TRY ME DAY!

I declare this day, Friday, 12-14-12 as TRY ME DAY!

...and No! I do not mean try my patience

...I mean try my articulation cards!

Just this week I have uploaded individual sets of my FAME Articulation Card Decks in my TpT store and think if you try them you'll love them!  So for all of today (12-14-12) you can purchase the individual Articulation Card Decks for as little as $1.50 per sound (that's 50% off it you aren't mathematically inclined)!  

 Here is what the entire 10 deck series looks like, if you bought and printed all 480 cards. But perhaps you don't need every sound deck, in that case, you can simply buy the individual sets!!  You may just want F or K or G or L.  Now you can purchase just one!

Also by purchasing a download, rather than the actual cards, you no long have to worry about losing a card.  If a card gets lost or ragged, no problem, just print what you need and replace it!  Need more than one deck to play your favorite game no problem print two or three decks!

Please note that each sound is color coded, so when you use more than one set in a therapy session sorting them will be quick work!

In each individual sound set you get 24 initial words and 24 final words.  These are sold as individual sound sets but I also offer the entire 10 sound set on CD that I can ship for $22 with FREE shipping.

There are two things I wish to tell you about these cards.

1. 1. All images used in these articulation cards are our original copyrighted artwork. No clip-art was used.
2. 2. Each card clearly states the target word that is illustrated and the sound-position within the word: Fire-F initial

The download will print as 10 pictures to a page as pictured above.  An additional TIP is to print 2 more of the same page for the kid to take home as home work!  They look as good in black and white as they do in color.

Each sound has color coded card backs.  These are optional and when the cards are printed on card stock you can not see through the backs of the cards.  If you have limited ink usage, I would fore go printing the card backs.  The cards have the color coding as a border on the card fronts.

The downloads include the sound label cards and game play cards of Skip, Wild, Reverse, and Old Witch.  I also included 10 poissible games to play with the cards.  Some games are appropriate for pre-K and K while others are better suited to your elementary aged kids.  However, the purpose of the Articulation decks is use as daily speech stimuli!  (You can use them with any of the open ended games.)


So take advantage of this TRY ME sale today and go sample these decks!

Dean

Figurative Language Fun

Every day I continue to be amazed at the explosion of ideas that are now available to all of us.  I think I was born in the wrong era.  When I see all these wonderful things that are out now, I want to be a SLP in today's world.  During my work years, I created materials for my students with little more than scissors, Elmer's glue, and my own ingenuity. Today you have wonderful skill specific materials to buy or make literally at your finger tips!

Browsing Teacher Pay Teachers the other day I came upon this delightful "Flying Pigs Figurative Language Pack"  by Jenn Alcorn. (SLP Gone Wild)  Cute, cute, cute...   I love that it targets not just one of the skills in that area but several: idioms, common proverbs, similes, & metaphors.  It hits your common core standards and is that direct support to the classroom that you've been looking for.

She gives you 32 pages of activities for only $4. Here is what it covers:

•Idioms cue card with definition & example
•15 idioms & definition matching cards
•32 idiom cards
•Proverbs cue card with definition & example
•20 proverbs & definition matching cards
•Student figurative language graphic organizer
•Simile cue card with definition & example
•32 simile cards
•Student worksheet targeting similes
•Metaphor cue card with definition  example
•24 metaphor cards
•Student worksheet targeting metaphors
•8 penalty cards to use with any of the card sets
•Instructions & ideas for game play

Here are some samples of what the pages look like:

 Sample of metaphor cards

Definition of a simile and two examples.

Graphic Organizer 

Idioms

With 32 pages you can see it is packed full of everything you could need to teach figurative language and so visually appealing and fun to boot!  I absolutely LOVE this and I know you will too.

I hope you will go to her TpT store and look at this and all her other fabulous therapy materials.
 http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Slp-Gone-Wild

(I have decided that Jenn Alcorn and Jenna Rayburn could fill just about any language need you would have.   I am in awe of those two gals.) 

Have fun with your kids this week!
Dean

A Fun Way to Teach Descriptive Words

Sometimes it is hard to get students to describe an object using words other than size and color.  They seems to always give you the same reply: it's big or it's little; it's blue, black, red or green.  If you point out that you can describe by shape then you get just the shape of the object and usually everything is round or square.  They can't seem to grasp the idea that an object can be described by many qualities.  Thus, SLAP IT was born!

SLAP IT Descriptors Card Game is a receptive game to improve and develop understanding of descriptive words. 

It targets these 35 descriptive words:

• Liquid, crunchy, hot, cold, scary, 
• ugly, big, hard, small, smooth, 
• soft, long, tall, round, Rectangular, 
• fuzzy, slimy, salty, prickly, sweet, 
• sour, sharp, leather, glass, paper, 
• plastic, wood, metal, cloth, heavy,
• light, warm, rough, slick, sticky.

The game is easy to play just be the 1st player to get rid of all your cards! You will divide the deck of picture cards among the number of students you have in your group and they place their cards face up so they can see them.  The SLP/teacher has the 7 calling cards which they place face down in front of him/herself.  The SLP draws her first card and reads one of the descriptive words out loud.  All players look at their pictures to find a picture that can be described using that word.  When the player finds a picture he SLAPS IT down in the center of the table.  The SLP and students discuss all the pictures played and determine if it does indeed have that descriptive characteristic. If it does not the player who played the card has to take it back.  All cards played that fit the description are then removed and discarded.  Play continues until one player is out of cards and is declared the winner.

Additional Game Play Ideas:
This game can be adapted to fit your needs.  You may wish to take it further and give 2 descriptors at a time that a picture will have to fit.  Or you may wish to play it as an expressive game requiring the students keep their cards in a stack in front of themselves and require them to give 1, 2 or 3 descriptive words to be able to get rid of their cards. They must keep their card if they cannot do it. First player out of cards wins.

This game is sold as a digital download in my Teacher Pay Teachers Store for $4.50.  Just download the pdf files and make your own.

I am very conscientious of your funds and access to color copiers, ink and paper, which is why my games and activities are created using minimal color and designs, and why my layouts are as efficient as I can make them to use less paper when making the games.

You can get detailed instructions on how to cut the pages into neat same sized cards here

Here's a great idea for carryover!

During the carryover phase of therapy the child learns to transfer that newly learned articulation skill into an automatic speech pattern at the conversational level.  Sounds easy enough but it is not always that easy.  Some children move right along with it while others struggle. I always found it personally frustrating because there really is nothing that I, as a therapist, can do for them at this point in their therapy. They are at the place where they have to be totally responsible for monitoring themselves.  I have taught them to hear the difference in the correct and incorrect sound. I have shown them where to put their tongue to make the sound correctly.  We have drilled on words, phrases, and sentences. We have read passages, but now they walk this final path alone.

I had not found many exciting materials available in the marketplace targeting just conversational speech.  Well that is until now....I want to share something that just hit the marketplace this week!  (It is rather cool to be the first with the latest.)  Finally there is an app specifically for carryover ....and it is only $9.99 for 500 sound specific multiple choice questions!

Multiple Choice Articulation

This was created by a Speech-Language Pathologist, named Erik X. Raj. I got to know Erik through the #SLPeeps on Twitter.  He quickly became a personal friend, which is how I found out his new app launched this week :) I have personally proofread many of the multiple choice questions that are presented so I can testify they are funny and thought provoking.  The questions and answers are loaded with many sound targets but they are not boring! The questions are zany and silly and so kid appropriate.  Although the questions are multiple choice, there is never a right or wrong answer so that stress is removed and they can just talk freely.  These are personal opinion multiple choice. The questions stimulate thought and conversation.  The child progresses until he is talking without thinking about how to say the sound.

As you can see from the picture above it targets S-Z-R-L-Sh-Sh-Th.  There are over 500 exciting questions in this app.  You have the ability to refine the types of questions you ask to elicit specific areas in which you feel they need to practice.

Let's say they need to work more on R medial. You select it and then you will get stimuli such as this.

They can read the question for themselves or they can click on the button "hear the question" in which the question is read aloud with the R words stressed.  They can answer independently or they can click the button "hear an answer" to hear one possible answer. 

If you would like to watch the demo to see how it works. Go here  and I especially encourage to look at the iTunes ad for more detailed information.

If you are still reading my blog you are now in for a special treat.  Erik gave me two promo codes to give away!!  The only way I know how to do this is to say the first two people to comment on this blog will get the codes, which gets them the app for FREE!   Leave an email address in your comment and I'll email you the code. If you don't leave your email address you won't get the code.  On behalf of those two lucky individuals I say thanks Erik!

Have fun with your kids this week!
Dean