Testy yet trying

Saturday, May 26, 2012

Holiday Weekend Hiatus

I've been doing daily posts for well over a year now. I enjoy the regular posting, however it is time for a brief hiatus. My cousin, who happens to be Michael's godmother, is in town for the extended holiday weekend. She comes every year to visit for the Memorial Day weekend and we all have a wonderful time. The children love her company and the extra attention. We usually go to the zoo, but the 100 degree temperatures predicted for the weekend may steer us towards indoor pursuits. Whatever we decide to do, it will be fun and relaxing. In the spirit of the holiday and visiting, I am going to skip writing posts until after the visit. I'll be back Wednesday.

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend too!

Friday, May 25, 2012

The Weekly Review: Week 62

SLP Resource of the Week

Adventures in Speech Pathology has great speech picture cards. She has a card set for every sound including s, r, and l blends. Her card sets are more phonemically advanced than mine. Each sound's card set appears to be a one page .pdf with 12 color picture cards. The picture cards are 1-2 syllable words featuring the target sounds in initial, medial, or final position and the words include vocalic /r/ and blends. These cards are free and are great sets to move to when my phonemically simpler sets have been mastered or if you have a child who starts out ready to work at a level above the CV, VC, CVC level. These sets are great and are definitely worth adding to your collection. (And this blog has so many other wonderful materials for both speech and language activities. It would be well worth your time to check out the depth of material she provides.)

Ava, Michael, and the Weekly Project

Ever since my husband finished installing our very own deck level sprinkler park we've spent every evening on the deck. Once the kids have settled in and Ava's stopped insisting that Michael -not- get her wet, they've had a wonderful time. My husband and I sit way on the other side of the deck on the porch swing and just enjoy watching them play. It's been a perfect series of summer evenings.

Ava's and Michael's Weekly Home Therapy Notes

Ava's been working her way through all of her /s/-blends mixed together rather than sorted out. We're also working on /k/ in initial, medial, and final position and /sk/ blends (not mixed in with the rest). She's doing so well. When I think back to all of the variety of cues and scaffolding I needed to do to get a successful blend at the beginning and how exhausted she was after trying just 5-10 words I am amazed that she can zip through 75 in a session with very little cueing now.

Michael is working on /s/ and /f/ in all positions mixed together at the sentence level. He does best with picture cues and I've been trying to figure out a way to give him a wide variety of sentences with picture prompts. I think the flipbook format is going to be the way to go. I made up a test version with initial /s/, but next I'm going to just mix together all of my initial and final /f/ and /s/ cards into one big flipbook.

Weekly Homeschooling

Very little homeschooling went on this week. My husband had the week off in between his old job and the new one he'll start after the holiday and every day has been full to bursting with special projects. We've enjoyed our week together and we'll pick up the homeschooling next week.

Thursday, May 24, 2012

Initial S: Free Speech Therapy Articulation Picture Flipbook

Make Your Own Initial /s/ Flipbook From Free Printable

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.

Description

This is a modification of my free one-syllable initial /s/ card set. The first 5 cards are designed to be subjects placed into the initial position of the flipbook. The next 6 cards are verbs meant to be placed into the second position of the flipbook. The final 19 cards are objects to be placed into the third position in the flipbook. There are a total of 570 different silly sentences containing 2-3 initial /s/ words that can be made using this DIY flipbook.

Directions for Making the Flipbook

Print cards on cardstock and cut apart.
Punch holes in the center top of each card.
Make a cover and back for your flip book using cardboard or two pieces of cardstock glued together. Punch three holes in the top of your cover and back. (Alternately, just put cards into a 3-ring binder.)
Put the subject cards in the first hole and tie in place with string, yarn, dental floss, or anything else you have around that will work. Put the action cards in the center spot and the object cards in the final spot.
Write in some sort of title on the cover and use with students.

You could do this with any of my cardsets. When I had the idea to try to make a flipbook I noticed that most of my cardsets have a few action words and plenty of object words. The sets tend to be light on words that make sense as subjects though. So supplement the subject words you find in any set with the "I, We, You, and They" cards above in first position. Then just sort through the other cards in the set to find additional subject, action, and object words and make as many flipbooks as you'd like.

Permissions

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

Each copy makes clear that I am the document's author.
No copies are altered without my express consent.
No one makes a profit from these copies.
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 flipbook. 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. Other card sets include /p, b, t, d, m, n, h, f, v, k, g, s, l, ch, sh, s-blends, and l-blends/ and more sets are being added regularly.