BHSM

So this is way late since I did this in May but I wanted to include it as my last post, just to show how I ended the year. I focused a lot on the hearing conservation part of Better Hearing and Speech Month since my kids are already in speech. I put together a little lesson for them, talked about how to preserve hearing, had them color letters and a picture of "the Buds" and sign the Buds Kids Pledge.

RIP Scarlett O'Hara

You weren't a very good class pet, but you were a good friend!

RIP friend, you will be missed (by me at least, my kids all think you're still alive and living at my house).

April Kites

My big project for the month of April was "Conversation Kites." The idea was that my students would decide on 4 things that they would like to tell someone about themselves, and then draw a picture of this. Then, they chose 3 synonyms to describe themselves that they wrote on the bows. Of course, as with everything I have high hopes for, my students' pictures failed to impress (and I've seen what they produce in art, so I know it was just laziness!). I ended up making most of them write sentences to go along with their pictures so that people would actually know what the picture was supposed to be. Then, that too ended up being lackluster. I really just wanted a cute colorful display, but oh well, at least I tried! It ended up ok. I'm just hoping one day I can actually figure out how to get my kiddos to produce the work I know they are capable of!

Done-O!

Annual Reviews are officially DONE! Well, basically...I am being optimistic here, but for the most part they are done!

Now to get caught up on evals and initials, which is perhaps just as big of a task. Speaking of initials, despite my attempts to dismiss kids, I have managed to get more new ones than I have dismissed! I am teetering around the 50 mark. We'll see how the rest of this year plays out!

That's when you go around and find eggs

Here in north Georgia, no one really has a grasp of St. Patrick's Day, which is kind of disappointing. I'm used to having the whole day off in celebration of the holiday! Because none of my kids really knew what St. Patrick's Day was about (see above title, which was one of my kiddo's responses to a question about how we celebrate this holiday), we spent a week learning about it. Here is a project we completed!

Class Pet

Scarlett O'Hara has officially been instated as class pet. Unfortunately, my kids have barely noticed her. I don't have the most observant bunch. Even more unfortunately, she has spent most of her days completely buried underneath the sand.

 

Eye contact

This happened awhile ago, but I remembered it today and it just tickled my funny bone all over again!

Me: "Ok honey, I need you to look at me with your eyes when you say that sentence."
Kiddo with autism (and an extreme case of the Mondays complete with angry eyes and voice): "BUT I DON'T LIKE LOOKING AT PEOPLE WHEN I TALK TO THEEEEM!"

He was very emphatic. And cute all at the same time, I just can't help it! We proceeded to have a nice conversation about why it is important to look at people because, "It makes them feel good because they know you are listening to them," the day got better, and I eventually got some eye contact. 

I have to say though, it was refreshing to get an honest response about his feelings and frustrations. Because, yeah, he probably doesn't like looking at people when he's talking to them, and is that so wrong? I've been struggling a bit lately with this concept. I mean, basically society has put all of these constraints on how people are "supposed" to act and if you don't act that way your labeled. On the other hand we are all different, and I feel like we should be appreciated instead of admonished for our differences. Where is the line between different and disorder? (And yes, I know there's tons of research on this, and yes, I know I'm going a little off track here, this student clearly has autism and needs services, but I think it's ALWAYS important to question yourself and your beliefs and how you can best serve your kiddos) At the same time though, it is important for him to understand that his behavior/responses affect others and for him to be able to consider how others feel, and I guess this is where I come in, to help him unlock a little of the mystery behind interacting with others. 

Bribery

I was about at my wits end at the start of "Annual Reviews Round 1". This is because I was plagued by:
a) Students who would not take paperwork to their parents, despite begging, pleading, and multiple entries in their agenda.
b) Parents who would not return the paperwork.
c) Parents who would not return my calls.
So annoying. Annoying, annoying, annoying.


For "Annual Reviews Round 2" I took a different approach:
1. I mailed notices and corresponding paperwork home directly to parents. Not sure that my school appreciated the $2 per envelope price tag, but if it works, it works!
2. I included a pre-labeled envelope in which they could returned signed paperwork.
3. I included a "'Speech Buck' entitling your child to one free prize from the treasure box when signed paperwork is returned to Mrs. Gregory."
4. I baited my kids with, "I'm getting NEW PRIZES for the treasure box this weekend! If you return the envelope from your parents, you get first pick!"


So, did it work? Well, I'm not totally sure yet, but this is day 2 of being back in school since I mailed the notices out before the weekend, and I have already received half of them back! They aren't even due until the 21st, so that's even more awesome! Also what's awesome, is my kiddos proud faces when they come in waving their "Speech Buck". Now, if I could get them to be this enthusiastic about returning homework......Perhaps another challenge for another year.

Wonderful resonance resources

Here's a link to some very good/concise/practical/easily understood presentations from Ann Kummer at Cincinnati Children's Hospital. Scroll down to "access seminar handouts."

All kinds of resources regarding evaluating and treating all kinds of resonance issues! Saved my life, seriously.

Your kids WILL sell you out

I blogged awhile ago about my implementation of homework folders. I was very excited about them, and thanks to a week of snow days was able to develop some for my artic kids as well. 

Now, I knew sending them out into the big blue yonder would not necessarily yield results. I am now getting a few back and realizing that only about half of my students actually did them (of course, the ones who really could have benefited most from them did not do any of them). My favorite conversation came today with one of my first graders:

Me: "Oh, wow C, you did all 12 of the activities when you really only had to do 4! That's great!"
C: "We ran out of time."
Me: "What do you mean you ran out of time?"
C: "We ran out of time to do them, so my mom just signed all of them."

Great, thanks.

Snow day social story experiment

I have been wanting to create Social Stories for some of my students for some time now. I have students in Kindergarten and second grade who I believe would benefit from these stories. Social stories were created by Carol Gray and are used most often with students with autism. From her website: "A Social Story describes a situation, skill, or concept in terms of relevant social cues, perspectives, and common responses in a specifically defined style and format." Carol Gray basically created a formula for creating individualized social stories to aid in teaching social skills. 

With what seems like our never-ending snow days, I have been able to work on some materials that I normally would not have time to create. So here is my first draft at a social story:

Let's Have  A Conversation!

-People like to talk to other people. When two or more people talk together, they are having a conversation. Friends like to have conversations so that they can learn about each other.

-When I want to talk to my friend, I make sure to get his attention first. I can do this by saying my friend’s name in an inside voice. When I say my friend’s name, I should look at him so that he knows I am talking to him.

-In a conversation, it is important to ASK QUESTIONS, LISTEN, COMMENT and RESPOND. 

-When I want to ASK A QUESTION, I should first look at my friend. Then, I can ask a question. There are many types of questions I can ask my friend.

-I can ask a question to learn about what my friend likes, such as, “What is your favorite color?” or “What do you like to do at home?”

-I can ask a question to see if my friend will play with me, like, “Do you want to play Go Fish?”or “Do you want to play hide and seek?”

-I can ask a question to get some help, like, “Can you help me read this book?”or “Can you help me tie my shoe?”

-After I ask a question, I should be sure to LISTEN to what my friend says. I can show I am listening by looking at my friend. It is important to listen so that I know what my friend wants to tell me. Everyone likes to be listened to when they are talking.

-When my friend responds to my question, I can respond with a COMMENT about the topic to let my friend know I was listening. I can make a comment like, “Blue is my favorite color too!”, or “I don’t play video games after school, I like to read.”

-In a conversation, my friend might ask me a question. When my friend asks me a question I should RESPOND by answering the question politely. When I respond, my friend learns more about me.

-In a conversation, friends take turns talking to keep the conversation going. Friends take turns ASKING QUESTIONS, LISTENING, COMMENTING, and RESPONDING. When friends take turns talking, they are having a good conversation. In a good conversation, everyone gets the chance to talk and listen.

-It is fun to have a conversation with my friends. When I have a conversation, I can learn about my friend and he can learn about me!

This took me a little more than an hour to create (which is why it has not been feasible for me to do this up to this point, there are some "premade" stories that you can purchase, but the point is for them to be specific to the students you are targeting, and most of the "premade" ones just aren't going to fit your specific need). My initial reaction is that I have far to many directive sentences and not enough descriptive or perspective sentences. You are technically supposed to have 2-5 descriptive or perspective sentences for every directive sentence. My second reaction is that it is entirely too long and comprehensive. I may need to break down these skills a little more. Maybe one story should cover asking questions, while another story should cover commenting. However, the nature of the conversation is that it is comprised of all of these components seamlessly....but I do think the one I have written could be trying to cover too much.

I think I will just try the one I have written and see how it goes before I make changes. Unfortunately, my next step is to add graphics, and without Boardmaker this step could break me.

Homework time

I have been struggling with the fact that I do not send homework home with my students (besides a few of my severe speech kids who get minimal pair sets sent home occasionally). I think it's important to carry-over good speech and language skills at home, and I want to give parents the tools to do this! However, having the time to get together homework for 42 students who all have different goals was a daunting task to say the least.

Then, and SLP friend told me that she sometimes does calendars, with different speech and language activities on the calendars for each week. They aren't specific to each child, they are just general skills that would benefit a wide range of students. This sparked my interest, and after some successful googling actually found an SLP's website with these calendars already created! Sweet! Parents choose two activities per week (they look to take only about 5 minutes) and initial when they have completed them. After getting together folders and parent instructions, I have sent these home with my K-2 language students.

Next on my list is to work on calendars for my older language students and articulation students. 

Multiphonemic project

Last year, I was turned on to these really old multiphonemic cards (with pictures representing sounds, not necessarily the letter) by one of my supervisors. I copied the old ones, and have been using them as quick 3-minute warm-ups for my young students with moderate/severe phonological process disorders. Basically, the cards go through all phonemes in isolation. Once students learn the associations of the picture of the card and the sound, I can use the cards as a visual reminder to point to while they are working. I usually run through all of the cards at the beginning of the session, then pull 1-2 to work on specifically with other materials like picture cards.


Then, I ran into this same concept in another new book. This book had a page with small flashcards with essentially the same idea (although with different pictures). So, I copied this page and had my students color the pictures. Then, I created "parent instructions" and laminated these two front and back to send home to practice.

After that, I blew up the pictures to a larger size, colored them, laminated them, and velcroed them to my wall. Now, at the beginning of each session, we run through all the sounds. Then, when we are working, I can refer to the picture cue by pointing or by taking off of the wall and putting it in front of my student.