Freebie- Letter Identification Mats

My biggest question from teachers is "do you have anything that targets letter knowledge?" Well, yes I do! The kids may be able to identify the beginning sound but aren't sure what letter goes wit it. I made this fun activity center to target just that! You get some playdoh, laminate the free mats and let each student grab a few pages and then cover the letter that goes with the beginning sound. I have made every sound including vowels. No diagraphs though! 

  You can grab this freebie here and please follow my shop and leave me some feedback~

 

Thanks for checking in!!

I also have Beginning Sound Mats for a $0.50!

 

Tis' The Season To Be Giving!!
 

Cheers,

Mindy

1 Month of Speech Therapy Giveaway!!

Santa's Workshop!

Here is Speech is Sweet's Santa's Articulation Workshop that I won last week!

Woo HOO! I was so excited to win something, and something I can use in speech therapy, that I like, is an extra bonus!!

It has so many sounds that you can work on in articulation! You can use dabbers, chipper chats, or even crayons to reinforce those sounds! I highly recommend it! I also have purchased one of her Halloween Artic. packs and really found it useful too!

Thank you, Speech is Sweet, I am so grateful!

 

 

You've probably seen one of her many giveaway from her Facebook page! If not, check them out and hey while you're there check out my FB page as well!

Tis' the Season!!!
Thanks!!!!

Promise No. 1 - Education as a Treaty Right

Some days I feel sorry for myself and then it doesn't take long to see that everyone, at some time, is facing an up hill battle. Some hills are steeper than others. We all need to work together, support each other and remember "were here for the kids...."

Creating Communicators provides speech language and occupational therapy to (predominately) First Nation Schools. As an aboriginal woman who was born and raised in Alberta, I see these issues first hand. It makes me sad that these school have many students who struggle with the basic skills they need to succeed academically and socially. The teachers work hard and don't always feeling supported or valued. 

I started Creating Communicators to bridge this gap. When I go to schools, I work hard to build a rapport with students and teachers, and help teachers and aides with training, and give them as many resources as possible. I want to do as much as I can to support of First Nation students and staff.

I want all of staff and students to know that I will go above and beyond what is expected to help make their role easier and support them in anyway I can possible!


With that being said, many of our educators are doing an excellent job! Here are some examples of activities that are being used in a K4 classroom. 

Tina is using Pete the Cat as a theme and has made hands on centers that target vocabulary, math, language and other important concepts. She has done it an an excellent way so that she is promoting language through play, which is exactly what the 4 year olds need!  


I am so proud of her and the work she has done at the school!

 She uses these laminate cut outs for the students to talk about vocabulary, colors and to help sequence the story. 

 

Tina uses these buttons to work on number sense.

And then she has them practice fine motor skills tracing the numbers in the book.

 

She also has all of her Pete the Cat books displayed in her class so the students can "read" them!

Great job!

I want to thank Lisa Thunder for taking a chance with Creating Communicators and working so hard for all of the staff and students of Bigstone Cree Nation at OPK school! 

Thank you Mrs. Bishop for letting me come in and do activities with your class! Thanks for being so open and welcoming!

Thank you all!
I am so grateful to be a part of your team!!!
Cheers, 
Mindy

Winter Speech Pack

 

Do you need a quick activity for a reasonable price? 

Take a look at my Winter Speech Pack! 

It has everything you need for a week in speech therapy (or more) or for kindergarten literacy centers. 

It includes 

Pronouns, Categorization, Phonemic Awareness skills and Following Directions.

There are even some extra
Coloring pages for reinforcement or conversation starters. 

All this for $0.80 while the sale is on!!

Moustache Smash- Articulation Edition

 

We all have a huge articulation caseload and get tired of the same old games, maybe the kids don't but I definitely do!

I made a fun new game!

Have you ever heard of Moustache Smash? Yes, then you know what to do! It's a fun game where kids hold a moustache at their face and then slap all of the cards that are the same as their moustache. 
I made it a little different- you just choose the child's target sound and then lay them on the table. The child then says the word (5 or even 10 times) and slaps the card with their moustache. 
You can also say the word, they copy you and then slap the word then they find the card. 

It is a fun way to get a lot of repetitions- just make sure the child says the word 2, 5 or even 10 times! 
I have included all of the common sounds- f, k, g, s and s blends, l and l blends, sh, ch and th. All of the sounds have most of the examples in the initial position and a few in the final position.

Get it quick while its only $1.25!!!
 
I am going to work on a vocabulary edition too, so keep an eye out for it!

You can buy the game here

Vocabulary

Vocabulary

When you start looking around there are so many vocabulary resources and that's good because so many kids need to work on their vocabulary skills. 

When I go into classrooms, especially for 4 and 5 year old students, the teachers seem to be reading less stories and talking about them even less. Now don't get me wrong, teachers have their own agenda, its called the curriculum. I get it! But what if we just read a book and talked about what happened in the book, what some of the words meant, and described the pictures? It would make things so much easier! Teachers have to teachers letters, letter sounds, math, and on and on ... but if they don't have the foundation of good (or even moderate) vocabulary, these skills aren't going to be utilized correctly!

Instead lets try telling parents, teachers and daycare workers to read a book, talk about the items, how 2 items are related, their functions, where you find them and what category they fit in.

I have some cute activities that you can laminate and use with play-doh. If you're into no prep there are also black and white versions for markers and bingo dabbers. You can find them here and here.

Following Directions

Panda Speech has these awesome following direction freebies! I use these all the time for my caseload. She has so many of them and they are free! The kids like them and they seem to be just at the perfect level for my kids. They are hard enough but not too hard to keep them interested and paying attention. The other thing I really like is you can send them home for homework so that their parents can see what they are working on. I send a note home in the homework book saying try some more directions with your child (sometimes I send extra instructions!).

Great freebie Panda Speech!!!
Thanks,
Mindy

Phonemic Awareness

 

 

I bought Tara West's Phonemic Awareness Endless Mega Bundle and love it! I help out students who are struggling with reading and I have used some of her products. They are so great! She has so many that target a lot of those phonemic awareness skills that kids seem to need help with. If you haven't taken a look at her store go look! She has phenomenal products that are a decent price! Gosh, I don't know where she finds the time!


Here is one where the student segments 3 sound words into phonemes. This student is in grade 3 and needed help with this task! For this activity I used pom poms but you can use anything; blocks, bingo chips, chipper chats, and if you are really daring gum! :)
 
This bundle is a an endless bundle meaning she will keep adding products to it! Woo Hoo! And its a great deal too!


Cheers,
Mindy

My favourite S blends activity!

 

 Hey Everyone

I have been looking for some good s blend activities because at one of my schools (I work at 7!!) I have everyone working on s blends! Yes, everyone! When does that happen?

 

 I went out on search of something new and I found this! I absolutely love it and so do the kids. The clip art is so cute and bright and the mats are clear and easy to use. The kids simply say the word and then cover it up with play-doh! Great idea!

I am thinking of looking for some more dough n' go products!

What do you like for S blends? Comment below.

Thanks TLC Talk Shop!

Speech Freebies!

I know it is upon us quickly but maybe your are lost for resources for next week... I love Halloween and so do the kids. I went out in search of some really fun, cute, freebies that I can use in treatment with my entire caseload!

Here are some of my fave Halloween Freebies!

I picked some freebies that will be useful for your ENTIRE caseload. I included articulation, language, reading comprehension, & phonological awareness!

PRESCHOOL CASELOAD!

 The first product is a cute freebie from my shop. Halloween, Halloween What Do You See? I use it with kids to talk about Halloween vocabulary, beginning sounds and you can use the coloring pages for following directions or reinforcement.

 

 

Please excuse my horrible picture but you get the idea... Laminate the page and you have a beginning sounds center or activity for speech therapy. You can also use it to target concepts like first, second, next, last and so on! 

 

 Another cute one is Halloween Play Dough Mats from The Speech Space. It is great for following directions.  Just print, laminate and grab your play-doh!

 

 And you can use the black and white version as homework.

 Have you ever heard of Perkilou's Fun Freebies? They have the cutest little books that you can print and use for preschoolers. You can target articulation, vocabulary, sequencing and more! The kids love singing with these books!!

 

SCHOOL AGE CASELOAD!

If your caseload doesn't make too much fun of you, you can try singing this song with them and target some neat sounds for articulation.  (I wouldn't dare try, singing is not my talent!!!)

I really like this freebie from Ready to Teach English and Spanish. It is a story comprehension activity that helps them to sequence. It is so cool!! Love it!

 

Speech Room News has a really cute pronoun freebie!!

 

And last but certainly not least here are some very cute generic sheets you can use for reinforcement and articulation.
SO cute, thanks Speech Attic!
 

Coloring and Language Skills-Plurals

Coloring and Language Skills- Plurals! 

I told you about my vocabulary book, right? Well, now I made a plurals book to use in speech. Many of us have to group our kids because of large caseloads and you know how you always have that one kid who wants to answer ALL the time...this is a great opportunity to have that guy color while it's someone else's turn. I love it when we can keep those little hands and minds busy :)

It is so easy for prep too, just print and the kids cut it out, staple and print themselves...(with a little help, maybe!)

It contains s, z, ez endings as well as irregular plurals. You can target specific areas that the student is having trouble with or all of them! Easy, peasy!!


Enjoy, it won't be cheap long!

Telepractice Ideas

Here we are in October (already!!) and I know many of you are using telepractice or thinking of using it. I do use it occasionally and I've found a few sites that make my life a little easier.

Here they are:

***ABCya! Great website for reinforcement and games! It has stories and a lot of phonics games to help those struggling readers!


***Need a brain break? The kids do... a lot! I find go Noodle helps get the sillies out to promote attention.

***YouTube has some cute stories that you can use for comprehension or other language goals.

I love using this story for my Goldilocks and the 3 Bears Activity!

If you comment below on what your favourite thing to use for telepractice is and leave me your email address, I will give you a free copy of my Goldilocks Activity that contains a weeks worth of activities to use in speech therapy! 

Happy Thanksgiving Weekend my fellow Canadians! I am grateful for my friends, family and my wonderful job!!

:)
Mindy

Beginning Sounds

Beginning Sounds Train

I bought this beginning sounds train that you can use in language class to target phonological awareness - beginning sounds.  The kids love the hands on activity and the cute, bright pictures. 

 This fun-to-use sorting mats make it easy for kids to identify beginning sounds! Children just select an activity mat, then find 3 picture tiles that match the sound on the train’s engine. Plus, each tile is double-sided, with a picture on one side and both a picture and word on the other—so kids can sort at just the right level! Set includes 20 activity mats and 60 chipboard tiles.

For articulation, you can use this activity to target words or phrases. For F, you could say "I found a foot on the train, etc." It is just a different way to make artic. just a little more fun!

You can buy it here for $16.99~

Enjoy!

Mindy

Apps

I always get this question from teachers and spec. ed coordinators- what apps are good to use for speech and language. I thought I would make a list of some I use often.

For articulation I always use Articulation Station- it's easy to use and the kids love it!

My other favourite is Preposition Remix. You can chose which concepts you want targeted and it will give you a a print out of data! Love it! So easy!

Therapy Assistant Association of Alberta

Therapy Assistant Week

 

Therapy Assistant Week is September 19 – 23 

Tell us what your site is doing to celebrate. Not sure what to do? Check out our website under “TA Week” for ideas and printable posters. Be sure to capture pictures of your activities and submit them to our Photo Contest where you could win prizes!
Make sure you check our website often for updates on Events, Employment Opportunities and other TA activities happening in the province. If you have an upcoming event, job vacancy or activity, we would be happy to post these for free as a benefit to our members. Email your information to therapyassistantaa@gmail.com.

Don't forget to look for me at the U of A and Glenrose, Wednesday Sept 21, Presenting on why you should become a THAAA member! :) 

Thanks, Mindy


Visit our Facebook page!

Great Fall Ideas for Speech Therapy!

September can be a fun time! It is when we are getting back in the groove of school and meeting our new caseload. We set a precedence for speech therapy, how it can be fun, the rules and the way we like to run our gig! My motto is you don't get paid if you don't do the work- if the kids don't have a good attitude (positive) or if they aren't trying then I don't let them play the game or pick something out of my treat bag :) It works well, I rarely have any behavior concerns. Once they meet me a couple times they know what to expect and all (usually) goes smoothly. I try to make speech fun,  stay positive and always try and make my "kids" feel special! 

Back to September... I wanted to give you a few ideas on how you can make September go easily without a bunch of work, you know kind of ease in to it  :)

1. A new product of mine- a no prep printing pack that you can use 1 on one or in groups to target vocabulary! All you need is a stapler and some crayons!
 

2. Back to School Pack- targets pronouns, beginning sounds, and more!

3. The Fall Speech Pack- targets pronouns and possessives, along with following directions.

 

 

And each of them are under $2!!