Monster Week

This is quite possibly my favorite week so far.  The funny thing, is I had scheduled to do a chocolate week for this week because I found some random chocolate holiday to celebrate, but I purchased some great monster activities from Teachers Pay Teachers and I wanted to use them.  Monster week was planned and the rest is history.

Before getting to the activities, I need to tell you about my monsters.  I found this cute "tattle monster" idea on Pinterest and decided to make some for myself.  I sent an email out to the teachers at my school asking for empty tissue boxes and egg cartons, and the response was great!!  I had enough to make four monsters for me and four for my intern.  If you can't find these guys anywhere and want to know how to make them, let me just give you the directions now...

1) Paint tissue boxes your desired color.  Once dry, use the bottom of a large paintbrush to dip in paint and create your dots.  (** You can use spray paint but I didn't have spray paint and didn't want to buy it, so I used white paint to paint a base coat on the boxes and then painted over it with my desired color.)
2) Seal paint using decoupage.  The paint will chip off of the boxes if you do not seal it.  I decoupaged the boxes and it worked well.
3) Cut the mouth hole a little bigger to give your kids enough space for the teeth and their hands.
4) Cut teeth out of white foam paper and attach to the inside of the mouth using a hot glue gun.
5) Cut egg carton into individual egg holders, attach googly eyes, and glue to the top of the monster.
6) HAVE FUN!!

I used my monsters in a variety of ways...

Reinforcers:
I told my kids that my monsters were very hungry but they only ate candy.  I gave them chipper chat pieces to feed the monsters (that I had placed throughout my speech room) and the kids got to feed their monster of choice as a reinforcer.
(**extra fun hint: I told my kid that although my monsters liked candy, if they put their hands in the monsters' mouths, they would be eaten.  I gave them my "magic wand" to collect the chipper chat candy from the monsters' mouths at the end of the speech session.  They loved using the magnet to collect the "candy" pieces.)

Categorizing/Comparing and Contrasting:
 Although each monster was a different color, I only used four colors for the dots.   They kids could categorize the monsters by dot color, size of box (there were three sizes), number of eyes, type of mouth, or type of teeth (curly, spiky, two layers, etc.).  They could then compare and contrast the monsters based on their characteristics. 

Like I said earlier, I found some great therapy materials from Teachers Pay Teachers to use this week.  Here are the links to the monster materials I used:

Social Candy Monsters were used with my social skills/spectrum kids.  (that is where I got the idea to feed my monsters candy) You can find the blog about them at Crazy Speech World or you can buy them from Jenn's TPT store.

Another cute monster activity that Jenn at Crazy Speech World made (and this one is FREE) is Conversation Starters.  (These cute pictures might not be monsters but that is what I called them so I could use them this week, so use them however you want.)  I used these with my kids working on anything at the conversational level.  Get them from Jenn's TPT store for free!!

The Monster Question Pack was great to use with any of my kids that were working on asking or answering questions.  It also came with cute monster mouths that I cut out and attached to sticks as a form of a mask (I used them as ways to "buzz in" to answer a question and just as a mask for my kids to use while answering; they loved this!!)  You can find the blog about them at Live Long Speech (but it is by the author of Sublime Speech) or you can buy them from Daniele's TPT store.

Back Pocket Monsters is an oldie but a goodie.  These two games were created by Jenna over at Speech Room News and my kids LOVE them every time we play them.  You can find the blog about them at Speech Room News where I think she is still giving them away for FREE!!

My sweet intern found this story/activity to teach expected and unexpected behaviors in the classroom: Monster Fun! Teaching Manners and Expectations.  It comes with two stories: one about listening with your different body parts (e.g., listening with your hands) and a story about a monster who shows up to school and uses unexpected behaviors.  We read both stories and then discussed what school rules the monster broke and how he could change his behaviors to become expected.  You can get it at the Growing Kinders TPT store for FREE!!

Go Away Big Green Monster by Ed Emberley is a great book to work on sequencing skills.  I made a felt version of the monster and had the kids add the parts and then remove them when the story told them to.  We then used picture versions of the book to sequence when each part was added and removed and then retold the story using first, then , next, and last. 

 Glad Monster, Sad Monster by Ed Emberley and Anne Miranda was used in conjunction with Michelle Garcia Winner's Think Social! Lesson #7: Using Our Brains to Think About Others.  We read the book and then talked about how each monster felt and what might have caused them to feel that way.  The kids then picked feelings to portray and used the monster masks in the books to portray them.

Substitute Creature by Chris Gall is a great story to work on predicting and drawing inferences.  It is a story about a substitute teacher who teaches the students of a misbehaving class "cases" about children who do certain unexpected things (e.g., doodling, playing tricks, stealing things, etc.) and their consequences.  My kids loved this story because of its great illustrations and they liked to predict what the case would be. 

I hope you enjoy monster week!! We had a BLAST in my room!!

iPod/iPad Week

My kids can't wait for next week because the entire week is going to be devoted to that amazing invention, the iPad!! October 23, 2012 is national iPod Day (because we need to have a day of celebration devoted to it) so we are doing a week of activities that can be found on the iPod/iPad. 

My district is great enough to talk about iPad apps at our speech large group meetings, so a bunch of the following apps I am going to talk about have been recommended by my fellow speech therapists.  Thanks so much for the recommendations!!!  Some of the apps I am going to try to use I have played with, but have not used them on kids yet, so I don't know how successful they will actually be.  I will write a separate post after next week to talk about which apps I loved and what issues I had.

So here is the plan:

Articulation/Voice/Fluency:

There are a couple of articulation apps that I am going to try with my younger artic kids: Articulate it! and Minimal Pairs Academy, both by Smarty Ears. 

The creator, Barbara Fernandes, M.S., CCC-SLP, came to the THSA convention last year and I went to her class.  She talked about how to use the iPad in therapy and showed us a bunch of her apps, so I made a list of them and purchased some with my speech budget.  I have used Articulate it! and I like it for my young kids, but I am excited to try out Minimal Pairs Academy to work with my kids who have phonological processes goals. 

Thoughts on Articulate it!:
This app is nice because you don't have to pull out five card decks to work with different kids on different phonemes.  You can have the kids say their sounds in words or sentences, and you can work on multiple phonemes in the same session.  The kids can touch a speaker button and the iPad will say the word or sentence for them to repeat, then they can monitor their progress by touching the green check or red "x" after they have said their word/sentence.  The app keeps track of their progress and then gives you a report card when you have finished the session.

I had a few issues with this app.  Well, not exactly issues, just things I learned the hard way because I am not really a "reader or watcher of informational 'how to' manuals or videos" girl.  I am more of a "just start playing something and figure it out as I go" girl (at least when it comes to apps).  So, here are my "issues":  in order for the data tracking to work correctly, they child can only say the word one time.  I normally have them say all of their words five times each to get as many correct productions of their sound during their turn as possible.  If you are using it for one child then it is fine, but when you have more than one child, it makes a difference.  So it is more of a speed thing for me.  I have them take several turns before I let them take a turn at what ever activity we are doing so that we are still getting a decent number of correct productions.  There is not an "end" to the app, you need to stop it yourself when your therapy session is over.  I like this about the app because it will go through the word list again and again for more practice, I just didn't realize this when I started working with it so I kept trying to figure out how to finish.  My bad.

Playing Games with Drill Bursts:
Several of my speech sessions are drill and kill so I let me kids use iPad game as a reinforcement for the last two(ish) minutes of their 15 minute speech session.  It is amazing how hard the kids will work for this short time on the iPad, but they do.  Some kids have even started requesting games for me to buy (Spy Mouse was one of those).  As long as they are free, I don't mind downloading them.

Glow Coloring:
The Glow Coloring App can be used to go over the speech man for your voice and fluency kids.  I just took a picture of the speech man and then wrote the different parts of the body in the app.  The kids think it is fun because you can change the colors and they can write on it as well.  You can use this app for any activity that can be written on. The best thing about this app is that is it FREE!!  I love free stuff!!

 Facetime/Skype:
One of my fellow SLPs had this idea last year when I did not have an iPad so I am SUPER EXCITED to try this out.  Use Skype or Facetime to work on articulation/voice/fluency skills across schools.  I have already contacted two SLPs in my district to see if any of our times match up so I can try this.  I'll let you know if I can do it and how it works. 

Language/Social Skills: 

Categories:                                          The ABA Receptive Identification-By Class app is a really great app to use for categories.  It asks the student to pick a member of a category from a choice of four pictures.  When they get it correct, an additional question (for them to list other members of that category) is asked.  It uses real photos which is nice and after every few correct answers, the app rewards the kids with classical music and a ball that they can move around the screen by tilting the iPad.  This app is FREE during Autism Awareness month (April) but it is $1.99 otherwise which is not to shabby.

WH Questions:                                         

 Another great app by Smarty Ears is the WH Questions app.  This app has questions to work on why, how, where, who, when, and what questions.  You can pick and choose what questions to focus on, or just work on them all.  As with all of the Smarty Ears apps, you can take data as you play.  I haven't used it with the kids yet, so I will let you know my thoughts on it later.

Prepositions:
 Prepositions Remix asks your kids to touch an item using a preposition by giving your kids a choice of two photos for whatever question they are asking.  I like how realistic the photos are but one issue I do have with this app is that after the kids touch the correct picture, someone else says, "You're right, that is the blah blah blah."  I feel like that takes time that you can be going onto the next question.  That might just be me though, I'm sure the kids like that much reinforcement.

SuperDuper Card Decks:
Super Duper has a bunch of card decks that they have made into apps.  I bought one last year because I had a student working on grammar.  The kids can play against each other by swiping along their name at the top to get to a new payer.  The great thing about all of these apps is they take data and are only $1.99 a pop.

Idioms:
A bunch of speech blogs have been talking about Phrase Stress recently.  It works on idioms, which I like to work on for all of my kids who have figurative language goals.  There is not really a way to take turns on the game (that I have figured out) so you can either have the students try to guess idioms until their time runs out or take turns per idiom. 

Opposites:
A great way to work on antonyms is using The Opposites app.  It was FREE a couple of weeks ago so I snatched it up then.  If you haven't heard of AppShopper yet, GET IT!!!  You can make yourself a wish list and it will send you notifications when they go on sale!!!  In fact, it is still FREE right now so get it.  Anyways, this app has the kids pick words that are opposite in meaning by matching balloons of what the boy and girl are saying.  At first all of the words they say will match, but soon the antonym to the given word will not be next.  That's ok, the balloon words will just hang out at the ceiling until their match comes up.  The words get harder as you go so this app works for several grade levels.

Paragraph Comprehension:
I plan on using three different apps to work on paragraph comprehension.  The Kids Reading Comprehension apps come in a level 1 for younger kids and a level 2 for older kids.  This app consists of short passages that you can read to your kids and then a few multiple choice questions to see how much they have comprehended from what you have read.  Most of the stories are non-fiction (which is great for me because I have a hard time fitting that genre into my planning mainly because I like picture books so much).  Another app I plan on using is BrainPOP (it's FREE people); this app shows short (non-fiction) videos and then asks questions about them.  You can pick a video from any school subject to watch that are narrated by a boy and his robot friend.  They also have videos relevant to what is going on right now for you to watch.  You may need to purchase some of the videos, but there are a few free ones in each subject area you can choose from as well.

Creating Sentences or Narratives:
I plan on using Story Dice to give kids prompts for expanding sentences or creating narratives.  Each kid will get a chance to "roll" the dice and then all of the kids will need to create their own sentences by adding verbs, adjectives, and adverbs to the nouns the dice show.  They can then share them and see how each child can create different story lines with the same prompts.

Following Directions:
I am constantly working on following directions goals.  Two great apps for this are Splingo's Language Universe and Auditory Workout.  Splingo's is great for younger kids and give you options of 1-4 main words in the direction the kids have to follow.  Auditory Workout gives you the option of following basic one step directions, or to become more complicated with different concepts and using before and after in different parts of the directions.  Before and after always seem to trip up my kids so I love that feature.  Splingo's uses cartoon pictures and after every few questions the kids get build Splingo a spaceship as a reinforcer.  Auditory Workout uses a cartoon pictures as well and the kids get to play basketball as a reinforcer.  

Cooking:
You can now cook on your iPad.  What will they think of next?  I have not used these apps yet but my fellow SLPs swear by them.  I guess I will find out.  I believe the first app was Cookie Doodle, but now there are a bunch.  Cake Doodle, Candy Doodle, Tie Dye Doodle, etc.  You get to "bake" cookies by virtually mixing together the ingredients, sifting flour, beating batter, etc.  Looks cute.

Emotions:
Kids on the Autism Spectrum normally have a difficult time recognizing emotions.  I found two great apps to work on those: Touch and Learn-Emotions and Feel Electric!.  Touch and Learn-Emotions gives your kids a choice of four beautiful photos for them to match an emotion to.  It is not as easy as it seems, some of the pictures can be very close to the emotion that is stated.  My sweet intern was getting pretty frustrated as we were playing with it today.  Feel Electric! has a a few games where kids have to pick the facial expression that corresponds to a stated emotion (these are more fun to play than just pointing to a picture).  One of the games, Pets vs. Monsters, has the student move a pet holding a baseball bat to hit the pitched correct emotion while moving away from the wrong emotions.  There is also a place for students to state their current emotions (sort of like an emotional diary) in the Moodasphere; and you can give them types of emotions to build on a Mood Dude using different eyes and mouths. 

Inferences:
The last social skills activity I am going to do is drawing inferences from photos.  Jenna over at Speech Room News posted a while back on how to turn Pinterest boards into an app using the Tapikeo app.  To get her tutorial go here.  I follow PediaStaff and they have a bunch of boards devoted to different internet pictures they have found that would go with particular focuses.  They have one for action words, facial expressions, and inferences (which is what I will be doing).  They even wrote questions that went along with each picture.  All you have to do is copy the pictures and create a board on Tapikeo and you have an activity. 

  

If you don't have an iPad, do not fret.  I just found two activities on Speech Room News that are iPod related you can use to at least bring a little bit of iPod day to your kids.  

Mad Hatter Week

In honor of October 6th, National Mad Hatter Day, we did a Mad Hatter Week in my speech classroom.  I sent an email out to all of the teachers at my school asking for hats, and the outpouring of hats has been amazing.  I was super excited to see all of my kids in their fun and funky hats (and my sweet intern decided to participate as well)!!!

Here are all of the activities that we did throughout the week:

Articulation/Voice/Fluency:

I created a Alice in Wonderland War game (like Speech Room New's Angry Birds War) to play with any sort of questions I choose. You can use it when drilling articulation words, working on using voice/fluency strategies when speaking in connected speech, and with random language goals like synonyms/antonyms or categories. 

Get your Alice in Wonderland War here!!

For all of my iPad users, I found an Alice in Wonderland Memory app (Minivelle's Alice in Wonderland Match Game by John Jumper) that looks super cute as a reinforcer for my drill kids.  It is FREE, which I love and there are multiple levels for the memory masters.

Get Minivelle's Alice in Wonderland Match Game here!!

Language/Social Skills:

Prepositions:
Use the Cheshire Cat Preposition cards to play Go Fish (all go fish rules apply) by asking for where the cat or his smile is in relation to the things around it.  If the other person does not have the card, they can say, "The cat disappeared" and the person asking for the card can draw a card.  This works well because they have to know the correct preposition to ask for a card as well as to provide a card.

Get your Cheshire Cat Prepositions here!!

Following Directions:
Have each kid grab a hat from your amazing hat box that the teachers have contributed to and use the hats to follow directions.  There are one step, two step, and three step directions (most using the hats and some sort of preposition) the kids need to follow.  If they draw a Mad Hatter stole your hats card, you take all of their cards away.  The person with the most cards at the end of the game wins!

Get your Following Directions cards here!!

Tea Party Video and Book:
YouTube has the entire Tea Party scene from the 1951 Disney version of Alice in Wonderland.  I used it in two ways:
1) To focus to social skills including expected behaviors, reading facial expressions to determine characters feelings and intentions, and social rules.  I watched the movie in advance so that I knew where to stop and ask questions. 

My school's internet servers are a little weird with YouTube (sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't).  There are several sites on line that tell you how to download videos from YouTube so you can keep the video in a file instead of praying that YouTube will work for that session.  This is the website I went to to learn: Downloading YouTube Videos

Get your Video Questions here!!

2) To introduce the "A Mad Tea-Party" chapter from the book because the story does not have a lot of pictures.  It would be a good way to front load the story so the kids have a way to visualize what is going on while I am reading it.

I bought the book from Amazon for $2.99 and we used my iPad to read it on my Kindle app.  We just read the Mad Hatter Tea Party chapter (after watching the video clip) and used that chapter to work on figurative language, making inferences and using context clues to figure out the meaning of unfamiliar words.  Of course, you can always story map the chapter and retell it to end the activity.

Get your Book Questions here!!

Speech Tea Party:
For my children who are working on social skills, we had an actual speech tea party after we watched the Alice in Wonderland Tea Party video.  We worked on conversational skills in a party scenario including how to initiate, maintain, and switch topic; volume control; when you can eat the food (after everyone has been served); asking for seconds; talking about how you ask for something different if you don't like what was served; etc.  I sent home permission slips before having the tea party to make sure the parents gave permission for the kids to eat and to double check if any of the kids have allergies to any food.

 

Alice in Wonderland iPad Story:
For my younger language kids, I used a FREE app on my iPad called, Alice in Wonderland - An Interactive Children's Story Book.  It told the entire story of Alice in Wonderland as a video.  We then sequenced the video using Boardmaker symbols and retold the story.  I also used the Boardmaker symbols to ask comprehension questions about the story.

Get your Boardmaker symbols here!!

Types of Sentences:

A few of my fourth graders have types of sentences goals, so I thought using the iPad story of Alice in Wonderland to work on types of sentences would be an easy and fun way to target that skill.  The kids watched the story using the "auto play" feature of the app, then I started it again using the "read it myself" feature so they could see the sentences.  We discussed the 4 types of sentences and what punctuation they use, then went through the story and labeled the types of sentences used based on type of punctuation or what they were asking/declaring. 

Categorizing and Comparing/Contrasting Hats:
Have your kids put the hats into different categories.  They need to tell you why the hats fit into each categories based on  the parameters they have set themselves.  Then give them a different amount of categories they need to create have ask them to redefine their parameters.  My kids love doing activities like this because it asks them to think outside the box for connections.  The categories of the hats in the pictures above were: straw hats, hard hats, soft hats, character hats, silly/fancy hats.  After the kids created their own categories, I gave them types of categories (occupations, everyday wear, dress up, etc.) and they had to put hats into those categories.

Another activity you can do with the hats when they are in categories is comparing and contrasting.  Have your students pick two hats from the same category to compare and contrast.  Tell them that the category the hats fit into can be how they are alike, and then they need to discuss what makes them different.  

I had so many Mad Hatter activities, it ended up taking two weeks to get through them all.  My kids loved picking new hats to wear each day and using them in different ways.  I hope you have as much fun as we did.