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!*
I'm going to be honest here, I haven't felt much like blogging the past couple days. I've been fairly overwhelmed with work and general feelings of apathy. If there's one thing I feel sometimes as a therapist it is isolated, or alone. Home health has its perks but the constant time to oneself can get old.
Yesterday I had 10 sessions planned for which I came up with 2-3 activities I could use for the majority of them. I decided to go with an early "summer" theme consisting of these adorable Articulation/Language Sandcastles from Crazy Speech World and Summer Pronouns card game, which is a freebie download over at Speech is Sweet. Thanks ladies for the great ideas!
Articulation Sandcastles
Summer Pronouns
I also brought my "Under the Sea" lacing cards for some integrated fine motor and language work. The kids loved all the activities tied together. Here's a picture of one of my kiddos showing off his activities:) My phone camera quality clearly leaves much to be desired.
In the afternoon I had to make a notably long drive to and from a particular session. As I mentioned earlier, the time you have with yourself as a home health therapist is great for introspection but can get you bummed out from time to time. No matter what people say, interacting with people via text and over the Internet is just not the same as face-to-face interaction. And while I appreciate being invited to activities after work, not many people understand that if will take me more than ten minutes to get there, I just won't go. I've been in the car all day! So catch-22.
Anyways, I had my iPod linked up to my car speakers and just as I was starting to let myself get down about things, a certain song popped up. A song that I listened to my first day of grad school. I remember putting on my cutest outfit for orientation, binders in hand, and pulling out of my parent's driveway while packing the goofiest smile, thinking, "I'm going to be a speech pathologist. It's actually happening." I was nervous but damn, was I excited.
May 2011 - Prepping for week 1 of SLP grad school
In fact, here's me looking a little too excited. I'm one of those girls who gets excited about school supplies.
Anyways, I remember starting my first practicum with a fun, amazing group of girls and feeling those exact same feelings as we all stood there, waiting to see our clients for the first time, armed with bubbles and a visual schedule, which never really worked, but it made us feel prepared. We chased those kiddos around, analyzed our own behaviors, and by the time we got to closing circle time looked at each other with exhausted "omg" faces and smirking eyes that said, "Whew. Thank goodness that's over!" But we loved every single second.
As I listened to this song I was reminded of the passion I started this journey with, and that's something I never want to lose. I formed relationships back in grad school without knowing that eventually I would choose the home health setting and that these relationships would be invaluable. I have continued to form new relationships since grad school but the point is- I didn't go through all of that to be alone. I don't have to be. And I didn't go through all of that to let myself become preoccupied with things that aren't of primary importance, even this blog, for example.
I remember posting a Facebook status one day in the midst of my first year of grad school chaos that said, "At the end of the day, I just want to be a good speech language-pathologist."
And that's still true. Sometimes you just have to remind yourself to forget all the B.S., and remember why you started this journey.
"To The Sky" - Owl City
And here's the song that reminds me. So what if it's from an animated movie about owls. :)
I love your reimbursement rates, but I hate the way you don't listen to anything I say.
Doesn't matter how good my narrative is, you'll glide right over all that functional implication talk and zero in on my standard scores.
I mean, aren't I more than a number to you?
All I want is a little validation here.
The biggest complaint I have is your wishy-washy ways. You change the rules of our relationship faster than I can say compliance.
I guess the biggest elephant in the room would have to be a little something called...Home Exercise Program (HEP). You want me to implement one, document it constantly, and if I don't change things up frequently enough, you get bored with me and slap me on the wrist.
I need a solution. I'm not saying we need to break up...I just need to simplify the process so I can find "me" again.
That being said, here's my new plan:
This 11-page .pdf includes parent/caregiver hand-outs for seven common goal areas for preschool and early receptive/expressive language skills.
I also created a HEP Data Log that can be filled out by you and the caregiver on a session-by-session basis to track weekly HEP implementation. These hand-outs include practical suggestions for functional, in-home HEP activities for the following goals: - Requesting - Body Parts - Clothing - Early Prepositions (in/out, on/off) - Advanced Prepositions (under, behind, in front of, next to) - Vocabulary (Nouns) - Descriptors (Adjectives) All you have to do is make a copy of the data log for each child, give the parent a corresponding hand-out, and circle an activity.
Voila- simplified HEP implementation. Check it out HERE.
Please let me know if you check out this hand-out packet or have any questions!:)
It is the beginning of a new week and I am trying to find some motivation to get up and work out before my day starts. It is the last day of the month, and even though this day is usually cray-cray for us home-health girls I'm actually not too stressed. Kind of like I've done all I can do and now just have to let the chips fall where they may.
A few things I'm pondering this morning:
How true is this comic. I can literally see the horror in some patient's eyes when I try to "excitedly" introduce flash cards. Here's a tip: half of them can see past your fake enthusiasm. The other half, however buy in and I'm like, MUHAHA. You fools. You believed me! This is going to the most boring 10 minutes of your life.
I'm all out of this tea and oh so sad. I drink it every morning for the healthy caffeine and antioxidants and I suppose I could go to the store for more but...yoga pants.
Speaking of yoga pants, these Nike ones (well I suppose they're technically sweatpants, but whatever) from Academy are my JAM. They were a birthday gift from the boyfriend and beyond comfy.
In other news, I wanted to touch on my current love-hate relationship with Teachers Pay Teachers and the whole materials-making spree everyone and their Mom is on these days. I, too, have been attempting to make some products that are useful for not only myself but other SLPs but lately I have been completely overwhelmed by all the product sharing and giveaways I see on Facebook.
Don't get me wrong, I LOVE all of the amazing products my fellow professionals are pumping out (that phrase is awkward and is going to bother me, I know it) but I simply do not have the printer ink as a home-based SLP to support this habit. I guess Staples is the answer? I don't know. My other issue is that I really do not use many paper-based activities with my kiddos, as most of them are under 5. My plan for future products includes mostly bilingual and lesson-plan resources that incorporate real-life objects along with visual supports. I think this will be what is most useful to me and other preschool SLPs.
If you are preschool SLP, what kinds of ready-made products would you like to see in my TpT store for download? I'd love to hear your thoughts.
Alright, I swore up and down to steer away from personal posts and focus on speech-only blogging. But honestly I have nothing new to tell you guys, speech-wise! No wisdom (cough) to impart. Only maybe a few highlights of the work-week and musings of this speechie's brain.
I think I often get caught up in the fact that I'm not "the best". Therefore, everything I do "doesn't count." Does this ring true for anyone else? I don't have any great new speech units I'm employing or comprehensive Home Exercise Programs I'm implementing...I am honestly just doing my job. Still loving it. But wondering when I will get that burn again to stay up all night printing, cutting and organizing. Maybe when I have a real work space? Who knows.
Here's a peek into this past week:
1) A whole lot of driving to far-away clients. Like an hour away. Four days this week total, as of tomorrow. Here's a hint...the farther you have to go to see clients, the less sessions you will actually DO. I did take advantage of the existence of a Smoothie King on my drive today...Apple Kiwi Kale Smoothie, you won me over!
2) My first real peds feeding eval. You know you always expect in grad school and during your CF that any feeding evals that get thrown your way will most likely be sensory-based and you'll give the ole' chaining method a try. Then the parent mentioned something about a swallow study done a year ago indicating esophageal phase dysfunction and inwardly I just:
I want a new swallow study done. I wanna see if we're got any premature spillage going on here before I'm ready to hear that noise.
Anyways. Moving right along.
3) I got back in the groove of clean eating and working out! Let's all cheer for my attempts at not treating my body like the human equivalent of a dumpster. My go-to workout is this bad boy:
If you haven't done her "30 Day Shred" series, it's on Youtube and you should do that one first. That was the series of workouts I used in 2012 to get my body back after a long-term relationship in which I consumed far too many Dr. Peppers and stuffed-crust pizzas during Netlflix marathons. All good and and fine things in and of themselves. But turns out you have to move your ass to not put weight on in the process. Go figure. Anyways, "Ripped in 30" is a great in-home, 30-minute workout that truly kicks my butt and makes me feel strong. It combines cardio, weights, and abs for a total body training experience. I'm starting to sound like an infomercial. I just love Jillian Michaels. #sorrynotsorry
4) I started organizing my therapy materials by goals. Seems odd but not really. Sometimes I really just need to be able to reach into a file that says "body parts", "prepositions", etc. and pull out an activity or list of activities. Therefore I am making that happen. The sad part was I forgot that I needed file folders and everything just ended up in criss-cross stacks on the side of my wall. Sigh.
I didn't really do any "Spring" therapy things this week other than introduce the book, "Happy Easter, Biscuit!" which amazingly entertains even my kids up to 5 years old. They love opening the flaps to find the eggs with Biscuit.
Overall I am just trying to get in as many sessions as possible as it is the last Medicaid week of the month and for all of us in home health, the busiest week of the month. Thankfully we're getting an extra day Monday to get in those visits.
I hope you all have had a fabulous week! Do you have any recommendations for a feeding eval in which the end result turns out to continually be esophageal dysfunction? I'll take all the advice I can get. :)
Psst...my Abstract "Where" Questions download is free right now in my Teachers Pay Teachers store...I'd love if you snapped it up and left me some feedback!:)
There are a lot of times during speech sessions I will be working with a child and make a passing statement to them that causes me to think, "Man. I think I meant to tell myself that."
Here's a list of semi-profound statements I have accidentally made while working on some kind of mundane puzzle that made me stop and think.
"That piece doesn't go there. You can't force it to fit. If you push too hard, the whole thing might break apart."
Say hello to the queen of, "I am going to force this to work and if it doesn't, I will just keep trying." "You're not using your thinking brain."
When am I ever using my thinking brain?
"You need to wait."
Why wait when I can exhaust myself by doing anything in my power to force something to come to fruition? "Just because we are scared of something doesn't mean there is something to be scared of."
I am the adult version of the little girl who is scared to use the other toilet in the adjoining room because one time it made a really loud noise that scared me sh*tless. No pun intended.
"Sometimes friends don't want to share or play with us, and that makes us sad. That's okay. We can find something different to do that is just as fun."
It's okay to be bummed out when people don't share our passions for things. Do your own thing and the people who think you're super awesome will support you in what you love.
"I need you to calm down and then use your words, please."
The best way to be heard: express your needs simply and concisely when you achieve a moment of clarity following an emotional experience.
"What's important in this picture? Is it this tree? Or this person in the middle."
What's really important in this situation you've somehow managed to blow out of proportion? Are you focusing on a tree in the background when the main idea is right in front of you?
We all still have lessons to learn as adults. I'm sure I heard these very things at one point in my childhood. I'm just thankful I get to hear them again, because they still make me stop and think.
Is there anything you say to your kids that you are really saying to yourself?
I learned something during my final semester of grad school internship in a Spanish-only Early Childhood Education school that I still think about on a daily basis.
And I wanna break it down for ya'll.
And when I say break "it" down, I mean this WH- question business.
Now I'm sure this is old news to most of you, but somehow I managed to get through almost the entirety of my SLP education thinking there was only one type of WH- question and one way to write these goals.
"Child will answer WH- questions with a complete sentence with minimal verbal/visual cues and 80% accuracy."
Or if you wanted to get really fancy:
"Child will answer 'what' and 'where' questions with a complete sentence and minimal verbal/visual cues and 80% accuracy."
Most therapists are familiar with designating the appropriate type of WH- question depending on the client. I'm not working on "WHY" questions per say with my 3-year old's, per say.
However, I was encouraged back in grad school to think of targeting "questions" within a different kind of hierarchy; that being:
1) YES/NO questions to accept/reject ("Do you want the car?");
2) YES/NO questions to affirm/deny ("Is this a car?" or on more advanced level, "Do we fly cars?");
3) Concrete WH-questions ("What is this?" "A car."); and finally,
4) Abstract WH- questions ("What do you ride in to get to school everyday?" "A car.")
As much as I love Super Duper and Linguisystems and all the products they churn out, every time I download an app for targeting WH- questions they all seem to target the more abstract spectrum of questions and geared more for the elementary crowd. As I am primarily a preschool/early intervention therapist, I needed to find some materials that brought things back down a notch to the emerging abstract level for my little guys.
This is a set of 15 "WHERE" question cards with matching realistic photo prompts to allow you to provide as much assistance as desired or needed. They're sitting over in my Teachers Pay Teachers (TPT) store if you'd like to take a look.
I am super excited to start learning how to make more of my own therapy products that fit my individual needs as a therapist. Let me know if you decide to try these cards out yourself and if you find them helpful. I also plan on creating other WH- question card sets for "WHAT", "WHO", etc. so if anyone is interested in those too give me a shout-out.
I mustache you a question: WHERE do you like to go for your WH- question targeting needs?:)
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