LessonPix

Today we are sharing the website LessonPix. http://lessonpix.com/   This is a fabulous online resource for those of us who love to create our own therapy materials. If you have more time than money you will love this site.  This is a very affordable subscription service from which you can create customized individual therapy materials to fit your needs.

The subscription service is only $24 per year and you have access to 8000 original and scalable pictures. From the picture library you can have a choice of how you wish to have the image: color, outline, or stencil.  With those pictures you can create items such as these:

 PECS cards

 Stick Puppets

 Dominoes

• Bingo Cards
• Coloring Pages
• Picture Cards
• Pattern Strips
• Spinners & Game Boards
• Lacing Cards
• Sorting Mats
• Playing Cards
• and more 

One feature that is great for the SLP when making articulation materials is their Sound Finder tab which allows you to search for pictures with a particular sound.  You can even narrow your search by the sound position within the words: initial, medial, final or anywhere.  You can also search for pictures by pattern such as VC and only those pictures fitting that parameter will appear.  You can search specifically by letter, too. I would call it a bonus that they even give you the ability to search by rhyme. 

There is much more to this site than I am telling you about so please go explore it. They offer a "try it now for free" program which will indeed let you try it out.  You can create your own item and print it immediately.  I highly recommend you try it out for yourself.   They also offer video tutorials for those who have never created anything online like this and may be unfamiliar with how to do it.  

As we often state, Leah and I are not paid (or given products) to tell you about these sites which we share.  We simply share things we find that we think you would also like to know about.

Have a fun week with your kids!

Leah J Musgrave, M.S. CCC-Sp
Dean Trout, retired SLP

 

AAC Series in review

School started back on Monday here in Eastern KY! August 1st seems early to be going back to school, but when I look out my window and see the morning fog I get the “feeling” that it’s time. My body still responds to a school schedule. For fifty five years I have either been a student, an employee, or a Mom tied to a school schedule. I suppose it is only natural that this is how I should respond.

As promised, today’s blog entry will summarize a series we did last year, so you will have easy access to its contents without having to search the archives. Here is the series we did on AAC:

http://2galsspeechproducts.blogspot.com/2010/11/aac-resources-part-1.html We highlighted Jefferson Parish Public School System In Louisiana. This site offers activities for Pre-K up through Middle/High School, as well as leisure and switch activities. GREAT site!

http://2galsspeechproducts.blogspot.com/2010/11/aac-resources-part-2.html Next we featured Polk County Public Schools in Florida. This site offers a wealth of ideas utilizing Boardmaker* but also many in a pdf format.

http://2galsspeechproducts.blogspot.com/2010/11/aac-resources-part-3.html Priory Woods School and Arts College has wonderful resources. They share interactive talking books and delightful FREE downloadable interactive software.

http://2galsspeechproducts.blogspot.com/2010/11/aac-resources-online-part-4.html We talked about the FREE things you can get from Slater Software.

http://2galsspeechproducts.blogspot.com/2010/11/aac-resources-part-5.html In this blog we showcased Visual Aids for Learning. All their products are free downloadable visual aids that you can use at home or school.

Through Twitter I have hooked up with a guy who is totally dedicated to Assistive Technology and want to feature him and his Diigo resources in another entry. Stayed tuned it will be coming soon.

As you get mentally and physically prepared for this coming year remember to add some FUN into your therapy and YOUR day!

Leah and Dean
www.2galsspeechproducts.com

Adventure Pack Software

Good Monday Morning! I hope each of you have had a wonderful Easter. I went to DC to visit my son and daughter-in-love and had a fantastic time. It's always great to spend time with family and DC is such an amazing and fun city to visit.

Today's blog post is out of sync from our eliciting sounds series, but one I think you'll enjoy. I don't often take time to boast about our fabulous materials but I want to tell you about our Adventure Pack Software. We developed this with the aid of my son when he was a senior in college. This was our first product as 2 Gals Speech Products, LLC and our first attempt to create software.

The intent of these games is simply to habituate the sound once it has been established in words. It does not teach the sound. As you know, drill and practice can be very boring so this is our attempt to make practice fun! Our kids love it and beg to play it. This is a great product for pro-active parents, so please feel free to tell them where it can be purchased.

It does not record their responses nor does it have voice recognition so it is up to the therapist to keep data and make judgments on correctness of responses. Quite frankly, we couldn’t afford to produce a product with those features. Most SLPs have “super ears” and can detect errors while multitasking so that wasn’t viewed as a problem to us.

We use the Adventure Pack in many ways:

• For drill and practice with the SLP along side the child, keeping data and making corrections as needed.
  
• For practice alone while the SLP is working 1:1 with another student.
• For practice alone while the SLP does other job related tasks (paperwork). I still verbally correct from my desk as needed ;)
• As a reward, when they reach a particular goal or when you have an extra 5 minutes left in therapy.

As you can see there are many ways it can be utilized in your therapy. Two major benefits that we had not expected but were thrilled to see:

1. The kids wanted to move along in their carryover. They would ask, “Can I practice phrases now? Can I go on to sentences?”
2. With their focus on the game and not their speech production it virtually eliminated that over exaggeration of the correct sound in words so that their production quickly became fluent and natural!

I hope you will take a few minutes and explore it further by watching this powerpoint presentation: http://www.slideshare.net/2gals/adventure-pack-presentation

Enjoy!
Leah and Dean
www.2galsspeechproducts.com

INTERACTIVE RESOURCES ONLINE -Part 1

January ends today. YAY, I made it through! This has been snowy month here in Kentucky. Our local school districts have been closed for many days, and we still have 6 weeks until spring! If this pattern continues, I sadly see a loss of Spring Break for many districts.

If you’ve been out of school for a few days and need to get yourself psyched up and back into the swing of things, or if you’ve been trudging along this whole month and need to be perked up, today’s website will do just that! We begin this series with FUN by looking at http://games.pppst.com/languagearts.html

When the above link opens you will be at Greta’s Game Station from which you can access many fun links such as FunBrain, Fun School, Primary Games for Reading, Interactive Stories, Digby Mole's Word Activities, Free Kids Games at Scholastic, Game Goo, and Preschool. Each of those have numerous fun educational and therapy goal driven activities/games. I would encourage you to take the time to go to each link and look at what is at your fingertips…literally! It will be well worth the time you’ve spent exploring this site for the opportunities and therapy materials you’ll discover. I promise!

After you’ve looked at those links, I want you to scroll on down the Greta’s Game Station page until you see the “for kids” section which has an Index laid out as a grid. Do you see that? All those are power points ready for your use! Won’t cost you any money or time to make materials….just click and go!

Leah and I have used many of these and have favorites that our kids LOVE. One such example (and this is just one of many) is LOVEBIRDS RHYMING WORDS. You’ll find it under the Word Analysis Index –click on Rhyming Words and then you’ll see a list of power-points for words that rhyme --click on Lovebirds Rhyming Words. It will take a few minutes for the game to load. In this game you are identifying/matching words that rhyme. You’ll place a blue bird from the bottom to its rhyming mate on the branches. There is wonderful modeling for the child in this activity and if a mistake is made the child is allowed to try again. This is a stress free game. My little Autistic fellows loved this game and would verbally request it when they entered my therapy room.

As you can see from the Index there are Power-Points for most any educationally relevant language goal you could be targeting. Don’t be afraid to use this type of thing in your therapy. The kids love it, your building supervisor/principal will love that you are incorporating technology into your therapy, and you will love the change of pace and diversity in your personal therapy!

This website is one of our all time top 5.

Next week we’ll expose you to another great online interactive website! Until then have FUN with your kids this week!

Leah and Dean

www.2galsspeechproducts.com