Hello Blogging World!!

Hello! I am a speech-language pathologist in Cudahy, Wisconsin. I absolutely love my job because I can be creative and collaborate with other amazing professionals! I have decided to start this blog in order to feature products that I have created as well as share free and/or inexpensive activities that I do in therapy. In addition to individual and group therapy sessions, I also run a snack bunch group with our great special ed teacher, co-treat with our wonderful occupational therapist, and co-teach with an amazing 4th grade teacher. So in addition to sharing ideas, I will also focus on these somewhat more unique aspects of my job. Please feel free to share thoughts and ideas as to what activities you would like to see added to my blog! Thanks for reading!

Each week or two, I use a different theme in my therapy room.  This last week, our theme was gingerbread men!! 

One of the most fun activities we've done all year - we turned the outside of the speech room into a gingerbread house!!!  I cut small strips of red and white paper and wrote artic words onto the pieces that I had cut.  Then my students marble painted each sheet in the opposite color (red got white paint, white got red paint).  They loved shaking the shoe box and most were pretty curious when we took the top off to reveal perfectly decorated “candy cane pieces”.  A few asked how the paint got on the paper.  J  My language students’ tasks were a bit more varied.  Students that were working on attributes tackled the candy canes.  They wrote a word that I had given them at the top of the candy cane and then filled in the white space of the candy cane with attributes that described the original word.  We also put wh-questions onto the gumdrops and answered who, what have/doing, and where questions.  A lot of my students are working on synonyms and antonyms, so we got out our peppermint swirl candies and for this activity.  I wrote “a word that means the opposite of /same as big/glad/tiny/etc is” and then they filled in the word.  Last but not least were the lollipops… which took on the students working on “go togethers.”  Again, students wrote down a word that “goes with” with a word I said.  I’m not sure who was more excited about this activity – the kids or myself but either way, we had a great time in speech this week! 

In addition to this idea, I’ve also posted some of my other gingerbread-themed materials at my brand new teacherspayteachers store.  So far, I’ve included 2 category naming activities (one where students name the category that all of the objects fit into and the other where students name items that belong in a category), a 76-page phonological processes “baking” activity (my students LOVED this activity this past week and I got lots of repetitions from them – win win!), a compare/contrast holiday-themed activity, and a synonym match activity. 

Please feel free to “like” my facebook page (www.facebook.com/wordnerdspeechteach) in order to stay up-to-date with new activities and materials coming from my speech room to yours!