Sock Puppets do speech therapy!

I had a great time this morning with one of my students with Autism who loves toys and puppets.  She is always requesting to play with something so I got creative with letting her play with another "non-speech therapy" app.  Using the free app Sock Puppets (by Smith Micro Software Inc.) and some of my traditional SuperDuper Inc. "Who" Cards we created a short dialog where one puppet would ask the question and the other puppet would answer.  She thought this was great.  I got to work on the concept I wanted and she got to play with the puppets.  Replaying the video just added to the reinforcement of the correct answers.  We created several videos, this one is our last one and we are re-practicing the cards we already did to make it perfect practice!  I hope you enjoy watching as much as we enjoyed playing!

Lots of characters to choose from

fun props and backgrounds too!

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!

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.  

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!

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.