Pump It Up:: Balloon Pumps

It's almost time to  find the summer clearance sales. I wanted to share an easy idea that students and SLPs will both love!  I used this all the time in a clinic I used to work at and last summer I bought my own balloon pump in the end of summer clearance! 

Go visit your local Big Box Store and find one of these air balloon pumps. They will be under $10 full price and pretty soon you'll find them marked way down! 

These pumps work for both air and water. We used them this week for water balloons, but for typical therapy you'll just pump air into the balloons! 

The pump requires about 15 pumps of the handle to get enough force to blow up a small balloon. During therapy I use this as a token reinforcement system. The child completes X amount of trials with the a fun deck and then earns a pump or two! 

Once you've pumped it all the way up, you'll pull the trigger to inflate the balloon! 

Super fun and super easy for therapy! Have you used this idea before?

Practicing Receptive Language at Home

Speech Room News is typically geared toward SLPs and other professionals in the field, but this week I posted over at PlayingwithWords365 with some information for parents! If you're working with any families this summer, Katie's blog is the place to send them for information! I wrote about tackling receptive language skills at home! These are those quick tips I usually find myself talking to parents about in IEP meetings.

Language is often separated into two parts. Expressive language is what your child can say and express verbally. Receptive language is what your child can understand. While expressive language is sometimes to easiest to identify as delayed, delays in receptive language can have a significant impact on a child's ability to function at home and in preschool. Children with receptive language delays struggle with skills such as understanding directions, understanding stories read to him/her, identifying vocabulary items and answering questions.

Today I want to share with you some quick and easy ways to support your child's receptive language at home. It's quite easy once you think about a specific skill. The key is to pick one skill and have intention to target it throughout your day. 

Head on over to Katie's blog to check out the rest of the content! 

Happy Fourth of July!

Happy Birthday 'Merica! 

I saw these hand print table pieces and used the idea to make a flag craft. Work on colors, following directions, concepts (long/short) and action words while you make this adorable flag!

They were adorable!

We also made some fireworks! Megan had the idea of making fireworks and Emily cut straws at the end. We dipped into glue and made fireworks on paper. Lots of glitter was added!

To make the straws, just take scissors and cute the straw about 2 or 3 inches high into 6 different pieces. The straw should look kind of like a flower at the end when you're done cutting.

Of course we did lots of other learning with my freebie downloads too! Did you do anything fun to celebrate American's birthday this week?

Catch a Flamingo

I've been meaning to share these photos with you forever,  but life got busy! My sweet friend Katie S.  has these super cute mini beanie babies and velcro 'mits'. I borrowed them one week to get some energy out with a little friend during my clinic time. 

Every week after that she asks, "Can we catch a flamingo today?" Next time you're in the Goodwill hit up the toy aisle. I'm sure you'll find a velcro ball game and some mini beanie babies. Just take turns flinging them across the room and  catching the animals! They stick perfectly to the boards! 

Have you ever a flung a flamingo?

Color Book: A favorite Resource.

I love it when I find a simple book that works wonders. I got more milage out of this 99 cent color book than I did out of anything else this year. 

It's actually a Reader's Digest book published in 2000. The link is at the bottom of the page to find it used on Amazon. Instead of 'Lift the Flap' it's a 'Match the Flap' book. 

The book has big pages with nouns for each color. The inside of the book has a secondary flaps that are different colors. Students flip over the interior flaps to find the match to the exterior. In the picture below you can see that I matched the orange color to the orange pictures! 

So why is it amazing for my preschool crowd? It's ideal for receptively and expressively identifying nouns. I used it a ton for labeling with two words. For example, 'orange crayon, orange popsicle'. I love it because the kids can touch the orange word and then touch the noun. It's perfect and the kids think they're reading! 

I've also used it for functions and associations with the vocabulary. My fluency preschoolers worked on making sentences (The carrot is orange.) My articulation kiddos working on s-blends said, "I spy" sentences. 

I'm in LOVE with this book!  Have you used anything similar?!

Going on a Lion Hunt {book companion}

Raaaaawwrrrr! We're going on a lion hunt! This is one of my favorite spring units to use in the preschool and early elementary crowd. I've had this unti ready to share with you for a while and I'm happy to finally get it up in TpT in case you want to use it this summer! 

This unit is 22 pages in length. A perfect mini unit to accompany the book, which you can find below on Amazon! 

Story Retell: Laminate pages 3 & 4 (keep them whole). Tape the two pages together so

that students can see all 8 different story settings. Cut out and laminate the groups of kids

on page 5. To retell the story, move the characters across the settings (school, path, mud,

sticks, trees, river, grass, cave) and then back the same way!

• Comprehension Questions: Use the included comprehension questions to target receptive

and expressive language. (pages 6-9).

• Packing for the Future: Cut apart the cards on page 11. Have your students determine what

they would need/want to bring on a safari trip. Develop sentences with the future tense and

pack your suitcase on page 10.

• Not that: Use the included sentences to target receptive language of negation. (page 12).

• Size it up: Sort the included animals into size boxes and then describe them using

comparatives and superlatives. (pages 13-14). 

• Ticket: After you complete the lesson, give each student a ticket to take home for their

• journey (page 15).

• Sign it: Use the included animal signs for jungle animals (page 16).

• Do-a-Dot: Use the included sheet as a reinforcer. Students color dots as they answer stimulus

prompts (pg. 17)

• Hide-A-Paw: Hide the included paw cards (pg 18-19) in your room. Have student say a

sentence describing where they find them (ie: UNDER the chair).

• Safari Match: Give students articulation cards and a game board (pg. 20). Print 6 copies of

page 21 and have students draw cards. Read the number on each card and say that many

articulation words. The first to match each of the 6 animals wins.

My students loved all these activities and I hope yours will too! You can grab it in my TPT store to easily download, print and use! 

Do you use any other safari themed books? If you'd like to win a copy of this unit just enter the rafflecopter widget below! 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

The Incredible Flexible You: Preschool Social Curriculum

It's Monday in preschool. If you scan around the room you might hear and see some things like this:

A group of kids are building a train track around the carpet. 3 kids are adding to the track, but little Jack is facing the wall stacking his track pieces in a pile to see how high he can get it. Jack's friends are not happy because they can't finish their track without all the pieces.

Ellie interrupts constantly at circle time and answers every question the teacher poses. 

 A group of 3 five year olds are playing in dramatic play. Each student is playing Mom, Dad and Baby. 'Mom' is cleaning the kitchen and 'Dad' is mowing the lawn. The little girl playing 'Baby' says, 'Hey Dad, I raked the leaves.' The other two kids turn and say "Hey! You're Baby you can't rake!"

Social skills can often be difficult to build in preschool students. Most special education classrooms are filled with SLPs, OTs, PTs, Intervention Specialists and paraprofessionals working on social skills in individual sessions, small group work and whole group. Social skills permeate all areas of the curriculum and having a consistant curriculum and vocabulary across the preschool day gives each specialists the ability to provided consistant instruction. The key is having a program that consistently builds on the concepts and vocabulary.

At the end of the spring I was contacted by the Social Thinking company. If you've purchased any of my social activities, you can tell I'm a fan of Michelle Garcia Winner's work. I regularly use their curriculum with my elementary aged students and was really excited to test out their new preschool curriculum, The Incredible Flexible You.

The program uses same terminology and philosophy as the programs for older students, but in language and scenarios more appropriate for their age. 

Back in the Fall at a local schools conference I attended a session, by Nancy Tarshis, MA, MS, CCC-SLP, about a this new curriculum, that wasn't even on the market yet. The Incredible Flexible You is a two part series that includes lesson plans, activities and music for preschool and early elementary aged students.

The basis of the program are 10 story books. They each feature four characters (Jessie, Ellie, Evan, and Molly) who experience social interactions in various settings. The problems and environments will be familiar to your students, making it easy to draw connections.

Volume 1 features 5 story books and curriculum for the following social skills: Thinking Thoughts and Feeling Feelings, The Group Plan, Thinking with Your Eyes, Body in the Group and Whole Body Listening.

The program doesn't stop at just a book for teaching social skills. Each lesson is laid out with instruction to teach social thinking. Unlike teaching a specific social skill, social thinking is not expecting learning for mastery. Social learning is something we do all over our lifespan. When we teach the different concepts and how they go together we are teaching our students how the nuerotypical brain learns social information intuitively.

To use the program, start with introducing the vocabulary using The Incredible Flexible You Storybook for that lesson. For example, let's use the lesson: The Group Plan. Read the curriculum information including the definition and the reason for teaching the concept.

Prepare the activities (an apple game, obstacle course, egg game, and cooking items). Start by reading the story to your group. Stop at each point in the book where you see a 'teaching moment' indicated by the icon. Use the lesson plan to help you identify all the teachable moments. During circle time I also used the accompanying music. It made a nice interactive moment for all the students, even the ones who were a bit young for the lesson.

After you read the book you can use some of the structured activities you prepared in advance to reinforce the concepts. I didn't have time to cut out these apples for the lesson, so I just used the ones from my Attribute Apples Box.

Next use the ideas listed to facilitate dramatic play that incorporates the skills discussed in the lesson. The lesson plan guide even lists easy ways to incorporate the vocabulary into the classroom. For example, " Jenna is following the plan and sitting in the circle."

Send home the family letter to encourage carryover and consistency of the program.

Pros: The philosophy of teaching social thinkings, instead of isolated social skills is fantastic. I have needed a social curriculum that matches my elementary programs for consistency. I appreciate that the book give specific details for teaching moments, extension activities and carryover. This is an excellent way to help those who are not SLPs use to the program with ease and therefore 'buy-in' to the program. I love that I've been able to use it with my K and first graders too!

Cons: I work in an integrated program, meaning I have children of many different levels. The program is designed for more high functioning students with 'average to way above average language and learning ability'. While it's a wonderful program for some of my students its not one size fits all. I'd love to see another program developed to accompany TIFY that addressed those more foundational skills in a systematic way.

I guess the true test of any product I review is, "would you recommend it to your SLP friends?" Last week at our preschool meeting I brought in my copies for everyone to look at and The Incredible Flexible You program got added to our product orders for next year! I'd say that explains how I feel about it! This is one product you don't want to miss!


The Incredible Flexible You is available on the Social Thinking website. Version 1 retails for $99.50 including the music.

The fine print: This product was provided by Social Thinking for Review. No other compensation was provided and the opinions expressed are solely mine. 

Kangaroo Island Photo Classifying {app review}

SLPs know that just one area of language can have many different levels of skill and difficulty. When you buy an app that targets just one area of language, you need that app to target multiple skills and levels of difficulty. Kangaroo Island Photo Classifying is the new Super Duper app released this month.  The app is really targeting one skill in many different ways. I found it can be adapted for very low level preschool students up to second and third graders by varying the 6 games included and the level of difficulty of the different categories included. 

Let's do a quick look through each of the app's different games. In Class-A-Roo, the kangaroo asks you to find something for him! After hearing the category, find the matching item.

The Picking Parrot game is a category sorting activity. After the student sorts all the items they feed the parrot a snack! 

Sink Ball is just like arcade Ski Ball! Make sure you shoot the ball down the right lane to score your points! Then grab your earned ticket and trade it for a prize.

Turtle River is an game with swimming turtles. As the turtles swim the kids have to sort them onto the correct island. The speed of the turtles adds a little frantic energy to this one! 

Koala Canvas is a 'paint by numbers' coloring book re-done. Instead the kids needs to 'paint by categories'. The concepts was too high level for some of my littles (first grader) but perfectly challenging for a second grader. 

To 'paint' touch the color on the right (ie: food) and then touch any pictures that match that category (ie: apple). When you touch that picture the coloring page is colored in the corresponding color. 

Seal Search is a puzzle app to practice identifying outliers of category groups The students look at 4 pictures and decide which does not belong to the group. As they finish puzzle pieces they disappear to reveal a picture. 

The complexity of the entire app is controlled in the settings where an SLP can determine the number of categories and the members of those groups. A total of 336 pictures are included. I think some of the letter/number sorting opportunities are especially good and not found on other apps. 15 categories are included and up to 5 at a time can be used. If students aren't ready for 5 just use a smaller number! 

The data collection throughout the app is excellent and on-par with similar SLP apps. There is no limit on the number of students you can collect data for. 

Kangaroo Island is on sale for $9.99 in iTunes. It goes up to full price $12.99 June 1. The app was provided to SRN for review. No other compensation was provided and all the opinions are just mine! 

Cons: The app sorts by many different categories, but I'd love to see it sort by salient features as an option. For example, things that fly, red items, items that are cold. These are more difficult for some students because they aren't categories like 'food' or 'transportation' that are readily taught. 

Pros: The app is really flexible for each student. I love that I can decide exactly which categories are targeted giving me the chance to add in new categories one at a time. The app uses up to date data collection tracking for each child. I really like that the difficultly levels of the 6 different games build on each other and have the students practice classifying in different forms. Generalizing the skill like that is often so difficult for children with language impairments! 

Overall I loved the app and would recommend it to friends! That's the real test after all!