Speech Spies

Our school-wide theme this year is Mission: POSSIBLE!  It is derived from Ron Clark's book entitled "The End of Molasses Classes."  The basic premise is that there are many things that we wish we could do with our students, but many of them are just impossible.  Ron Clark challenges us to think about what is POSSIBLE.  It was a very motivating and thought-provoking book.  As public school SLP's, I am sure that many of us have felt it is impossible to do our job.  Well, I have new motivation and inspiration!

I love themes!  I love to plan parties, plan units around narratives and holidays.  So, naturally, I jumped on board the "spy" theme.  In my speech room, we are going to be Speech Spies!  Each student is going to receive a "mission" that will have their own individual "target" on it.  Each student will write their own "target" on their sheet, with my help, of course.  Their target may be to produce the /s/ sound in all positions at the sentence level, or to produce /r/ in a 5 minute conversation with 3 errors or less, or be able to state categories, synonyms, antonyms, etc...  Their mission is to obtain their target with at least 80% accuracy by November 16, 2012.  This date was chosen because it is the last day of the first trimester - just before progress reports are sent out!  Handy, huh!?  Our school is set up on the trimester system, so we will do this three times during the year.  These missions will be displayed, in secret envelopes, on a bulletin board in my room.  Hopefully, this will help them remember what they are working on.  :)

I hope you enjoy these, as much as I enjoyed making them.  :) 
Speech Spy Target Sheet

Speech Spy Bulletin BoardSpeech Spies Header
Agent Mission Envelope
We are going to put our "missions" in individual envelopes addressed to each student, or "agent."  They will stay in the file folder until we assess their mission in November.   I just downloaded the Mission Impossible font and printed out envelopes.
Agent Envelope  These are the folders that the mission envelopes will be placed in.  Agency No.1 is first grade, and so on.
Spy Agency Folders
Agency Folders

A New Year is a good time to start....AGAIN

I have been mulling this blog over and over in my mind.  I would love to have a place to refer parents for homework activities, educational materials, and links to all the amazing places out there in cyber world to help their children.  I just don't know if I have the time that it takes.  I follow a few other blogs and they are posting freebies everyday of games and ideas they are doing in their rooms.  I don't think I can do that... yet.

I think I am going to start by providing some links.  The first one is Mommy Speech Therapy This is a great site simply because of it's ease to use.  The website is easy to navigate, and instructions are very parent-friendly.  For homework ideas, click on "worksheets," and then you can select the sound the child is working on.  A variety of worksheets will be available to click on.  For example, a child may be working on /g/ in the middle or medial position.  Click on the one you would like, and VOILA!  You have pictures to practice, and games to play.  Print out two copies for a matching game or Go Fish!  I hope this is helpful, and Thanks to Mommy Speech Therapy!

The Skeleton in the Closet

For the past couple of weeks in our language groups for we have been working on a narrative unit using the book "The Skeleton in the Closet."

Welcome to the Speech Spot!

I have wanted to create a blog like this for quite a while, but.... okay... I have no excuses except for perhaps the lack of time.  I would like to create a place where parents of students receiving speech/language therapy can go for additional homework, resources, and information.  I am also hoping for other speech pathologists to contribute their resources and ideas as well. 

This is a new journey, but I hope you come along with me as we learn together.  :-)

Kim