problem/challenge/question of their choosing while exploring possible solutions through various methods-- research, collaboration, etc...

An excerpt from Edutopia explains it in a little more detail:

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"PBL is the ongoing act of learning about different subjects simultaneously. This is achieved by guiding students to identify, through research, a real-world problem (local to global) developing its solution using evidence to support the claim, and presenting the solution through a multimedia approach based in a set of 21st-century tools.

Kids show what they learn as they journey through the unit, interact with its lessons, collaborate with each other, and assess themselves and each other. They don't just take a test or produce a product at the end to show their learning."

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I implemented PBL by acting as support for one of my preschool teachers in a Community Helpers project in her classroom-- "What do I want to be when I grow up?" was our driving question that began PBL! (Every PBL starts with the "driving question.")

We split the kids up into small groups during PBL week based on their chosen occupations.  The kids ended up choosing to be doctors, firefighters, police officers, bakers/chefs, engineers, and astronauts.  The teacher and I loaded up our library cards with books about each occupation so the kids could start their research on their chosen occupation!

I took the doctor group, and we started researching what a doctor does by looking through books, watching videos, and exploring through apps.  I also had a doctor kit out so we could explore the tools a little more!

• Virtual Field Trip to a hospital
• Interactive Book: Pediatrician 
• Calillou's Check Up App:

From those videos, we learned about what doctors do, why they are important, what they wear, where they work, and what tools they use.  Each student drew pictures of what they learned, using these booklets that you can download on TpT here.

The tools are from the play doctor kit that was picked up for pennies at a yard sale!

After completing the booklets, the kids decided on a project they wanted to make to represent their chosen occupations.  In my doctor group, the chosen projects were doctor bags, an otoscope, and an x-ray.  These are the finished projects.. They turned out pretty cute!

I will say that I have even MORE respect for teachers after doing this project.  Within my doctor group, I had 2 kids with language delays, one peer model, and another student on an IEP for other needs besides communication. My one language student just needed some prompts to recall some of the information, but was pretty on task overall and could complete the drawings in her booklet independently.  The other student on my caseload needs significant wait time along with cuing to come up with answers.  She also says "I can't" or "I don't know how" during any activity that involves drawing, and won't attempt it unless she's walked step by step through how to draw it.  The peer model in the group FLEW through everything, and the other student not on my caseload needed a lot of prompting and cuing to stay on task.  It was such a struggle to feel like I was being effective and meeting the needs of everyone in the group, since they were all at *COMPLETELY* different levels.  I can't imagine what this feels like in a classroom of 23 students of all varying levels!

Overall, though, I'd say our PBL project was a success! We had to provide a little more guidance than what is probably *supposed* to happen for PBL, but when you work in a special needs preschool program, you have to adapt! After making their projects, we recorded short video clips of all the students talking about what they want to be when they grow up, what that job involves, what tools they use, where they work, and what they made for their project.

Does your school do Project Based Learning? If so, what projects have you done/helped with?

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!

An InLinkz Link-up

Potato Head Play

Mr. Potato Head is a toy that many of us SLPs have used in therapy with little ones.  It's always been toted as a "must-have" for anyone working with early intervention/prek.  I love my potato heads (I scored a big tub full of heads and accessories at a yard sale last year!), but I'll admit- there was a point in time when I first began my career, where I wondered how I could *really* use it in a variety ways besides the very basics like labeling body parts and requesting.

If any of you new to the field/new to this population have wondered the same thing, or maybe if you're a more seasoned SLP just looking for new ideas for this toy... Here are some other ways I've been targeting many other speech & language goals through potato head play with my preschoolers!

1.  Pronouns:  I have pieces that let me work on both "he" and "she" during play.  I have eyes with eyeshadow and big eyelashes, earrings, big red lips, purses, etc... so I can not only work on "Mister" potato head but also his female counterpart :)  I model a lot of "HE has green shoes on today" and "SHE has a pretty yellow purse"  and try to slightly emphasize the different pronouns.

2.  Basic Concepts:  I model comments like "He has a BIG nose and LITTLE shoes" "Here's his hat! It goes on top!"  "I'm putting her eyes ABOVE her nose"  Or, if I want to check understanding of concepts, I can say things like, "I have his shoes! Do the shoes go on the top or on the bottom?"

3.  Final consonants:  Purse, nose, arm, feet, eyes, hat, top, put, on, in, take, out-- all great words to model and practice with final consonants during play.  I like to sometimes hide the pieces in a sensory bin (ie my box of beans!) so they dig for parts and then we name the item and do short phrases like "Put on ___"     "___ on top"   and   "___ goes in"

4.  Plurals:  Talk about all the pairs your potato head has! Model plurals by talking about the potato head's two ears, two eyes, two shoes, two feet, two hands, two arms, two earrings, glasses, etc!

5.  Action words/-ING verbs:  Make your potato heads do all kinds of silly actions! "He is running" "She is shopping"  "He is dancing" etc...


What other ways do you play with potato heads?

For the Love of Speech: Valentine's Blog Hop!

Welcome to your next (or maybe first!) stop of the "For The Love Of Speech" blog hop organized by Lyndsey over at Speech to the Core and Elizabeth over at Speech Owl! You're in for some sweet treats!

I am SO very thankful for each and every one of you who take time to read this blog, follow me on Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest, and those of you who download freebies & paid items from my TpT store.  I wanted to share the love that I've been feeling! :)

Hop through each blog and download a Valentine's Day freebie-- we each have a different component to make up a full lesson plan to target a variety of activities!  Mine is a little pronoun-themed activity:

You can grab it HERE.

After you've downloaded my freebie, hop on over to Speech Sprouts (by clicking the image above) to check out what fabulous activity she has for you!

Craftivity Tuesday: Articulation Trains

I love the way this train craftivity turned out during Transportation week-- I think it's way cute, if I may say so myself!

I made the locomotive portion of the train from a die cut at work, and then just cut rectangles from other color construction paper.  I free-handed the smoke clouds and cut out a bunch at a time by cutting multiple pages at a time, too.

[Side note:  If you do crafts in your therapy sessions, you NEED to watch Jenn's video over at Crazy Speech World on craftivities.  She shares how she makes the crafts work for therapy, and what she does to prep.  It is chock-full of great tips! And Jenn is adorable, so go check it out! :)]

I used the pictures from my Cariboo Phonology set because they were the size I was looking for (and I'd rather just hit "print" instead of standing at the oh-so-coveted copy machine that is never free when I happen to need it, making copies from an artic book!), but you could use other pictures you have on hand-- just size the smoke clouds and train cars accordingly!

Easy peasy! :)

Movin' Mondays (...on Tuesday): Transportation Toss

I'm a day late for a Monday post, but better late than never, right?! One of my goals in therapy this semester is to get back to incorporating movement into my therapy sessions.  Today, I wanted to share just a simple vocabulary activity I came up with for our Transportation unit in preschool (I love all of the cute winter-themed activities I am continuing to see everyone posting on Instagram & Facebook... but I just can't do winter anymore!  <insert sign language for "all done" here> So, onto new themes, we go!)

This activity just uses basic transportation images found here (I went with real photos for this activity) taped to beanbags.  I took three containers and taped on pictures of water, a road, and a cloud for various modes of transportation, as well.

The kids got to pick a beanbag out of a pile, and we worked on picture naming and some WH questions.  After talking about the pictured item for a little bit, they had to decide which container they should toss it in-- water, road, or air.

 

It was a super simple activity, but they got to move around a little bit and throw things (I mean, what 3 or 4 year old doesn't enjoy that?), so they enjoyed it!

For added movement, try adding some simple yoga to your therapy! Act out each mode of transportation as you work on naming the pictures-- try boat pose for boats/ships, chair pose for a tractor or cars with arms extended out in front of you rather than vertically, or warrior 3 pose for airplanes!