Simple DIY Speech Warm-up Teacher Will Thank You For

Grab a piece of cardstock, a sharpie, a few jumbo craft sticks, and some tape. In about five minutes you'll have a speech warm-up that classroom teachers will thank you for.

Fold the cardstock to make a sleeve for the craft stick and tape together. For your initial sound warm-ups, position the sleeve to the left and write your initial phoneme on the end of the sleeve that you'll insert the stick into. Then write several word endings on the stick. As the child moves the stick back and forth they'll create several target words to practice and at the same time they're getting some phonics practice in as well.

For the final phonemes, position the sleeve to the right. Feel free to use the back of the same stick you just used for an initial phoneme. Write a word ending that ends with your target sound on the edge of the sleeve closest to the end in which the stick is placed. Then write several initial sounds that work with that ending to make a word. Now the child is practicing several words that end with your target sound and practicing word families at the same time.

It took me less than five minutes to make these. You could easily make a small set of these for each group you work with by taking just a few minutes before your session. Alternately, make them as a group project and send them home for practice. Children would have a lot of fun making these if you gave them several colors of papers and pens to choose from when making them.

Free Mini-Set of Opposites Picture Cards

Ava has discovered opposites and is taking great delight in being quizzed on opposites and quizzing others in return. She inspired me to search through all of my speech cards to find a few opposites and make her a mini opposites card set.

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.

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.

Homeschooling on the Go

Although both of my children are currently enrolled in preschool five mornings a week, I have been flirting with the idea of homeschooling for quite some time. Last spring, after a lot of research, I purchased a math program and a reading program to try with the children over the summer. I wanted to get a taste of what homeschooling might be like in our home.

Ava had just turned three and it was just a little too soon. We were having fun, but it felt early and a little too much work for children so young. So I put it aside for a while. When I realized that Michael and I would be spending 50 minutes in a waiting room twice a week this fall while Ava is in her speech group I decided to pull the materials back out.

For the first six weeks I've been winging it preparing for each lesson during the hour before I had to leave the house to pick up the children. Last week I got organized. Everything fits into a small bag along with Ava's speech binder. I keep the bag hanging in the coat closet in between uses and grab it on my way out the door.

Inside the bag I keep Ava's speech binder and Michael's Homeschooling binder. There's also our abacus, the books we are working on, and our pencil bag of accessories. Inside the binder I have a math section which includes the reinforcement chart I made and the next several RightStart Math lesson plans. A handwriting section contains the first several pages I copied from our HWT workbook. The reading section contains the free worksheets you can download from the Usborne Very First Reading website. I also keep the flashcards I made from their free downloadable word bank in the accessories case. All of the math manipulatives are also kept in the pencil bag. In one bag I have everything I need to do a math, reading, and handwriting lesson on the go.

Michael and I really have a lot of fun during our 45 minute homeschooling lessons. I have to say, so far I'm still leaning towards homeschooling next fall, but I won't be making a final decision until the end of the school year (or possibly the end of next summer).