Thursday, August 29, 2013

Favorite Therapy Item Thursday! (Interactive Prepositions)


Hello and welcome to our first ever Favorite Therapy Item Thursday!!  SLP's will be sharing their favorite therapy items during this featured post.  We think that it will be a ton of fun for us all to share our favorite "must have" therapy items with the rest of our speech therapy colleagues. We hope you enjoy reading about the items that are helping to make speech therapy treatment rooms more fun and productive! 

**Would you (or at least your idea) like to be featured in a future Favorite Therapy Item Thursday post? Please email us at shandagaunt@gmail.com and tell us your favorite therapy item!!  Or, please leave a comment or use the contact box on the right column to tell us. Lets all share ideas because it makes our jobs even more fun and productive!

The first therapy item we're featuring in our first Favorite Therapy Item Thursday post comes from a wonderful company named Speech Page. I first learned about Speech Page after reading very nicely written and detailed reviews by fellow SLP bloggers- Speech Time Fun and The Speech Bubble. The products got my attention since I noticed the items they reviewed had qualities that I love to see for therapy materials. They were interactive, durable and looked fun! I contacted Speech Page and they generously provided me with a few of their products for a review. Thank you Speech Page! Well, lo and behold, I loved all of the products, but one in particular  turned into one of my favorite therapy items and it is now being featured here in this first Favorite Therapy Item Thursday post!
Without further ado- here it is: 
Interactive Prepositions


I know, it looks cool, doesn't it?! Well, it is! This awesome activity contains four fun interactive scenes. The scenes come ready to use since they are in a plastic bag, already laminated, three holed punched for the option of being put into a three ring binder (see my binder below), have various slits in them (in/through/behind), and already have attached Velcro!! What a relief- I didn't have to put a product together myself this time:) Their titles are: At the Zoo, At the Carnival, At the Pool, & At the Circus. Each scene has vocabulary targeted words which are on a Velcro strip on the edge of the page to be used in the picture.  The prepositions of in, behind, between, in front, on, beside, between, under, over, up and down are encouraged. The pack comes with an additional page which shows images of each preposition and can help guide the person asking for the preposition completion and/or give a visual to the learner. The additional page also has ideas on how the therapist can fully utilize the scenes. 

The many ways I have used this product:

-of course for targeting prepositionsi.e. "Put the cup on", "Put the sunglasses next to", "Place the shoes between", "Place the water bottle behind."
-vocabulary enrichment:  i.e. "Let's name all the pictures at the pool." "Name what is at the carnival". "What do we do at the zoo?"
-following directions:  i.e. "Please put the clown next to the elephant." "Put the hamburger on the snack bar." "Put the zoo keeper next to the giraffe and then put the popcorn on the bench."
-wh questions:  i.e. "Do you like ice cream?" "Have you been to a carnival?" "Where is the shoe?" "What would you do if you were hungry here?"
-fine motor: "Take off the teddy bear and put it through the balloon castle." "Write out the word zoo."
-articulation: i.e. "r" bird, "grr" says the bear, giraffe, zebra
-literacy: i.e. "What letter does zoo start with?" "How many syllables in the word sunglasses?" "What rhymes with shoe?"
-concepts: i.e. "What would you do first, second and last at the zoo?" "What shape is the ball?" "Should we call the girl a he or a she?"

Since I received this product I have pulled it out to use numerous times with many of my students of different ages. They always enjoy the interactive nature of them and I love the versatility of being able to target so many of their speech and language goals! I also enjoy being able to incorporate them into our themed units i.e. during ice cream week I used the zoo mat since one of its vocabulary targets was an ice cream cone. For all these reasons I can now say with good confidence that Interactive Prepositions are now one of my favorite speech therapy go to products! If you haven't seen or used any of the products from Speech Page- go check them out- you won't be disappointed:)

Speech Page Website and their online catalog can be found:  HERE
Speech Time Fun review of Speech Page products can be found: HERE
Speech Bubble review of Speech Page products can be found: HERE

Thank you for stopping by 
Twin Sisters Speech & Language Therapy today! 

We wish you well! R
emember- comment or email us at shandagaunt@gmail.com to share your favorite therapy item!! Thanks so much!

Sincerely, 
Shanda and Manda, SLP's
Twin Sisters Speech & Language Therapy


Tuesday, August 27, 2013

1K Followers on Facebook = A Giveaway of Two Apps!!! Expressive & Phono Learning Center by Smarty Ears

It's so easy to win this week over at Twin Sisters Speech & Language Therapy! We are holding easy contests and this fun giveaway to help celebrate our mark of reaching 1,000 followers at our Facebook page. Just go to the Rafflecopter giveaway located at the blog or Facebook page in order to enter the giveaway. You could win a FREE Expressive or FREE Phono Learning Center app! Best of luck to you, and thank you so much for following us!! And a big thank you to Smarty Ears for their generous donation of two apps!!
Sincerely,
Manda & Shanda, SLP's
Twin Sisters Speech & Language Therapy

To learn more about these awesome apps, please click here to go to our review of Expressive and click here to read our review of Phono Learning Center!


a Rafflecopter giveaway

Monday, August 26, 2013

Enter our fun contest! 1000 Facebook Followers Fun Freebie Week!




Monday's 1K Followers Contest has begun!  If you win, you will receive a coupon with your name on it that will give you the chance to pick out one of our non-bundled products on TpT! 

Here's the contest: Please try to guess the number of Webber Articulation Cards that this cute Ladybug Tummy Stuffer has in its mouth!  Just leave a number on a comment line and the first person to guess the correct number wins!! Have fun!
Sincerely, Manda & Shanda
Twin Sisters Speech & Language Therapy
This coupon could have your name on it!  
 
Hello!  We started on Facebook just a few short months ago and have already gained 1 thousand likes.  We think that is super cool and have decided to have some fun celebrating.  
We will be giving away coupons like the one above to lucky recipients this week.  All you have to do is comment at the blog or on Facebook after one of our postings.  The postings will be fun and simple questions.  Check in every day this week to gain your chance to receive your free Twin Sisters Speech & Language Therapy document coupon! Yay!!

Friday, August 23, 2013

Love It and List It Linky: Organization Clinic Style

Jenna Rayburn is having her monthly  Love It & List It Linky Party and this time it's for ORGANIZATION. Well, I'm no expert on organization, but since Manda and I have A LOT of stuff and not a lot of space overall we try our best to keep on top of things at the clinic. If we don't stay on top of the "stuff"  it can get out of control!  Here is the process we have for trying to keep our units organized at our clinic:
First we either laminate or put our papers in sheet protectors. We get our sheet protectors and laminating sheets and our binder clips (shown below) from Staples.







Here is are awesome laminator we have affectionately named BIG DADDIO!:)
He gets a lot of use!
Our trusty paper cutter who gets used just as much as the laminator but for some reason we don't have a nickname for it. Any name ideas? :)
We use binder clips to fasten all of our laminated cards. They keep them together nicely-
no slipping apart with these babies! Binder clips come in three different sizes (small, medium and large).
Each unit gets its own three ring binder. We got a steal on a bunch of these at our local dollar store.
Inside the binder we put pocket folders which hold our cards.
Also purchased through Staples.
Extra papers and loose copies go into the front and back pockets
Example picture on how we use the binder clips and sheet protectors together
Each unit gets it's own plastic bin. It will hold our binder, loose copies of papers, all the games, extra crafts and toys for the unit.
Into the storage room it goes. O.K.- I know we have more room than a lot of people- but for some reason it never seems like enough-ha!
The other side of our storage room. It's shared with OT and PT too- but speech seems to have more- what can we say? We like stuff!! -ha!
More ways we stay organized in our room.
One of our shelves. We have a label for each category under it's area  i.e., cognition, fluency, pragmatics, voice, phonological, articulation etc.!
We have several good ole file cabinets too which house our working client folders, handouts and other therapy materials.
That's a glimpse into our way of trying to stay organized clinic style!  Be sure to head over to Speech Room News to read about how other SLP bloggers organize too! Several others have hopped on to this useful Linky Party! Hopefully you will find out even more organizational ideas. We can all use some help in this area I'm guessing:)

Happy organizing all!

Sincerely,
Shanda 

Wednesday, August 21, 2013

Lets Get Technical with PLURALS! A Regular & Irregular Plurals Teaching Packet + Freebie!


MOST WORDS JUST ADD A “S”:
Examples: logs, boots, bags, bugs, dogs, & computers 

SOME WORDS COMPLETELY CHANGE:
Examples: children, men, women, people, mice, teeth & oxen

SOME WORDS STAY THE SAME:
Examples: fish, deer, & moose

These are just a few plural rules that we review in this comprehensive packet! We have put together 71 pages of plural flash cards, worksheets, games, rule reminder pages, and room signs in order to address every aspect of how to make a word a plural. The technology theme is great for children of all ages and the colorful pictures make the time that your student needs in order to grasp all aspects on how to turn words into the plural form FUN! 


*Right click on the picture and print to receive your free page of the quick reference of plural rules!

Contents and Directions For Let's Get Technical With Plurals:
Page 5: Welcome sign for door and/or bulletin board.
Pages 6-12: Plural Rules for bulletin board.
Page 13: One page quick reference of plural rules.
Page 14: Plural rules numbered to use with activities.
Page 15: Die and game pieces to use with game board.
Page 16-17: “Let’s Get Technical With Plurals Game Board”. Use cards provided on pages 27-41. The student is asked to name the non- plural form of their word and then they are asked to choose which plural rule was used to make the word a plural. *Use with page 14 for naming plural rule number.
Page 18: Name plurals, plural rules, and non -plural form of words as the student completes page using paint dotters, craft balls and/or tokens.
Page 19: Hide-N-Seek the named plurals. Circle the amount asked.
Page 20: Plural word find.
Page 21-22: Plural puzzles. Print two copies if needed for easier completion.
Page 23: Name the plural forms of the pictures and complete the maze.
Page 24: Tic-Tac-Toe. Use cards from pages 27-41 and have student name the non plural form of their word and/or it’s plural rule upon their turn.
Page 25: Have student insert cards into the computer disc drive as they name the non- plural form of their words and/or it’s plural rule. Page 26: Discuss plural words as student colors the page.
27-41: Plural cards. Print, laminate and cut out. Use with all above mentioned activities.
Pages 42-43: Draw a line to the matching plural pictures. Pages 44-46: Complete the plural words using a “s”, “es” and “ies”. Pages 47-48: Write in the number on the lines of the plural pictures. Pages 49- 50: Circle the plurals and cross out the words that are not.
Pages 51-54: Write in the plural form of the pictures/words listed. Pages 55-56: Seek-N-Find the Irregular Plurals.
Pages 57-58: Circle the plural in each sentence.
Pages 59-60: Draw a line to the correct irregular plural.
Page 61: Irregular plural examples.
Page 62-63: Irregular plurals sorting activity. Cut out, shuffle and sort and/or glue onto the provided sorting mat (page 63).
Page 64: Write in the irregular plural words.
Pages 65- 67: Write in the plural word. Use the word in a sentence. Pages 68-69: Write in the plural form of the word in the sentences. Pages 70-71: Answer sheets.
Page 72: Twin Sisters Speech and Language Therapy Information Page.


Note: Common Core Goals!
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.L.K.1c Form regular plural nouns orally by adding /s/ or /es/ (e.g., dog, dogs; wish, wishes).
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.L.2.1b Form and use frequently occurring irregular plural nouns (e.g., feet, children, teeth, mice, fish)
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.L.3.1b Form and use regular and irregular plural nouns

Sincerely,
Manda & Shanda, SLP's
Twin Sisters Speech & Language Therapy

Jungle Themed Speech Therapy Week

Welcome to the Jungle!  Here's a peak at our ROARIN good time at the speech clinic this week.  Let us walk you all through the tasks that we did to target speech, language, and literacy advancement with the children that we treated this week using a fun jungle theme!

First, the children were asked to stick animals on a large parrot themed picture.  We were able to work on a large variety of tasks with this colorful picture that we found in the party decoration section of our local Dollar Store.
1) Auditory comprehension advancement: Follow 1 to 3- step directions, e.g., "Tell me your favorite wild animal, turn around, then put the monkey anywhere on the picture."
2) Grammar with the target of preposition: e.g., "Put the snake under the red parrot."
3) Concepts: Tell me the color if each of the birds and the flowers, count the flowers, point to the biggest flower, point to the smallest bird. 



















We practiced speech sounds and fed a monkey bananas using one of our Tummy Stuffers (one of our latest favorite purchases as you can literally feed the Tummy Stuffers anything e.g., cards targeting a language or grammar goal, or good ole' sound specific speech therapy cards).

The pictures show Shanda practicing the /s/ sound with a child. They have a mirror for the child to be able to monitor his tongue placement during their articulation specific time of the speech and language therapy session. 


We put on fun animal masks and practiced sounding like wild animals   This was especially helpful to elicit that "r" sound as in "roar".  And also, "grrrr" like a tiger.  We even took pictures of the kids wearing masks and put the picture inside a jungle themed frame that we made together. The frame was from Oriental Trading Company.  This was a super cute item for the child to bring home!

Here is a child matching uppercase letters to lowercase letters.  The animal picture is completed once the match is made. A great pre-k literacy puzzle activity


Here the child has completed naming wild animals and is repeating sentences as he completes a wild animal sticker picture.  The sentences were, "This animal is a ____". Just fill in a name of a different animal each time. Pacing boards to encourage slow and clear repetition were used with some children.   

Here was another fun activity.  The child was asked to name shapes and to match the shapes.  Each piece had a wild animal on it and more animal naming was done with this concept task targeting shape identification.  This super cute activity was found over at Itsy Bitsy Learners.


Thanks for stopping by the jungle today!! We hope we were able to provide some new wild ideas for you to use with your own speech therapy kiddos by making this post!  

Best wishes, Manda & Shanda, SLP's
Twin Sisters Speech & Language Therapy 

Tuesday, August 20, 2013

Speechy Feedback Linky Party!


Nicole Allison over at SPEECH PEEPS is hosting her monthly 'Speechy Feedback Linky Party' and Twin Sisters Speech and Language Therapy is linking up! This feature is when fellow SLP bloggers link up to give credit to the awesome people who left feedback at our TpT shops! 

Manda and I would really like to thank everyone who stopped by our store lately. We have gotten some great feedback and we REALLY appreciate it!  It really helps us to make our projects better. Thanks so much!
TeachersPayTeachers  - Lesson Plans,Teaching Materials and Other Teacher-Created Resources

It was hard to choose but since we had to........we would like to share this comment from kbrya241 in reference to our product called "Early Speech Sounds in Isolation Mega pack: B, D, H, K, G, M N, P T AND W". 


"Great resource for SLP's working in PK classrooms. Love the hands-on activities.  Great for keeping children engaged and motivated!"

Thanks so much for the great comment KBRyA241! We were so happy to hear how the packet was helping your students stay engaged and motivated- that is what we were hoping to hear!

KBRAYA241: Please head on over again to our TpT store because we would like to offer you one of our other products free of charge! Please email us at: shandagaunt@gmail.com once you have made your selection. Congratulations and thank you again for commenting at our TpT store!

Be sure to head over to Nicole Allison's website to see everyones link ups. If you made comments at other SLP TpT shops you may be a winner!

Thanks so much everyone and have a great night!

Shanda and Manda




Saturday, August 17, 2013

Giveaway of our Fire Station Early Prepositions & Pronouns Document!



We have created 61 pages of fun and original pronoun and preposition targeted activities for you in this wonderful pre-K to third grade packet. The whole packet contains cute firehouse clip house that could be used during a Fire Safety Themed week, or actually anytime of the year! The preview at our Teachers Pay Teachers and Teachers Notebook stores contains the content pages and many sample pages. Please download to help with your purchasing decision making. We think you will find it helpful!




Please make a comment after this posting.  You could be the one to get this document free!!  That is because Shanda and I are celebrating or 42nd birthday's on _/_? If your comment lines up with our birthday numbers then we will send you this new fantastic document for FREE!!!!  Please leave a general comment about what you see and like about the packet, or just let us know what prepositions and pronouns that you found yourself working on the most this past year in your classroom or speech therapy treatment room.  Feel free to make more than one comment (max of two) to improve your chances! P.S. We will look for comments here and at your facebook page!!  
Thanks much!!!  
     Manda & Shanda, SLP's (still 41 for a ? how many more days) 

Thursday, August 15, 2013

TIME TO CELEBRATE WITH A SALE! SHANDA AND I ARE HAVING A BIRTHDAY AND TPT IS HOLDING A BACK TO SCHOOL SALE TOO!


Hi Followers.  We have a sale lined up over at our Teachers pay Teachers store from the 16th to the 19th of August!  We wanted to be part of the TpT Back To School sale, but it just so happens that our birthday is on the 19th, of August too.  So, we made our sale longer to spread more cheer and goodwill and we strongly encourage you to buy some of our documents in the next few days in order to receive some great savings and to fill up your therapy cabinets with great "go to" documents to be used the whole entire school year!  

Please head to our store for some fantastic savings!  We have new documents too! Click on the links below to get more details! 

Play dough mats for the speech sounds of k,g,m & d
& SO MUCH MORE!!! We now have 59 products in our TpT store covering a wide range of areas in the categories of speech, language, and literacy! Please go to our store to check them all out as the quantity is too large to list here!  

Also, please don't forget to add the code: BTS13 on the 18th and 19th because you will get 8% more off too! 

Come on over and celebrate with us.  Thanks so much for following us.  We love our TpT, TN, FB, and blog followers!!! 
Manda & Shanda, SLP's 

Twin Sisters Speech & Language Therapy (this will link you to our TpT store!)

More information on one our latest documents:

This is a fun new document for working on the sounds of B, M, K & G with your younger kiddos.  The kids use play dough to fill in letters and to complete pictures while they practice their speech sounds at the consonant, cv, and word levels.  We have included a mat for the initial, medial, and final position of words!  

Bonus: We have included G and K initial, medial and final therapy cards!  And we have also included 3 pages of tips on how to elicit the sounds of G and K sounds!!  Have a great time with this latest document!!  What kid doesn't love playing with play dough?! :) 


Sunday, August 11, 2013

Back To School SLP Blog Hop!!


Welcome to The Twin Sisters Speech and Language Therapy stop on your Back to School SLP Blog Hop!!! 

We're honored to be participating in this blog hop with sixteen other wonderful SLP bloggers.  We hope you're enjoying yourself and that you're collecting some great back to school ideas and freebies!
Use the linky tools at the bottom of this post to hop around to all of the blogs participating, and to get ALL THE CLUES (see rules of the contest below).
Be sure to collect all the clues and to enter the Rafflecopter giveaway at the bottom of this post, or at many of the other blogs participating in the hop! You could win these fabulous prizes:

1 REALLY LUCKY GRAND PRIZE WINNER WILL WIN: 
  • TpT Gift Card for: $50
  • A bundle of TPT products
  • An app from Virtual Speech Center
  • An app from Little Bee
  • A kid story from LocoMotive Apps
5 Lucky Winners will receive a bundle of fabulous TPT products from participating TPT stores.

The rules of the contest are simple:
  • You must decode a secret message.
  • In order to complete this task, you will need to visit each of the 17 blogs and find the UNIQUE OWL CLUE at each blog.
  • The OWL CLUE will include one word that is part of the code. All 17 clues will form a sentence.
  • When you enter the contest through Rafflecopter below, you will be asked to type in the secret coded sentence. 
  • The contest will run from August 11th to August 17th.
While you're here, we would like to introduce you to our new packet called:
"Back To School Speech, Language and Literacy Packet!

We like to offer a new theme each week at our speech clinic. The themes are well received and fun for the kiddos! We are continuing to create and offer these packets because we feel that they help to make speech fun, original, and productive! We hope you enjoy using this latest creation with your speech and language students at the start of this school year. It is packed full of a large variety of verbal expression, auditory comprehension, articulation, grammar, reading, social language, writing, naming, and concept work! In addition, more than half of the worksheets have a general school theme so they can actually be used all year long! 

Details and FREE pages taken from the packet are located in the preview. Please download today using the following links: 


Our "Back To School Speech, Language and Literacy Packet" is available at Teachers Pay Teachers and can be seen by clicking: HERE


Our "Back To School Speech, Language and Literacy Packet" is available at Teachers Notebook and can be seen by clicking: HERE


We hope that you read through the entire post, because it's ....
TIME FOR OUR CLUE!!!  (can you find it...?:)



Enjoy, GOOD LUCK, and best wishes!!

Manda and Shanda, SLP's


Twin Sisters Speech and Language Therapy

a Rafflecopter giveaway








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