Creationary Fun

Michael's godfather got him a Lego game called Creationary for a Christmas gift. Essentially the player pulls a card with a picture on it and tries to build that thing out of the included legos. The other players guess until they identify the object and if successful the builder and the player who guesses correctly both get a point.

Michael was super excited about the gift. Oddly enough, he hasn't played it yet though. The visit was busy, and we haven't pulled it out since we got home. However, all the adults played it. A group of 4-8 20-50 year olds played this game and had a great time for several hours two evenings in a row.

I highly recommend this game. It's an imaginative game that engages multiple generations together having a great time.

Car Ride Activities Set 2

In order to prepare for a long car ride with two young children I made as many simple activities as I could think of to pull out in the car. If any of you need to go on a trip with young children you might try these. They would be great activities at home too, but these are pretty portable and so I save them for the car trip.

Car Ride Activities Set 2

Button Snakes

I cut two 10 inch long pieces of ribbon. I sewed a button on one end of each ribbon and a 2 inch by 2 inch square of felt onto the other end of the ribbon. Then I cut a lot of additional 2 x 2 inch felt squares in a variety of colors and snipped a buttonhole into the center of each square. The idea is for the children to thread the squares onto the "snake" and back off. Patterning is optional.

Usborne 100 Things for Little Children to do on a Trip

I bought the Usborne 100 Things for Little Children to do on a Trip card set. I sorted out the easiest cards that I thought my little ones could do (2 and 4 years old) and put the rest away for the next trip. About 1/3 of the cards made the cut. I provided them with dry erase markers and an eraser made from felt and let them draw on the cards and attempt to do the activities.

Geoboards with Shape Cards

My children have never used geoboards before, so I picked up a couple of inexpensive geoboards on Amazon. I used Microsoft publisher to make up some simple shape cards to pass out to the children along with their rubber bands to give them ideas for things they can do with the boards.

___________________

Happy New Year everyone!

If you like these activities, you may be interested in more.

• Car Ride Activities Set 1
• Car Ride Activities Set 3
• Car Ride Activities Set 4
• Car Ride Activities Set 5
• Car Ride Activities Set 6
• Car Ride Activities Set 7
• Busy Bags Revisited

Car Ride Activities Set 1

In order to prepare for a long car ride with two young children I made as many simple activities as I could think of to pull out in the car. If any of you need to go on a trip with young children you might try these. They would be great activities at home too, but these are pretty portable and so I save them for the car trip.

Car Ride Activities Set 1

Matching Nuts, Bolts, and Washers

I bought five matched sets of nuts, bolts, and washers (ok, my husband did, but who's keeping track?). I pushed the five bolts up through a piece of cardboard and taped small magnets to the bottom side of the same piece of cardboard to hold the washers and nuts onto the finished project. I then taped another piece of cardboard onto the bottom to make sure none of the pieces got lost. I traced around the washers to give the children a visual cue as to where to store then when they're working and as an additional matching game. I put dots to show where the magnet storage locations were for the nuts. I kept all the loose pieces in a baggie when they were not actually playing with they toy, but the magnets helped keep the pieces from getting lost in the car when they were playing with it.

Matching Pole

I made four of these. One for each child on the way to New Orleans and one for each child on the way home. I wrote letters on dot stickers and scattered the same letters on a paper towel roll. The idea is to stick the letter sticker onto the matching letter on the pole. I did the same thing for Ava, except for hers I drew simple shapes instead of letters.

Threading - Decorating Can

I took a clean old can (in my case, Carnation Instant Breakfast) and stuck those same circle stickers on the lid and punched holes in the lid/stickers for threading. I cut pipe cleaners in matching colors into thirds for threading through the holes into the can. I covered the outside of the can in white construction paper and then contact paper. I put stickers in the cans so the children can decorate their cans (Cars for him and Hello Kitty for her). So the activity consists of decorating their can with stickers and then threading the pipe cleaners into the matching holes. In the dark, glow sticks can be placed in the can (or threaded if they are the right size) and then the light will glow up through the holes in the lid making stars on the ceiling of the car.

If you like these activities, you may be interested in more.

• Car Ride Activities Set 2
• Car Ride Activities Set 3
• Car Ride Activities Set 4
• Car Ride Activities Set 5
• Car Ride Activities Set 6
• Car Ride Activities Set 7
• Busy Bags Revisited

The Weekly Review: Week 41

This week's brief Weekly Review is sponsored by the holidays and being hundreds of miles from home. Wish us luck on our 12-14 hour ride home tomorrow.

Website of the Week

Another great website I discovered recently is Art Projects for Kids which is a blog written by an elementary school art teacher. Again, I just went months and months back in her archives finding tons of great art projects to do with my little ones.

Highlight of the Week

Family. Really, that is what the winter holiday time is about for me. We had two wonderful days spent with both parents focused on the children and with hours and hours of bonus grandparent time. Then we traveled to spend even more time with extended family. Yes, I enjoyed choosing special gifts for special people and watching them open those gifts, but mostly I just enjoyed the time spent with family. I watched my son spend hours building his first big Lego set with his father. I played music with my own father (Dad on the piano and me on the children's new glockenspiel). Ava was delighted with her new big girl backpack and carried her new Hello Kitty stuffed animal around in it everywhere. We sat down for two big family meals and the children are old enough that the focus was on lively conversation rather than just the mechanics of feeding two small children. It was all lovely and I hope you all had amazing holidays as well.

Ava and Michael this Week

Michael is long and lean and looking so much like a little boy these days rather than a big toddler. He's taken to talking to his sister like I do. I didn't realize how often I say, "Ava, baby..." until he starting copying me. Wow, that sure sounds condescending coming from a 4-year old. Ava lets me get away with it, but whenever her brother tries she corrects him saying, "I'm not a baby."

Ava got a kids camera for Christmas and loved it. At first, she just held on to it clicking the picture button as quickly as possible. Then she noticed the viewscreen and would get about half an inch from her intended target and attempt to take pictures that way. After a while, I noticed her slowing down and really watching her viewscreen. She'd start up close, and then back away actually framing a shot before taking her picture. She would then switch to the review pictures mode and check out the pictures she had taken to see the results before taking more. I think I have a budding photographer on my hands.

P Simple Sentence: Free Speech Therapy Articulation Picture Cards

Description

This articulation card set is designed to be an extension of my single-syllable cards sets. The focus is still on simple /p/ words, but this time the pictures are more complex to facilitate simple phrases or sentences (3-4 words). Sentence/phrase suggestions are provided on the back of each card. As much as possible the sentences are kept simple as well using mostly early emerging consonants. The target audience for these cards are children with severe speech delays who have mastered sounds at the single-syllable level, but need practice incorporating those words into phrases. No blends or vocalic /r/ sounds are included in this set. (Scroll down to preview set.)

Key Features

• This set includes 24 therapy cards with the picture on the front and two simple phrases or sentences on the back. The /p/ words are printed in bold and include initial /p/, final /p/ and some simple two-syllable /p/ words.
• The words are CV, VC, CVC or CVCV in syllable shape.
• The vast majority of the words included feature early emerging consonants and simple syllable shapes.
• The words are simple and are easily understood by or easily taught to young children.

Permissions

I give permission to copy, print, or distribute this card set provided that:

1. Each copy makes clear that I am the document's author.
2. No copies are altered without my express consent.
3. No one makes a profit from these copies.
4. Electronic copies contain a live link back to my original and print copies not for merely personal use contain the URL of my original.

Looking for Feedback

I would love to hear back from anyone who uses this card set. Let me know if you find errors or there is anything you would change. Comment on this page, or send me an email at testyyettrying(at)gmail(dot)com.

Where can I find more?

More sets are on my Free Speech Therapy Articulation Cards page.

Card Sets

To download click on the image to open it full size. Then right click on the image, choose "save as" and save the page to your computer.

I recommend you print on cardstock and laminate for durability.

Busy Book - Simple Button Flowers Page

I wanted to incorporate buttons somewhere into my busy book. I saw this simple flower page and thought it was adorable. I've seen much more complex button flower pages, but this one was simple (and therefore quicker) and super cute at the same time. So, I pretty much copied it.

Busy Book / Quiet Book Page - Simple Button Flowers Page

I cut out all the pieces and attached the sun, flower stems, and petals first. Then I sewed on the buttons. The flowers are simple two layer circles. I taught myself how to use the buttonhole feature on my sewing machine (much easier than I expected) and put button holes in the two-layer felt circles. Then I used my pinking shears to jazz up the edges of two of the flowers and finally sewed the edges together with a simple circle.

Busy Book - Simple Lock and Key Page

I originally had grand plans for my lock & key page. I thought about a treasure chest scene or a locked heart scene. In the end, I decided to go for quick and simple since I was trying to get as many pages done as possible before the trip.

Busy Book / Quiet Book Page - Simple Lock & Key Page

I superglued the padlock to one end of a ribbon and then attached the other end to the page. Next I attached the key. Then, I decided to add D-rings to give the children something to attach the padlock to. Simple and done.

Initial L: Free Speech Therapy Articulation Picture Cards

Description

These articulation picture card sets are designed to be more comprehensive than the typical sets you might find elsewhere. The target audience for these sets are young children or children with more severe speech delays that need intensive practice with sounds at a one-syllable level. No blends or vocalic /r/ sounds are included in these sets. (Scroll down to preview set.)

Key Features

• This set includes 30 therapy cards with the target word and picture on the front, and the difficulty level and a carrier phrase on the back.
• The words are all CV or CVC in syllable shape.
• The words are simple and are easily understood by or easily taught to young children.
• Combines the target sound with all possible vowel sounds at least once.
• Words are sorted by difficulty level for an easy progression from easy to hard.

Permissions

I give permission to copy, print, or distribute this card set provided that:

1. Each copy makes clear that I am the document's author.
2. No copies are altered without my express consent.
3. No one makes a profit from these copies.
4. Electronic copies contain a live link back to my original and print copies not for merely personal use contain the URL of my original.

Looking for Feedback

I would love to hear back from anyone who uses this card set. Let me know if you find errors or there is anything you would change. Comment on this page, or send me an email at testyyettrying(at)gmail(dot)com.

Where can I find more?

More sets are on my Free Speech Therapy Articulation Cards page.

Card Sets

To download click on the image to open it full size. Then right click on the image, choose "save as" and save the page to your computer.

I recommend you print on cardstock and laminate for durability.

Happy Holidays 2011

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to everyone. I hope you are all having a wonderful day with family and friends.

We're spending the morning with our children. They are having their first year where they are both old enough to enjoy the magic of Santa and yet young enough to be completely sweet, innocent, and expectation-free about the experience. This is a nice year.

We will have lunch and spend the afternoon with my parents and simply enjoy the time together.

At the same time we are preparing for our annual trip to New Orleans to visit family. I am excited. I love seeing my extended family. I love watching our children get to know their extended family better with every visit. I also simply enjoy being back in New Orleans. In many ways it is still "home" to me.

The end of December is always a wonderful time.

Busy Book - Barn and Finger Puppet Animals Page

This page was a little more time intensive than I originally intended, but I'm hoping that the children will really enjoy the finger puppets.

Busy Book / Quiet Book Page - Barn

This is a barn with doors that open to show a stall used to store farm animal finger puppets. I also made five finger puppets - horse, cow, pig, chicken, and duck.

The Weekly Review: Week 40

Website of the Week

I have enjoyed exploring A Little Learning for Two. Almost every post has a great activity for little ones. This mom is super creative and I found a lot of new ideas on her blog. I just kept working my way back through her archives filing away idea after idea.

The Weekly Project

You would think that this week would involve panicking about holiday preparations. Instead I realized that in less than a week I'm going to be travelling for at least 24-28 hours (12 or more each way) in a car with two very young children. Therefore, every spare moment this week I've been preparing car friendly activities. I've done a few more busy/quiet book pages, and prepped some other activities as well.

Illness Week

This week's highlight was Ava getting sick on the last morning I would have had on my own to get some work done before the holidays. Instead, the two of us spent an entire day camped out on blankets and towels in front of the television. Poor girl was so nauseous she wouldn't even eat a goldfish cracker. I'm pretty sure she at nothing other than a single bite of a saltine all day. Fortunately, she was on the mend the next day and back to normal on the third day.

Ava and Michael this Week

Pretend play has arrived. This week, mostly at Michael's prompting, the children have played squinkie school. They've also had sleepovers. They played superheros complete with capes made from blankets. They were the parents of a sick baby. They brought her to the doctor (me) in a car made from a laundry basket. Michael informed me that the baby had a torn eardrum. I pretended that a funnel was an otoscope and peered into the baby doll's ear to confirm his diagnosis. I wrote out a prescription on a piece of paper and sent the little family back in their car to the pharmacy (again, me). I then filled the prescription with a medicine spoon and empty medicine bottle and they drove off to Ava's room where I overheard them dispensing medicine to their baby. Then Michael came back down for more medicine and told me they gave it all to the baby. I explained the concept of overdose and gently suggested that perhaps they needed more because they had accidentally spilled it? He thought that was a great explanation and brought his new bottle of medicine upstairs. I'm pretty sure that bottle got "spilled" several more times before they moved on to a new game. I adore all the pretend play and hope that this is just the beginning.

Busy Book - Fasteners Page

Now that our holiday car trip is less than a week away I am trying to finish a few more busy / quiet book pages. I am no longer focusing on perfect, beautiful, or unique. Instead my focus is on relatively quick with good play value in the car.

For those of you who don't know, a busy book (or quiet book) is a homemade book where each page or two-page spread is designed to be an activity.

Earlier in the fall I made several pages, and then abandoned the project for a while. These are the pages I had finished before:

• Shapes Page
• Caterpillar Patterns and Numbers Page
• Phonics Pockets Page
• Underwater Bead Maze Page
• Apple Tree Page
• Chalkboard Two-Page Spread

Busy Book / Quiet Book Fasteners

For this page I bought several types of fasteners at a craft store. I attached straps to the three that didn't come with one and then attached them to the page. Done. I'm hoping this one will interest the children, but I'm afraid that several of these will still be too hard for now.

Why, oh why? (Or one of the fundamental truths of parenthood.)

My children go to school only two mornings a week. I get four blessed hours of time to myself on those days. Much of my sanity lies in those hours. The other five days a week they are at home.

Therefore, one of the fundamental truths of parenthood dictates that the stomach bug will hit on a school morning - always. The universe gets bonus points if it happens on the last school morning before winter break.

(Note the pitifully listless child, carefully positioned bowl, towels laid down to protect the carpet, minimal clothing to get dirty, and hair pulled back. What you can't see is the television I am letting her watch in order to keep her in the safe-puking zone.)

Final SH: Free Speech Therapy Articulation Picture Cards

Description

These articulation picture card sets are designed to be more comprehensive than the typical sets you might find elsewhere. The target audience for these sets are young children or children with more severe speech delays that need intensive practice with sounds at a one-syllable level. No blends or vocalic /r/ sounds are included in these sets. (Scroll down to preview set.)

Key Features

• This set includes 18 therapy cards with the target word and picture on the front, and the difficulty level and a carrier phrase on the back.
• The words are all VC or CVC in syllable shape.
• The words are simple and are easily understood by or easily taught to young children.
• Combines the target sound with all possible vowel sounds at least once.
• Words are sorted by difficulty level for an easy progression from easy to hard.

Permissions

I give permission to copy, print, or distribute this card set provided that:

1. Each copy makes clear that I am the document's author.
2. No copies are altered without my express consent.
3. No one makes a profit from these copies.
4. Electronic copies contain a live link back to my original and print copies not for merely personal use contain the URL of my original.

Looking for Feedback

I would love to hear back from anyone who uses this card set. Let me know if you find errors or there is anything you would change. Comment on this page, or send me an email at testyyettrying(at)gmail(dot)com.

Where can I find more?

More sets are on my Free Speech Therapy Articulation Cards page.

Card Sets

To download click on the image to open it full size. Then right click on the image, choose "save as" and save the page to your computer.

I recommend you print on cardstock and laminate for durability.

Initial SH: Free Speech Therapy Articulation Picture Cards

Description

These articulation picture card sets are designed to be more comprehensive than the typical sets you might find elsewhere. The target audience for these sets are young children or children with more severe speech delays that need intensive practice with sounds at a one-syllable level. No blends or vocalic /r/ sounds are included in these sets. (Scroll down to preview set.)

Key Features

• This set includes 24 therapy cards with the target word and picture on the front, and the difficulty level and a carrier phrase on the back.
• The words are all CV or CVC in syllable shape.
• The words are simple and are easily understood by or easily taught to young children.
• Combines the target sound with all possible vowel sounds at least once.
• Words are sorted by difficulty level for an easy progression from easy to hard.

Permissions

I give permission to copy, print, or distribute this card set provided that:

1. Each copy makes clear that I am the document's author.
2. No copies are altered without my express consent.
3. No one makes a profit from these copies.
4. Electronic copies contain a live link back to my original and print copies not for merely personal use contain the URL of my original.

Looking for Feedback

I would love to hear back from anyone who uses this card set. Let me know if you find errors or there is anything you would change. Comment on this page, or send me an email at testyyettrying(at)gmail(dot)com.

Where can I find more?

More sets are on my Free Speech Therapy Articulation Cards page.

Card Sets

To download click on the image to open it full size. Then right click on the image, choose "save as" and save the page to your computer.

I recommend you print on cardstock and laminate for durability.

Cricut Christmas Cards

The children received their homemade Cricut Christmas Cards a couple of days ago. First they were surprised by Halloween cards. Then they were delighted to receive Thanksgiving cards. This time, as soon as they saw their matching envelopes in the mail they were excited. The cards are adorable, as usual. The messages inside are sweet. Our entire family enjoys receiving them. It is a beautiful gift. Thanks again to Ava's godfather and his girlfriend for their thoughtfulness. It is much appreciated.

Our Special Education Eligibility Evaluation

Ava's eligibility evaluation was Thursday morning. The family was up and my husband took care of feeding and dressing the children while I sneaked in a shower. I was about to pull on my usual jeans and a t-shirt when this article popped into my head. Essentially it says that women are judged to be more competent when wearing makeup. I realized that I wanted to be seen as a professional SLP today in addition to simply Ava's mother. So, I dug out my dusty professional clothes from the closet and slapped on a little makeup. I also made sure that Ava was dressed nicely and I fixed her hair. First impressions can be important.

We left early and got there in plenty of time. We were at least 20 minutes early for our appointment. That gave me time to take Ava to the bathroom before we got started. (And yet she asked to be taken back to the bathroom three more times during the evaluation!) They took us back into their examination room which was a room set up almost like a preschool classroom. It had a small child-sized table and chairs and shelves of toys. It had a kitchen play area, block play area, doll play area, etc. It also had an adult-sized table and chairs set up along one wall and a large closet with an open door with another child-sized table in it.

Ava and I were allowed to play by ourselves in the room for at least 10 minutes before the first examiner (case manager) came in. She integrated herself into our play for about 10 minutes before another examiner (the child psychologist) came in. At that point, the case manager and I went over to the adult table to do a case history while the child psychologist played with Ava. The SLP came in shortly after that and joined Ava's play while I did a behavioral evaluation with the child psychologist. During that time, the SLP took Ava into the closet to do a formal speech test. At that point, the evaluation team left the room to score their tests and presumably discuss eligibility while I played with Ava some more.

During that time I spoke briefly with an OT, but most of Ava's sensory issues have responded very well to our First Steps therapy and it is no longer a significant area of concern although we will continue to monitor the situation.

The team was super efficient. All of this had taken only about an hour and a half. The team was good at what they did. They were respectful, and listened carefully to everything I had to say. They asked good questions. They were great with Ava and I felt like they got an accurate idea of her current level of performance. I thought their setup and organization was excellent and a wonderful way of conducting a comprehensive evaluation. Ava and I were never separated so they did not need to deal with anxiety issues, and yet they managed to get what they needed from both of us.

Although I was impressed with the team's competence, interest, concern, and friendliness and felt like they had gotten a comprehensive and accurate assessment of Ava and a comprehensive interview with me, I was not optimistic when they left to score and discuss. I honestly felt like Ava had done too well. The SLP commented in amazement multiple times during the session that Ava's sentences were at least 5-7 words in length. The team members didn't have much trouble understanding her because everything they were discussing with her was in context and the only formal speech test they gave her was at the single-word level.

I wished I had emphasized more that Ava's intelligibility tanks when we don't have context. I wished I had remembered to mention how I struggle to understand her when we're in the car and I can't see her face and have no idea what she's talking about. I wished I had mentioned how much we had worked for all the progress she had made so far. It isn't like she just magically improved over the year since she qualified for early intervention. She worked hard to improve. I worked hard to help her. She worked with a lot of therapists. There is no reason to expect her to continue to make progress if therapy suddenly stops on her third birthday (not that I would let that happen.)

After perhaps a 15 or 20 minute wait, the team came back into the room. They didn't make me wait. They told me right away that they did decide to qualify her. I appreciated that. Not only that she qualified after all, but that they told me right away. Then we discussed the results of the evaluation. She no longer has any other areas of concerns besides speech. It is difficult to qualify a young child on speech alone. They made that determination on "professional judgement". Apparently during the interview I had mentioned that I had concerns about her intelligibility and that she experienced frustration when she was unable to communicate. I think the obvious discrepancy between her high pre-academic and receptive and expressive language skills and her delayed speech was helpful too. So, she qualified for services as a "Young Child with a Developmental Delay."

I don't have the official evaluation report yet, but I did manage to see the results of her articulation assessment. 15th percentile. I suppose that's better than the 7th percentile we got 7 months ago it was still disappointing. Even with all the progress she has made, her speech intelligibility at the single word level is still worse that 85% of children her age. And that's at the single word level. It would be even worse in connected speech.

I spent months, MONTHS worrying about this one day. I was so anxious about this evaluation. I built it up in my mind to be a huge deal. Ultimately it was a couple of hours of something Ava thought was pretty fun. And in the end, the evaluation went well.

And because my daughter comes by her contrary nature honestly, I now have somewhat mixed feelings about her qualifying. Do I really want her to be officially labeled? Would we perhaps have been better off just treating her here at home and avoiding the label? I don't think so. The help is valuable. I can only make the best decisions possible at any given time with the information currently available.

IEP (date to be determined) will be held within 30 days. Guess I need to start thinking about what I want, and how best to advocate for it.

The Weekly Review: Week 39

Interesting Online Article of the Week

A New York Times blogger discusses an interesting study. You think your child is willfully ignoring you when playing. Instead, they may genuinely not hear you.

The Weekly Project

I dove back into cardsets this week. I am enjoying being able to work with Ava in a regular and structured manner and I needed some new cardsets to address my current objectives. So I made and shared some.

Crazy Week

This has been a stressful week. My parents have been out of town and we are dog sitting their two chihuahuas. My wonderful mother usually helps with picking the children up from their two different preschools, but she could not do that when away. I've been sick. And of course, Ava's evaluation was this week. However, even with all of that, the week has gone by swiftly and the evaluation day was oddly anticlimactic (more on that later).

The Weekly Vent

So I'm an Amazon Prime Member. Essentially I pay an annual fee to get free 2-day shipping on all orders for a year (plus a few other perks). I ordered a Christmas present for one of the children 10 days ago. Today it dropped in price by almost $30 dollars. $30!!! Now that's enough of a drop that I'm willing to pay to ship the original gift back and rebuy one at the lower price. After all, shipping on the new one is free for me.

However, that seemed silly. Why should I pay to ship one back, and Amazon pay to ship me a new one when they could simply credit me with the price difference? I was perfectly willing to take a credit rather than a refund. I was also willing to let them deduct one set of shipping costs. I managed to get a customer service agent on a live chat to discuss the issue.

They wouldn't even consider it. Their policy is to not refund price drops. Period. Even if it is ultimately going to cost them more money to refund my original purchase, to pay to ship me another one (2-Day shipping at that), and to pay someone to restock the original item. They still wouldn't even discuss offering me a credit or acknowledge that my argument made sense. The customer service agent simply cut and pasted their price drop policy without even discussing my specific situation or argument. He did helpfully point out that I was welcome to return the item.

So, I politely thanked the agent for his time, shut down the chat window, and bought the new one. As soon as the box arrives, I'm going to open it up, remove the invoice, stick in my return order authorization, and ship it right back to them for my refund keeping the original one I already unpacked.

Rarely am I disappointed in Amazon, but this time I certainly was. It's just wasteful.

Ava and Michael this Week

This week the children have been doing something new and irritating interesting. They are both trying to talk to me simultaneously. They are upset that the other child is stealing my attention and each handles it slightly differently. Michael just wordlessly whines at an ever increasing volume until my attention returns to him. Ava will chant "excuse me" over and over and over until she gets my attention. This simultaneous whiny neediness sends my blood pressure skyrocketing and I usually choose whichever child I feel initiated the conversation first and focus my eye contact and attention on that one after telling the other I will be with them in a minute and holding a finger up to try to put that one on "pause" until the chosen one can get their message out.

If I step back from the high emotions generated in all three of us, it probably looks hilarious to anyone watching.

Today is the day.

Later this morning Ava and I will be at her evaluation. By this evening we should know if we'll continue to receive services after her birthday or if we'll be on our own. Wish us luck.

I'm trying to keep a win-win outlook about this situation. If she doesn't qualify, that'll be because she's made more progress than I could have possibly imagined a year ago. Now that we have a good rhythm going with therapy at home, I can probably handle working with her myself for a while. We also have the advantage of working with a local apraxia expert twice a month who is guiding me on what to work on in between sessions with her. So even if we don't qualify, I have a plan. And it is a plan I can live with.

Apraxia Therapy Materials: Kids Express Train Set 1 - Therapy Music

Therapy Materials Review: Kids Express Train Set 1 (KET Set 1)

This is a review of The Kids Express Train Set 1 (referred to from here on as KET Set 1 for short) created by Rachel Arntson, M.S., CCC-SLP. Rachel was generous enough to provide me with a complimentary copy of this set to review. At it's core, this product is music. It is therapy music. The KET Set 1 comes with two music CDs, a CD-ROM of therapy resources, and a manual.

Target audience

I'd say this music would be most appropriate for children between the ages of 12 months and 5 years of age. The music could certainly be listened to by younger and older children, but in a therapeutic setting I see it being used most with toddlers and preschoolers. There are always exceptions where the kit might be appropriate for older children.

The music and materials would be useful to therapists providing services in a clinic, school or home setting, and also to parents in the home. The music has a wide enough appeal that it could also easily be enjoyed in a preschool or daycare classroom as well.

Description of the Kids Express Train Set 1

This set contains two music CDs with 30 tracks. There are 25 unique songs with lyrics and 5 additional instrumental versions of some of the tracks. The set also contains a manual and a CD-ROM with additional materials. These songs are composed at a slightly slower rate and in a key that is high enough for young children to easily sing along. Adults and children are singing together and the cue, "Your turn." is built into each song. Each song provides many opportunities for children to imitate, often in sets of three repetitions. The topics covered by the songs and vocabulary used in the songs are accessible to young children.

• Imitation Station - CD1 The goal of Imitation Station is to encourage verbal imitation through singing with music and rhythm. There are 13 songs on this CD. I will list the song titles and the primary therapeutic objective of each song. I will also link to a song sample when available.
  
  
  1. Express Train - taking turns talking
  2. Animals - animal sounds
  3. Puppy, Puppy, Puppy - actions / puppy sounds
  4. Noisy, Noisy, Noisy - making noises
  5. Monkey Song - vowels / actions
  6. Dump and Fill - concepts of in and out
  7. Owie - actions / common vocabulary
  8. Milk and Juice - foods and choice questions (Sample here. Scroll down a bit until you get to the KET Set 1 section to find song sample.)
  9. Baby Blowing Bubbles - words / phrases (Sample here. Scroll down a bit until you get to the KET Set 1 section to find song sample.)
  10. Put the Sound on the End - ends of words
  11. Barefoot Toes - two-syllable words/phrases
  12. Go in My Car - vowels and the word, "go"
  13. Bye, Bye - two-word phrases / common objects
  
  The manual provides a brief description and 2-4 simple activities for every song on this CD. The CD-ROM has .pdf files that provide additional resources all of which can be printed (in both color or black and white). Those resources are:
  
  • Lyrics for all songs.
  • A list of speech and language goals and the specific songs that can be used to address them. Some language examples include action words and motor imitation (tracks 3, 5) and daily routines and social stories (tracks 6, 7). Phonemic awareness is addressed in track 10. Some of the speech goals include noises and animal sounds (tracks 2, 3, 4) and vowels/vowel combinations (tracks 5, 12).
  • A song request sheet. This sheet is like a pictorial table of contents. You print it and the child can choose which song they want to hear.
  • Follow-along sheets. These sheets are single or multi page sheets with the lyrics and pictures printed out to help the adult/child follow along with the song visually and sing along. (Available for all tracks except 6, 7, and 11.)
  • Flashcards. Some of the songs have the images from the follow-along sheets blown up into flash cards. (Available for tracks 3, 10, and 13.)
  • Activity sheets. These are fairly simple activity sheets available for about half of the tracks. They are more like a visual prompt for an activity rather than a worksheet designed to be completed with pencil and paper.
  
• Vocalocomotion - CD2 The goal of Vocalocomotion is to encourage verbal imitation through speaking with music and rhythm. There are 17 songs on this CD. The first 12 tracks are original (with one repeated at a slower pace) and the final 5 are instrumental only versions of a few of the first 12. I will list the song titles and the primary therapeutic objective of each song. I will also link to a song sample when available.
  
  
  1. Express Train - two-syllable combinations
  2. Hi - two-word phrases
  3. The New BMW - B, M, W in syllables (Sample here. Scroll down a bit until you get to the KET Set 1 section to find song sample.)
  4. Tongue Tip Time - T, D, N in syllables
  5. Let's Eat - foods
  6. Yee Haw - Animals / sounds
  7. Bath Time - body parts / bath words
  8. Hi - slow version - two-word phrases (Sample here. Scroll down a bit until you get to the KET Set 1 section to find song sample.)
  9. Row Your Boat - interaction song
  10. Put Them On - clothes
  11. Bouncy, Bouncy, Bouncy - interaction song
  12. Instrumental of The New BMW
  13. Instrumental of Let's Eat
  14. Instrumental of Yee Haw
  15. Instrumental of Hi
  16. Instrumental of Gonna Get You
  
  The manual provides a brief description and 2-4 simple activities for every song on this CD. The CD-ROM has .pdf files that provide additional resources all of which can be printed (in both color or black and white). Those resources are:
  
  • Lyrics for all songs.
  • A list of speech and language goals and the specific songs that can be used to address them. Some language examples include action words and motor imitation (track 12) and daily routines and social stories (track 7). Early emerging speech sounds in syllables are addressed (tracks 3, 4).
  • A song request sheet. This sheet is like a pictorial table of contents. You print it and the child can choose which song they want to hear.
  • Follow-along sheets. These sheets are single or multi page sheets with the lyrics and pictures printed out to help the adult/child follow along with the song visually and sing along. (Available for all tracks except 4.)
  • Flashcards. Some of the songs have the images from the follow-along sheets blown up into flash cards. (Available for tracks 2 and 8.)
  • Activity sheets. These are fairly simple activity sheets available for about half of the tracks. They are more like a visual prompt for an activity rather than a worksheet designed to be completed with pencil and paper.

How to Use the Kids Express Train Set 1

I think these songs can be useful in a wide variety of situations:

• Minimally verbal children - use the songs targeting animal sounds to try to get verbalizations.
• Children who are having difficulty imitating - music can often help you get children who are reluctant or unable to imitate in more structured therapy to verbalize.
• Home practice - this is wonderful for the car, or during a music time at home. Children are getting in speech practice while listening to music.
• Integrated intervention - If you are a school therapist doing any intervention in the regular classroom these songs would be ideal whole class activities.
• Individual or Small Group Therapy - These songs could be used as the core of a therapy lesson. Choose one or two songs and design your lesson around the song. Play the song two or three times during the session and use the activity pages.

Pros and Cons of the Kids Express Train Set 1

Pros:
The music is a wonderful therapy tool. The songs address a wide variety of early speech and language goals while providing you with a completely different type of activity to do with children.

The kit is applicable to a wide variety of settings and situations. It can be used with minimally verbal or even nonverbal children, children with early language goals, and children working on early speech production goals (early emerging consonants, single and multi-syllable utterances, two-word phrases, etc.). It can be used in the home, in a clinic or private practice, or in the schools.

The songs are also really catchy and well produced. My children, husband, and I all genuinely enjoyed listening to and singing along with the music. The children listened to several tracks two or three times in a row at their request the first time we listened to the CDs.

Cons:
The set is a little pricey at $39.99, but it is a pretty reasonable cost for two full CD's of therapy music plus goals/objectives and activity suggestions for each song. You also get several printables for each song as well.

It could be easy to get caught up in the music and forget to focus on getting enough speech repetitions from the kids. Some of the songs are heavy on participation from the kids and some are light. You'll want to balance the fun and usefulness of the music while still being focused on getting enough actual speech productions from your students.

Bottom Line

I like the KET Set 1 a lot. I would definitely recommend it as a great therapy resource to have for your practice.


There is a coupon code for the site. It is for $5 off any order. The code is KET201102.