Catch and Tell Me...

So tomorrow is the day-- first day of clinic! I'm pretty nervous which is funny because all week I felt completely confident. I just want my client to like me and respond well to my activities. If he doesn't, I might hide under the table and cry. How's that for an effective practitioner? Tears streaming down my face, making "llama" noises, and snot dripping... it's quite the mental picture.

Anyway, I had two tests today so I haven't had time to post another activity that I worked on yesterday. It is still a little rough... it's one of the ones I'm most concerned about. But, hey, I'll try it and if it goes poorly I'll just move on to the next activity.

I can't think of a creative name for this one so I'll just call it "Catch and Tell Me." It's another get to know you activity. Just to preface: I have been looking for the perfect ball for this game. I wanted a miniature, all-white soccer ball so that I could color each surface. Unfortunately, I couldn't find the perfect ball (believe me, I tried). Mark & I went to the Dollar Tree to pick up (very) random fall/Halloween decorations and I found a semi-perfect ball. It is already colored in, the right size, and it was $1. Still not completely pleased though... ugh, there is that type 1 personality again.

The $1 ball... it looks a lot perkier in person, promise

So, back to the activity, this game involves tossing a ball. Whichever color your thumb lands on correlates with a comment you must make. E.g. if my thumb is on the green, I have to say something that I like about the category, if it lands on red: I say something I dislike, green is my favorite thing or memory about it, and yellow is something I want to do or accomplish in the future... confusing, right? Here is an instruction page:

I'm planning on using a magnet to hang on the whiteboard so that it is easily viewable while we throw the ball

I'm going to do an example so that the child can see how each color works with a category. I wanted to start with summer because it is something that he/she will have easily-accessed schema about (it just happened, summer is fun, and it is a broad theme). I also threw school & therapy in there because I want to find out the things that are motivating and things that are not. The fall/autumn category will help me see what ideas I can use in the next month or so. And we'll finish with another easy one: being a kid.

So it is pretty easy:

• Toss the ball
• Thumb lands on blue: "I like _____ about summer"
• Continue throwing until you get a new color (for instance, if you get blue again, don't go onto school, instead just throw again and hope to get a different color-- this makes it easier for the child to access the schematic knowledge) 
• After hitting all of the colors for a category, move onto the next round and repeat
• I plan on doing two and judging the time & engagement level. If there is time and the child is loving it then I'll keep going. If not, we can always come back to it another time.

Other ways you can use a colored ball:

• Each color represents a different "shake it out" activity if the child needs a 1 minute break
• Blue: 5 jumping jacks, red: run in place, etc.
• Use for vocabulary words
• Blue: read definition, red: name a word with similar meaning, etc.
• There are a lot of options, just get creative! 

Spelling Slap Jack

Materials:

• Spelling word index cards 

Last night I was trying to figure out my materials and lesson plan instructions. I did the lava experiment to make sure it works, gathered up all the ingredients, and started making a rough "script" for the lesson. Then I started to get stressed out. Even though I have 6 main activities (with activities within activities) I realized that if one thing goes wrong, we would have plenty of extra time at the end of the session. Finally, I just gave up and went to bed. I thought that maybe I'd ask my supervisor for another idea on Monday.

Thankfully, plop, an idea came to me as I was waking up this morning--Slap Jack Spelling! Specifically, long vowel pattern (with silent -e) slap jack. I can't take full credit for it because I remember watching another clinician with a similar idea last year.

Okay so here is the idea of the game:

• I will make 10 index cards with random grade appropriate spelling words
• I'll also make 10 index cards with long vowel pattern spelling words
• Mix them together
• After shuffling the cards, the student gets ten and I get ten
• We will both lay down one card each 
• If someone lays down a long vowel pattern card, we race to slap it first
• The person who slaps it first gets the whole pile of cards (the person also needs to read the word out loud as they slap it) 
• Whoever has all the cards at the end wins

Since I will still be trying to probe for what the child already knows, I will use this game to assess the child's identification of a specific type of long vowel pattern. For instance, I can choose 10 words that have a long u and a silent -e (cute, use, huge, etc.). That way, if the child identifies 8/10 long u words, I know that he/she has a pretty good understanding of the spelling pattern and so I don't need to reteach the concept later. I'm just excited that I figured out a way to test spelling without having to give a written spelling test, so much more fun!

This game can also be used for:

• Recognizing sight words
• A quick way to assess understanding at the end of a brand new spelling instruction (did the lesson actually work?)
• It would also be easy to use this in a large classroom setting: children can pair up and play the game to practice specific word work 
• A way to go over reading comprehension after reading a book 
• If the book was about pirates, mix pirate-themed cards in throughout the deck
• The student needs to recognize the pirate card, slap it, then tell a detail he/she remembers from the book 

Story Structure Mad Lib

For the first session I need to see what my client is capable of and decide what goals we need to set. To do this, I need to probe (I hate that word) various skills. Probing can make for a very boring therapy session. It usually consists of giving informal tests on various things. Meaning that the child would need to be sitting and responding for 50 minutes. As soon as my supervisor told me that I need to probe my student's story structure knowledge I started to brainstorm ideas to make it a bit more fun.

I must admit, I really am not creative. I've never been a great artist, storyteller, or anything. However, I'm lucky because ideas tend to just fall from the sky and land in my head. That's what happened the other night, I was about to fall asleep and suddenly sat up and exclaimed "Mad Libs!"

In other words, a simple but fun story structure probe was born. You all know what Mad Libs are, right? It is a game where parts of a speech (nouns, adjectives, verbs, etc.) are cut out of a story. One person has the story and asks for parts of speech and the other player comes up with random words (Player 1: "Give me a noun" Player 2: "Octopus"). I used to play them with my friends in elementary school and got such a kick out of them. Combining silliness and the parts of speech was alway a useful learning experience.

So anyway, I decided to use a homemade Mad Lib see if my kid could identify parts of the story structure. The parts of a story are: character, setting, problem, action to solve problem, and result.

Here is the Mad Lib that I created:

You can click on the image to make it bigger

It's not as exciting as I would like but it works. Since all of the story structures are left out, it might not be as funny as normal Mad Libs. With regular Mad Libs the story structure is there so when you add goofy nouns, adjectives, and verbs the story can become quite ridiculous. I just hope that this is more entertaining that just giving a test and saying "Write down what a character is..."

I'll let you know how it goes next week! 

Favorite Things/Dice Activity

Materials Needed:

• Dice (technically only one)
• Favorite activities worksheet

So since I have never met my client before, the first session is going to consist of a lot of getting to know you activities. Since I want to make therapy as fun as possible, I need to know my kid's favorite things. I decided it would be fun to "play" a game to find out.

For the past week I've been obsessing over using dice, but not just little dice, I want to use big, fluffy dice. I got all caught up in the idea that I forgot that, low and behold, I don't own any dice... at all. I hopped on Amazon.com and quickly ordered some fluffy car dice so that they can be delivered by Monday (thank you Amazon Prime).

My fluffy dice

Since I only really need one dice (am I the only one who hates using the word di for a singular dice?) I told Holly that she can have the other. Works out great!

Back to the activity: I just spent another night doing nothing... aka making a worksheet that probably should've taken 5 minutes. It took me an hour. I know, I'm helpless. Here is the worksheet:

Don't judge the 6: long story short, I had to draw the dots by hand and I'm an unfortunate artist and too lazy/poor to make another

So the rules of the activity are pretty simple:

• Child rolls di
• Child finds the category that aligns with his/her roll (e.g. a roll of a 1 means answer about favorite color)
• Child says "My favorite color is _____"
• Rolls again

I made up extra "rounds" in case the number is rolled more than once. Also, it is nice to have a variety of favorite things in case the child can't think of a favorite in a certain category. I'm thinking that we'll play this on the floor to have a nice change of scenery. 

Lava in a Cup

http://www.sciencebob.com/experiments/lavacup.php

I found this science experiment on Science Bob's website. It has so many cool experiments but I was especially looking for one that wouldn't cause a big mess.

Materials needed:

• Vegetable oil
• Water
• Salt
• Food coloring
• Clear cup 
• Lava in a Cup worksheet

For this experiment I wanted to incorporate some of my therapy goals (using superlatives, reading/following directions, and using "first, then, finally" to organize thoughts). The whole point of the experiment is to see how "heaviness" impacts how things float. Oil is lighter than water so it floats. However, when salt lands on the oil, it brings it down into the water. As the salt dissolves, the oil bobs back to the top.

First, the child can read the instructions and perform the experiment. After brainstorming why the experiment might work we'll start working on the worksheet:

This worksheet took me far too long to make!

The child can fill in the superlatives: heavy __oil___, heavier __water__, heaviest __salt__. Then he/she will detail what happened in the experiment "First, Then, Finally."

I'm going to save all of the experiment worksheets that we do so that there will be a "Book of Experiments" by the end of the semester. 

Lesson planning fun!

I've caught the lesson planning bug. I'm almost worried that my first few therapy sessions will be super cool and then I'll lose excitement and be the worst SLP ever. But, so far, lesson ideas just keep coming.

I've been bouncing ideas off my friends and pinteresting up a storm. I love the idea of collaborating for lessons... you just get such good ideas that way. So lately, my friend Holly and I had been brainstorming together about using kid bowling sets in our sessions. My only concern was finding a kid bowling set that was cheap and cute. Well, today I was at lunch and Holly sent me a text: "They have bowling at white elephant! $12!"

I turned to my boyfriend and exclaimed, "We gotta go!" So we raced down to the store and met up with Holly. And I got the last bowling set!

Moral of the story: brainstorm with friends, pinterest, and stop everything to get to the best deals.

Here is the adorable bowling set 

                                                                              

There are so many ways to use the bowling in therapy, just add velcro and go! 

Some ideas:

• Add a sight word on each pin. When the child knocks over the pin they have to identify the word. 
• Velcro a spelling word to a pin. For each pin that is knocked over, the child has to spell it aloud and then write it on their bowling worksheet. 
• Use as a fun, non-educational reward for good behavior

I'm planning on using my new set within the next two weeks so I will post more ideas and pictures as I figure out the lesson.

Finally doing "speechie" things!

So... I am pretty bad at keeping this updated. Grad school has been a little bit overwhelming (papers, lesson planning, studying, researching, TAing, socializing, oh my!) and so writing this blog is at the bottom of my priority list. Especially because I am the only person that reads it and, who am I kidding, I don't need another thing to read!

Anyway, I've been in school for five weeks and it has flown by. I'm loving it but every day I get more and more excited to become a real live SLP. Thankfully we are starting with clients next week. Since there are a lot of privacy restrictions, I cannot share much about my clients but I will try to post general parts of my lessons and experiences.

I'm excited because I have two great placements this semester. First, I get to work with a kiddo in the university clinic. Let's call this child "Roo." It is very exciting since Roo is an individual client that I get to work with one-on-one. Most of the lessons this semester are going to be focused on school-based skills like spelling, story structure, expressive writing, morphemes, etc. I love being back into the lesson planning mode and hope that Roo likes all the planning that I have done!

My second placement is at a skilled nursing facility (SNF). I'll be working with three other SLP students and we'll be leading an aphasia/dementia group. It is completely different than anything I've ever done so I am ready to get started and see what it is all about.

My goal is to upload worksheets, activities, and resources that I use so that I can share it with others and also document it for my future SLP self. Hopefully I'll stay on top of things.