ABC's of my Speech Room {M is for...}

M is for Monkeying around with Vocabulary. I looked and looked and looked to try to find a link for this for you, but it seems that it's out of print! In fact, this copy was left at my school from a previous SLP. So if you run across a copy of either book, be sure to grab it up!

There are two versions to this product, a grades K-2 version and a grades 3-5 version. They both include sections on antonyms, synonyms, classifying, definitions, absurdities, and then the 3-5 grade version also includes a section on analogies.

These are so much fun for my littles. Each section includes multiple ways to practice the skill: matching pictures, cut and paste, coloring pages, circling words, fill in the blanks, writing sentences, and word banks. With so many different activities to use, my students don't even realize they are working!

What's an M from your room that you love? 

ABC's of my Speech Room {L is for...}

L is for Labels! If you don't already know, I'm a bit OCD when it comes to organization. I have ALL of my binders labeled. Each shelf of my cabinets and bookcase are labeled with what type of product is on that shelf. Even my desk drawers are labeled (OK, I admit. That may be taking it too far.) But with so much going on each day, it's important to know where things are at in a moments notice. I definitely couldn't live without my labels!

What is an L product you couldn't live without?

ABC's of my Speech Room {K is for...}

Whew it's been a while since I've posted in my ABC series, time to get back to it!

K is for Kleenex. I know, I know, it's not really speech related. But let's be honest, it's a pretty big asset in your speech room too. I think Spring has finally set in (crossing my fingers!), and all this change in the weather has caused all my kiddos to have the dreaded runny nose. The first sniffle and my kids are directed to the tissue box, followed by my Germ-X bottle. There's no need for me to get sick too!

What's a K that is a staple in your room? I'd love to hear!

ABC's of my Speech Room {J is for...}

J is for "Jumpin' Monkeys"! I had never heard of this game before. When I found out I was going to be working in a school, I asked my mom to help me gather up some fun games to use in therapy. I came home one weekend and she had this game waiting for me.

The concept is simple enough- everyone gets monkeys and uses a launcher to try to get them to hang on the tree. If you buy the game new, the monkeys have on colored shirts that match up with the launchers. This was a garage sale find for me and my monkeys don't have on the colored shirts. I almost like it better because we can shoot as many monkeys as we want without worrying about using someone else's color. This game has become a common staple in my room- even for my middle schoolers! 

What "J" do you have in your therapy room that you couldn't live without??

ABC's of my Speech Room {I is for...}

Whew, it's been well over a month since I've written about the ABC's of my Speech Room! So, I'll cut right to the chase...

I could NOT live without my IEP Binder!

I am new to my district this year and new to an online IEP system. I was kinda majorly starting to worry about how to figure everything out. Luckily for me, my district rocks! At our SLP meeting at the beginning of the year, they gave us these handy binders full of IEP goodness. It breaks it down by what each type of meeting entails and what paperwork you will need. They even provided a cheat sheet, which I have right next to my computer when writing IEPs (because even though I've written many IEPs this year, it's still hard to remember which papers you need for every single meeting).

What do you have in your speech room that you can't live without?

ABC's of my Speech Room {H is for...}

"H" is for one of my favorite things- Highlighters! I have about 5 or 6 different colors and use them for literally everything. I highlight IEP due dates in my planner with yellow. When the meetings are actually scheduled, I write them in my planner and highlight them with pink (and white-out what I had highlighted in yellow). Things like early dismissals, team meetings, and special school events are highlighted in blue. But that's not all. I have post-it notes all over my desk, and, you guessed it, things are even highlighted on those!

My students love using highlighters, too! We use them on their artic pages, highlighting their sound in each of the words. They highlight words with their sounds in their Reading A-Z books. For my language kids, we highlight vocabulary words in their texts (obviously on photocopies, I do not condone highlighting things in their actual textbooks), the main idea, synonyms and antonyms, etc. We've even used them to color just to have some fun. 

How have you used highlighters in your room??

ABC's of my Speech Room {G is for...}

Whew! It's been a while since I've had any sort of blog post. I could give you a million reasons why I've been MIA, but I'll spare you the four page list and just let you know I've been busy. It's no excuse. I know many other bloggers are way busier than me, and they still get posts and products out every week. I guess I'll just insert here that all bloggers are different and that's what makes us all special and unique :)

But on to what this post is really about....

Ohhhh the Germ-X. I have the biggest bottle I could find at Wal-Mart. And it's already almost all gone...no joke. I haven't been sick yet this year and I want to keep it that way! 

I'm naturally prone to seasonal allergies and the occasional head cold, so I'm no stranger to the friendly bottle of hand sanitizer. (I might also have small travel size containers in my purse and therapy bag...) 

Any time of my students blows their nose, I make them go straight to the Germ-X. Cough in your hand? Germ-X. Use your finger to wipe and/or pick your nose? Germ-X it is. Even put your hand anywhere near one of the orifices of your face? You got it, Germ-X. 

I know I'm not alone when I say that I don't want their germs on all of my pencils, playing cards, and game pieces. Spread the love, not the germs.

ABC's of my Speech Room {F is for...}

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links.

F is for one of my favorite organizing materials- File Folders! I use these from Staples because I like the fasteners on the top. If I had money to splurge, I would get file folders with an extra divider in them, but the ones I have will do for now.

So how do I use them? Well on the left side, I print out an IEP summary for the student. The IEP program my school uses does this for me, but in case you're interested in making one up for yourself, here's what's on it: the students name and birthday, their annual review date and 3 year re-evaluation date, accomodations, present level of performance, goals, and minutes per week.

On the right hand side, I attach an attendance calendar. I use symbols such as "I" for individual therapy, "G" for group therapy, "SU" for student unavailable, "SA" for student absent, "TA/TU" for therapist absences/unavailability, and then "SH" for student holidays when there was no school. It makes Medicaid tracking easy and it takes two seconds to write in the correct symbol as your student walks into speech. In the middle of the folder I place my data tracking sheet and other materials I'm using for that specific student. 

And there you have it- how I use my file folders! What's an "F" in your classroom that you can't live without?

ABC's of my Speech Room {E is for...}

E is for that oh so wonderful Electronic Spinner! My kids go crazy for it-even my middle schoolers! Who knows if it's the flashing light, the suspense of not knowing which number it will land on, or just the plain fact that it's not regular dice, but this thing has been a staple in my speech room from the beginning. What else could get a kid so excited to do artic drill therapy? I know one thing for sure, I'm not getting rid of this thing anytime soon.

ABC's of my Speech Room {D is for...}

D is for my room decorations! I still don't have many up, but I like have a few fun things in my room to make my broom closet a little more enjoyable. 

First is my name plaque that I have hung on my door. I got everything I needed from Michael's! 

 Next is my "Welcome to Speech" banner. I found this on TpT, but I can't for life of me find the link for you guys! If you search "Chevron Welcome Banners", you'll come up with tons of options :)

Last is my subway art inspired pictures! I got my inspiration from All Y'all Need's Subway Art on TpT. I wanted to change a few fonts and colors to make it more fit my style, and this is what I came up with!

I hope you all enjoyed my room decorations. What are a few of your room decor ideas?

ABC's of my Speech Room {C is for...}

C is for the classic game, Connect Four! It seems that anything we do can be made better with this game...I have to say 100 words? But I can play Connect Four while we do it? Ok! (Sometimes the logic of these kids amaze me! But hey, I'm not complaining!!)

I use it during articulation and language therapy. We take take turns saying our target, like our artic word, a synonym/antonym, attributes of an object, etc, and then my student gets to take a turn. I usually let them take about 3 turns, so that it seems like they are playing a real game instead of having huge gaps between each turn. The kids have fun, and I get the data I need for their targets- it's a win-win!

What is a "c" from your speech room you can't live without?

ABC's of my Speech Room {B is for...}

B is for my absolutely-can't-live-without-take-with-me-everywhere-drive-out-of-the-way-to-get-it-if-I-forget-it binder. This thing is basically attached to my hip.

Why, you may ask? Because my speech therapy LIFE is in there! I keep my schedules for each of my schools in the front inside pocket and papers I need to carry back and forth between building in the back pocket.

Open my binder up to the first pages and you'll find my lesson plans. I just made up a simple table on Word. Each column top is a day of the week and the far right column is blank for notes. I manually wright in my students' names each week, simply because my schedule has changed so much lately I'm scared to put it in stone for 30 some more weeks :)

On the right hand side, I have tabs for all the students on my caseload. If you would open my binder up to one of the tabs, you would find an IEP Summary for the student including their goals and MPW (like I don't already have those written a billion other places). But since I travel between schools, it is nice to have quick access to info on every student on my caseload. 

After the IEP summaries I have my goal tracker page. Each month I get a percentage and write it in the appropriate column. It's made progress reports so much easier! You can find this form here!

So there you have it! Is your binder as important to you as mine is to me?? I would love to hear how you organize it!

ABC's of my Speech Room {A is for...}

I'm so excited to share with you a new Friday Feature: "ABC's of my Speech Room!" Each Friday, I'm going to let you in on a different aspect of my speech room that I can't live without. They may be purchased commercial products, dollar store finds, desk supplies- absolutely anything that makes my speech room run (semi) smoothly. So without further ado, here we go!

Each activity includes two pages, a direction page for the SLP and a black and white picture page for your student. All you need are 8 crayons (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, brown, and black) and you are ready to go!

I use this product to target following directions (don't mind me stating the obvious), prepositions/basic concepts, describing items, story telling, inferencing, and problem solving. All the boys on my caseload love it (and so do the girls if I change some of the colors and let them use pink instead of blue or green)! It's great for those mixed language groups, and I've even used it with kiddos in 6th grade who have found it fun. 

The picture pages are engaging and interesting for my students. There is enough going on in each picture to make things challenging, but not too much that it is impossible. For my littles, I like to talk about the picture before we work on the page. We can talk about what the names of the dinosaurs are, distinguishing characteristics of the dinosaurs (this one has horns, this dinosaur has a long neck, look at the spots on this dinosaur, etc...), and other things in the picture (volcanoes, trees, water, flowers). It is a great language lesson for them!

How would you use this with your students? Do you have an "A" item from your speech room that you couldn't live without?

This post contains an affiliate link for your convenience.