Taking Santa to the Salon

Have you seen the the free Christmas themed app from Toca Boca?  What a fun way to get into the spirit of the season and work on language skills at the same time. Don't have the app yet?  Check it out here!
Here are some of my ideas for using the app in therapy.

Describing:
- have the student make up a sentence describing each thing they do to Santa.
- have the student use concept cards (free download) to help describe what is being done to Santa for those kids who need a little extra help generating a sentence.
-Have the student describe how Santa is feeling at each stage of the makeover (emotion cards included in the download) 

Following Directions
- Give the student specific directions as to what they should do to Santa. The student has to follow your directions precisely.
 *****If you are crazy lucky to have two iPads you could even have the students use the app for a barrier activity.  
- Have the student give you directions as to what you should do to Santa.

 Sequencing
-Give the student single or multiple step directions and have them carry them out.
- Have the the student do 2 or 3 things to Santa and then tell you what they did in order.

Choose from two characters

Get to work on Santa's makeover

Check out my TPT site for the full 7 page download

Free download here

My favorite Speecher Teachers Pay Teacher pages (so far)

 So my last post talked a little about my new love, Teachers Pay Teachers.  I have downloaded an insane amount of new materials this week!  Some that I cut up and used within the hour!  Too bad my school is out of laminator film and can't afford more till next month. :(  

Anyway, I thought I would share a few of my favorites that I have found so far.  Some of them I heard of from other bloggers, others I found on my own.  I'm sure there are lots of other great ones that I haven't found yet so if you know of more, leave them in the comments below.  

So here are the ones I like so far, in no particular order.  Check them out and follow them if you like their stuff.
Dean Trout
Whitneyslp
SLPinGA
Dawn Belacic
Lisa Goodell
Heather Bates
PrAACtical AAC
Activity Tailor
SLP Gone Wild
Jenna Rayburn
Kristine Lamb
and of course.... don't' forget me, Heather Strebel!

Let's talk turkey Freebie

I created this activity called Let's Talk Turkey to work on describing with attributes and comparing/contrasting.  I have posted the whole download(17 full color pages) on my Teachers Pay Teachers page.  If you aren't familiar with TPT yet, you are missing out!   There are a ton of really great products created by teachers, speech therapists and special educators just like us!  There are lots of free downloads as well as affordable items to purchase. Plus you can download and use them immediately!

Click on the widget below to go directly to my TPT store and get this download!

Toca Hair Salon and Story Pals | The Spectronics Blog

I had to share this awesome blog post from Amanda Hartmann at Spectronics.  She features one of my favorite apps, Toca Hair Salon along with the an app I was not familiar with,  Story Pals.   I guess I will be making an app request for Story Pals soon!   I love her idea of using the two apps together and I had tons of ideas of how to make these two apps work well with my students. Take a look and see what inspires you!

Practical App Ideas – Featuring: Toca Hair Salon and Story Pals | The Spectronics Blog


Don't forget the subscriber giveaway runs until the 14th!  Sign up to receive post updates by email and enter in the rafflecopter drawing for a chance to win a free app from SuperDuper.

The "I need SUBSCRIBERS" Giveaway!

I am really thrilled that my blog has had over 400 hits in the past month!  However, I still only have two email subscribers.  

So, in an effort to increase my email subscribers and blog followers I have decided to have a app giveaway.  You earn entries for a free $1.99 app from SuperDuper. There will be three winners.  Check out my Rafflecopter giveaway below.   You must subscribe by email to get entered in the drawing.  Just by subscribing you get 10 entries in to the contest!  First enter your email address on the right side of the blog where it says 

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 Then go the the Rafflecopter window below and click on the DO IT button.  You can either sign in to rafflecopter with Facebook or your email.

Then if you choose, you can earn additional entries for sharing on Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter and more.  You can use the share buttons at the bottom of this post to share on Facebook and Twitter.  Go to my Teachers Pay Teachers and Twitter buttons on the right side of the blog to follow me there.  Then you can click on the rafflecopter "DO IT" entries.

One last thing....don't forget to verify your email address by clicking the link in the subscriber confirmation email you should get after you subscribe!  That will make sure you actually get the blog updates.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Multiple Meaning Bingo

One of my favorite things to work on in speech therapy is multiple meaning words.  I created this bingo game and multiple meaning cards with Boardmaker and  I want to share it with all of you.  You can download the entire pdf file from my Teachers Pay Teachers page with the link below.  There are four different boards and two pages of the teaching cards (also can be used for "calling" in the bingo game) I hope you enjoy it.

Download this file at my TPT site!

STICK to simple

So this is a silly little post about a common product that works great for me in therapy. You know how you have some of those cards that are multiple choice and you really want the kids to be able to generate their own answer? Well I used to use regular post-it's to try and cover up the answer but found that the kids can see through them and they don't stay stuck to well. This year I bought some post-it labels at my local discount store. These ate a thicker colored paper and the entire back of the post it is sticky. One post-it label will make it through a whole session of repositioning it on each card. I know it is a silly thing to post about but I was so giddy about how well this worked for me, I thought I would share.

post-it labels work great!

Giveaway for iPad Mini from Smart Apps

Who couldn't use another iPad or better yet, an iPad Mini?  

Check out this great giveaway from Smart Apps for Kids! 

You can find Smart Apps for Kids on Facebook and Twitter as well!

Click here to get in on the iPad Mini GIVEAWAY!

Sort it out!

Sort It Out App

There are two "Sort It Out" apps that are available through My First App. The apps both come with 2 free modules and then you can purchase the other modules though an in app purchase.  Sort It Out 1 comes with transportation and toys.  Sort It Out 2 comes with animals and instruments.  I have found that the free modules are great for categorizing as well as addressing positional concepts, comparing and contrasting, following directions and describing.  I love a free app with lots of possibilities!  Check out my short video of a session below. 

Home screens for both apps

Sort it out 2 animal board start screen

Completed Sort It Out 2 Animals

Here is a short video of how I used the app in therapy today with two students with Autism.  

Never buy flashcards again!

I came across a great free app while searching for the top free apps the other day.  I like to look at the top free apps every once in a while to see what is trending.  It worked out well for me as I found this great app that was just created by Grasshopper Apps.  The app is called Bitsboard and is a free app with over 10,000 beautiful color photographs separated into categories.  

On the initial download you get the emotions, exotic animals, landmarks, first sentences, learn English, learn German and learn Spanish boards.  Then you can go to the catalog and download any other boards that interest you.  You can also change the settings of the app to best suit your needs.  You can have just the word, just the photo and you can also turn the audio on or off. You can also change how the flashcards advance.

The above picture shows how my catalog looks now that I have gone through and downloaded many more of the boards. You can search by category or just page through all of the boards.  This app is ABSOLUTELY FREE!  No in app purchases whatsoever!  How cool is that?

One more thing about this fabulous app, are you ready?  You can create your own boards for free with your own photos and images!  You can't get any more customized than that!  Thanks to http://www.grasshopperapps.com/

P.S.  According to their app page on iTunes, more exciting FREE content and games are in the works for this app!  Gotta love that!

   

Halloween Pocket Charts (FREE)

Here is another great FREE Halloween app that is great for speech therapy.  This app is called Pocket Charts! Halloween Matching Game. This app is great for similarities and differences.  The student needs to discriminate between two possible pictures that match the picture in the pocket.  Some of the pictures are easier than others but they are all a great way to work on noticing similarities and differences and talking about them as well.  I also think this is a great activity for teaching the motor skill of "dragging" an object to another place on the screen.  I had my student locate the picture and then tell me why it was the correct choice before they moved the picture to the pocket line.  If you are able to project you iPad onto a screen or whiteboard, this would also be a fun larger group activity.

More Halloween app activities

More Monster Mash Up Fun!
I posted last week about the free Monster Mash Up and using it for a barrier type of activity working on describing or similarities or differences.  Using screen shots I created some cards to accompany the app. You can preview and download the activity below.  This could work with a group of two or more.  Give one student the iPad and have them create a monster.  Then they describe their monster to the other students.  The other students then use the cards to create a monster that looks like the one on the iPad.  You can address attributes, sentence structure, listening skills, memory and so much more with this one activity.  You could also just make multiple sets of the cards and just use them if you don 't have an iPad.  Let me know what you think of this activity in the comments!

Sample Monster page 1

Download the pdf document here.  Then you can just print, laminate, cut and enjoy!  I hope you have fun finding great ways to use these cards and the free app in your speech room!

 Here is how I set up the activity for 2 students in my room. 

Halloween apps for speech

Happy October!

I came across a couple of apps today that I think would be fun to use in therapy over the next couple of weeks.  Although they are not traditional speech therapy apps, with a little creativity, they are great apps that engage students and address goals.

The first app is called Halloween Sound Shelf.  This app is really just a bookshelf of Halloween icons that make a spooky sound when you press them.  This would be a great in a group activity for making a story about Halloween.  This could be done with Halloween vocabulary words or Halloween themed articulation targets.  The kids write out a story and choose sounds to go into their story.  Students can take turns being the “reader” and being the "sound guy".  I really think the kids would get into this activity and I can't wait to try it next week with my students.

The second app is called Monster Mash Lite.  This is like one of those old flip books where you can change the head, torso and legs to create new monsters.  I think this would work well for kids working on describing.  They can create their own monster and then describe it to the other students or therapist.  Another idea would be to use the app like a barrier game and have the other students to draw what the student describes.  The students can then look at the iPad monster and drawn monsters and find the similarities and differences.

Let me know in the comments if you find other ones and how you would use them in therapy!

Oh Boy!

After a few days of thought I decided today to submit and proposal to speak at the county institute day for the local ROE.  My topic will be iPad tips, tricks and resources. I did at least rope a co-worker into co-presenting with me. Since public speaking is not my strength, this is a huge leap of faith for me.  Of course, the topic hasn't been accepted but I am nervous enough just sending in the proposal.  Wish me luck and check out the new app resources page that I am working on at the top of the page.

An inspiration

Today while driving home from work I had a sudden and strong desire to share my love of technology and speech therapy with others in the field.  I realize that I am not the first to do this by a long shot.  However, I have a new therapy room with a mounted projector, whiteboard, ipad 2, four desktop computers and a laptop and I feel that twinge of inspiration.  As in any job, it is easy to get stuck in a rut of doing the same thing over and over.  I think I do a pretty good job of bringing in new ideas, techniques and materials from time to time.  That being said, I realize that there is always room for improvement.  So with my new room and my wealth of technology, I have decided to start this blog as a way to inspire myself to create new activities and materials as well as inspire others to take the technology leap.  So just of the top of my head, you can expect to look forward to seeing Boardmaker static and dynamic materials, ActiveInspire (Promethean) activities, ipad app feedback and reviews, app suggestions for therapy, website resources and ideas for student led technology activities in therapy.