Rise & Grind {+ summer multipurpose "Go-Fish" freebie}

Hello, hello. Wakey wakey! It's Thursday and we only have one more day left this week; almost there!

I literally have 15 minutes to type this before I have to start getting ready to be out the door for sessions so here was yesterday in a nutshell.

I did 7 sessions and spent the morning starting to organize my ish at home. Which consists of about a bazillion worksheets and resource materials that are finally starting to have a place in their own labeled file folders, making life way easier for me.

Protocols and artic materials.

Soon enough, as it always happens, I ran out of time and jolted for the door, where I had some new stickers, a PLS-5 Spanish and my favorite chocolate chip, bunny-shaped graham crackers by Annie's Organics waiting for me. I literally shove these in my mouth as I'm driving around town. 

Today I have 6 kiddos and a lot of different goals to target; that's why I made these new multi-purpose Summer "Go Fish" cards. You can target color recognition, bilabial/alveolar/velar letter and sound recognition (or letter recognition), "do" questions, social interaction skills, blah blah blah. And I made 'em free in my TpT if you'd like to give 'em a try! Let me know how they work out for you. Click the pic below to find them in my store. 

Multi-Purpose Summer "Go Fish" Cards

That's all I got for ya today! Stay cool out there. 

- LD

Sank/Sunk, Whatever

Okay I'm back for a second post of the day with a really easy activity and FREE printable you can do to work on summertime verbs and past tense!

Sometimes you get really excited about an activity and then begin second-guessing it completely, like I did today. Whew. Dodged a bullet there.

The game is basically the whole "throw stuff in a bucket and see whether it sinks or floats" situation, and very simple to tote around.

All you'll need is:

A bucket
Water
A "surprise" bag filled with various age-appropriate toys; I included balls of different weights, cars, plastic eggs, pennies, etc.

I first introduced the visuals (flashcards included in the download) for "sank" and "floated" and explained the difference, how some things stay at the top of the water and some go to the bottom. We talked about how generally things that are heavy will sink and things that are lighter will float. Which led me to a very philosophical question...am I holding on to things that are too heavy that one day may cause me to sink? 

Alright, LD. Let's take a moment. Refocus.

Anyways, my kids thought it was hilarious to drop things into the bowl and pull them back out while getting their hands and clothes a little wet (which I attempted to minimize). I mostly focused on language scripting with my little ones such as "put it in", or with a more advanced kiddo, "I put it in the bowl." I also let them play in the water with the object and just have fun while exploring the different properties going on in there.

For my oldest kid (who is exiting kindergarten), we filled in the following worksheet and then read each sentence back. He loved being able to spell several of the words independently (car, ball, etc.) and then it was great to work on sight words/sound correspondences as part of targeting past tense for my own purposes. Triple/quadtruple win!

Grab the visuals and sentence structuring worksheet for free HERE in my TpT store! 

*Updated June 3rd to include Spanish versions of both the worksheet and visuals!*

And just for the record, it's definitely "sank". 

Guess Who's Back, Back Again

It's not Eminem. It's me!

Yes, I know you can hardly believe your screen but it is I, LD, CCC-SLP, coming to you in the flesh...in the form of a blog post. I took a self-imposed blog vacation because simply I was burned out. And that's okay, and to be honest I don't feel bad about it. As all of you home-health therapists know, end-of-the-month is a little bit cray. Here are some of the things I have been doing therapy-wise lately:

Watermelon Week
- Classic color, cut/glue seeds to a watermelon slice found on Google images;
- Integrated language and fine motor activity of scooping watermelon "seeds" from a bag using a spoon and walking them across the room to put them in a bowl without spilling them;
- Language activities related to "Mouse's First Summer", in which they eat a giant slice of watermelon.

During one session, I experienced this little gem:

"Uh oh! What did she do?"

"She's drowning!" 

Lol I mean let's not get ahead of ourselves, I'm not sure the situation is that serious.

Other than that I've been piecing together the most random activities, from using alphabet puzzles to target final consonant deletion by sorting them into groups of final sounds, to frantically searching for Barney songs online during a session on my phone to quiet a screaming child. It's been fun.

I also put together a new all-in-one articulation and language packet for the Summer! Rather than re-state myself completely, here's what I had to say about it on TpT:

On the Road Again! (Beach Edition)

This summertime speech packet is part of a vacation series! In this "Beach Edition", you'll receive 10 pages of easy-to-implement themed activities for preschool and elementary including:

- Visuals for transportation/locations: "what", "where", and "how" questions;- "What Should I Pack?" cut/paste game for categories, wh- questions, different/same/sorting, attributes, negatives;

- "Beach Ball Past Tense Flashcards" for regular/irregular verbs related to playing with beach balls (easy functional activity) along with matching for colors or requesting using 1-2 attributes in a Go-Fish-style game;

- "Shell Search"- Using a shovel for a "viewfinder", kids can search for shells in the sand and then produce their target word the number of X pictured on the shell;

- Cut/Paste Bucket for corresponding cut/paste to "Shell Search"; provides choices for the child to analyze their own speech and need for prompting such as: "I feel like using my speech sounds was ___ easy ___ a little hard ____ tough today." Great for /sh/ kiddos, obviously. :)"Shell Search" can also be used as a simple cut/paste activity. I recommend laminating it, however, if it will not be used in that fashion.

Stay tuned for the "Camping Edition" coming soon!:)

Yes, I was quite excited upon putting together the packet. Hence the exclamation marks. But for real, this packet will stretch me all week and I hope at least one of you can get some use out of it, too.

In non-speech news, I have been:

- Working out more frequently. I just joined FitFusion.com which is a subscription-based service that is essentially Netlfix for workouts. And I love it. All of Jillian Michael's workout DVDs are there, including her new "1-Week Shred." I did the strength workout for the first time last night and it kicked my ass.

- Eating enchiladas like they're going out of style. I just learned how to make them. I won't shut up about them. Ask my roommate. 

Grass-fed beef enchiladas and a very frozen margarita. My manifesto.

- Enjoying these screen caps/quotes from "How To Lose a Guy in 10 Days". One of my all-time favorite movies that I would integrate more in daily conversations if I could.

- Feeling this tweet. Even though the handle "The God Light" is a little much.

And that's all I got. For now. :) Have a great week, ya'll.