Fun little /s/ blend cut and paste booklets

I have a ton of /s/ blend kiddos on my speech caseload this year! I love working on s blends because children seem to progress quickly with them. (Carryover is another story! That is why I included sample phrases and sentences.) We have had the best time making these little books. I got the idea from all of the neat interactive notebooks and foldables I have seen on TPT lately. You don't have to fold these or glue into a notebook though. They are really cute when they are finished, and my kids all ask to take them home to read to their parents. Yeah for carryover! Yeah for reading! (Sorry - I just finished a binge marathon of Breaking Bad. Jesse Pinkman-isms just come out now.)

I included a directions page to explain how to make these. We have been able to finish making one booklet in one speech session. (While also practicing correct sound production at the same time.)

I have had so much fun making these with the kids, I want to make more sets with other sounds.

I included a data sheet and stimulus pictures as an extra item to help with RTI progress monitoring, or you might want to use it with your current speech kids. You might choose to just work on some of the s blends at one time, so you might not need the whole data sheet in one session. If you are like me, you keep data on 24 different sticky notes to transfer! I'm still on the lookout for the perfect data sheet. I think this one is a pretty good supplement for tracking which s blends are giving my students the most trouble.

 

 

 

Click here to see it in my store!

Speech Therapy Articulation with Sight Words Bundle

Click here to see the bundle in my store!

 Here is my pride and joy of all of the products I have created for my speech room. Long before I ever heard of Teachers Pay Teachers, I created some sight word bingo games to use in speech therapy. In 2009, an administrator asked if I could help a certain child with sight words during speech. Of course I said yes, but I was a little apprehensive because I have zero training in reading! I decided to find out which words he needed to learn and made a bingo game with his current list. I didn't use the sight words as the focus of therapy, but we used sight word bingo as our activity to break up the monotony of artic drill. Why not? If we can play Hungry Hippos during a session, why not sneak in something academic? I made my first bingo boards and noticed lots of the sight words contained his target phonemes. I started making lists with words that contained target phonemes. At some point, my computer crashed with this information.....and it took several years before I could force myself to start over with the lists! I have created products for /r/, /l/, /s/, /z/, and /ch/ so far, and /k/, /g/, and /f/ are in progress right now.

 

I created the product in color and black and white. I get one color ink cartridge per year at work, so I am usually down to black ink only by Christmas! I do have a good laser printer for black and white printables, and I love to print on colored cardstock. It's sturdy, and it gives everything a little more pop. You can see in the picture above how I printed the /s/ words on purple cardstock. I have purchased more colored cardstock since I took these pictures, and I printed each phoneme on a different color. I would say organization is my downfall, but every now and then I surprise myself! I put the entire product in a binder with page protectors. I store the little flashcards in a pencil pouch, and that works really well. I bought different colors of pencil pouches at Dollar General to match the color of phoneme cards, but only ONE actually had holes that lined up correctly with a standard 3 ring binder. In the future, I will test them out while I'm in the store! I found out the cards also fit perfectly in baseball protector pages - I'm just scared they will fall out if I pick up the binder when it's upside down one day.


I keep extra copies of the homework pages in pocketed page dividers, and that works great for sending home once I think my kids are ready for it.

Here are more images of my articulation sight word sets:

 

 

Click here to see the bundle in my store!

 

Free Winter Sports Graphing Freebie - Just in time for the Olympics

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I just posted a freebie in my TPT store! I hope you can use my winter themed graphing sheet with your students this first week back. Let's face it - the first week back after Christmas break is brutal! It's a pretty rough transition for students AND teachers. I know I have to figure out a way to get back on schedule ASAP! I've been staying up very late and sleeping until 9 or 10. (That's crazy for me!) I can't even think about that alarm that's going to go off Monday morning at 5:38 a.m. I set it for an odd time so I can hit snooze once and be up by 5:45. We have to be at work at 7:20 at my school. When does everyone else have to be at work?

Another Giveaway - this one is huge!

I'm participating in another giveaway. This one was organized by one of my favorite clip artists on TPT! Enter now for a chance to win lots of awesome Elementary resources!
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Giveaway to celebrate the New Year!

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Bundle-for-Speech-Therapy-Articulation-Sight-Words-R-L-S-Z-657389
To celebrate a great year on Teachers Pay Teachers, I am hosting a giveaway! Enter to win my Articulation Therapy with Sight Words Bundle. Thank you for your support in 2013!
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What you can do with wrapping paper and Mod Podge

Here is another little glimpse of my pirate themed classroom. This wooden cabinet had really seen better days, and it was landfill bound. Some of the wood chipped off, and whatever they used to stain it....just flaked off every time I walked by it. I really needed a cabinet this size in my room to serve as a little divider, so I did a little experiment. I had a roll of polka dot wrapping paper from Hobby Lobby, and I thought it wouldn't hurt to try. I had spray adhesive, but I knew that wouldn't hold up over time. I got a big bottle of Mod Podge and some of those paint sponges. (If I ever attempt something like this in the future, I will use a paint roller! It took forever with those little sponges, and the rough wood tore the dollar store sponges to shreds.)

I measured the cabinet and cut the wrapping paper the same size as the back of the cabinet. I got a co-worker to hold the wrapping paper and "feed" it to me as I went. I figured out pretty quickly that I needed to apply thin layers of Mod Podge to keep the wrapping paper from wrinkling/bubbling/ shifting. I noticed more and more bubbles as I got closer to the end of the cabinet. I had nothing to lose since the cabinet was essentially garbage....so I poked tiny holes in the bubbles with a straight pin. I saturated the area again, and it smoothed out for the most part.

We finished just in time to go to one of those mandatory pep rally things some school districts like to do right in the middle of pre-planning. When we got back, my room smelled like a combination of wet dog and paper mill pollution. We opened my external classroom door for most of the day, but the stench returned the next day when I put another coat on top of the wrapping paper to seal it. I have worked with Mod Podge many times and never noticed a bad odor. I think the combination of wrapping paper, glue, and whatever varnish was on that cabinet....made a mini chemical reaction. :)

Anyway, I let the cabinet dry a while before flipping it back into place. I talked my husband into coming up to my room one evening to paint the top and sides black. He told me it would chip if we didn't sand and prime it. That sounded boring to me, so we went right ahead and painted the cabinet. It is chipping. I think I'll call it "distressed."

New Winter Olympics Math Product

Click here to see it in my TPT store.

I don't know about you, but I love the Olympics! I went to the Summer Olympics in Atlanta in 1996, and it was a wonderful experience. The sense of patriotism was unreal. On a scary note, I was at Centennial Park the night of the bombing, but we had to leave early because I had a migraine. (The only time of my life I have been thankful for one of those demon headaches!) I should knock on wood because I can't tell you the last time I had a real migraine.

Anyway, the Olympics are something I really look forward to, and I'm glad the Winter and Summer games are on a rotating schedule now instead of both happening in the same year. (I had to look that up to make sure I didn't imagine it...they made the change in 1992.) The Summer Olympics are my favorite mainly because I love watching gymnastics. Ice skating is a close second though, but I can't get anyone in my family to get into watching ice skating with me! I still can't believe my 8 year old daughter doesn't even like it. She recently said "Mom - you know I can't stand ice skating, right?" WHAT?! I think my husband and son have brainwashed her so they can get their way with the remote. My daughter is pretty persuasive when there is a tie in the household when it comes to males-vs-females! I don't stand a chance when it's 3 against 1! Oh well - I will just hibernate in my bedroom with my TV for a couple of weeks this winter! :)

I made an Olympics math product for K-1st graders just in time for the games. I couldn't decide whether to do it or not...I knew it would be a product I could only use every 4 years, but the Olympics are just too much fun to ignore! I made the product based on my Christmas Math packet that has become the best selling item in my store. If you liked that set, you'll probably like this one. I found some cute Winter Olympics graphics from Glitter Meets Glue Designs and Whimsy Clips on TPT. I hope you like this fun math worksheet set. It's perfect for morning work, and several of the worksheets look the same....but actually have two different levels of difficulty. You should be able to use these for differentiation without the students even knowing the skill level is different.

Click here to see it in my store