Let's Camp {Part 2}

We've been busy camping these last two weeks! In a previous post I had shared my Camping Phonological Awareness activities with you! Today I wanted to share what else we got into! I've included some amazon affiliate links for your convenience.

A few weeks ago at Goodwill I found this awesome kids campfire log. You can find it on amazon at the link below. We had a blast playing with it! It even lights up and the flame moves!

We made several campfire crafts!

 First we made these handprint fires, as seen on Tippy Toe. Instead of using construction paper we gathered real sticks!

We also made some great campfire hats, found from Education.com. Our kiddos loved wearing them! I wish I could show you our class picture with them, but a goofy selfie of me will have to do! Just make a 'log' headband, add flames and marshmallows on sticks!

'cheetah'

'bunny'

Our last craft was some Leaf Art! Did you guess that animals they made?


We read a lot of different camping books this week. I'm going to share my 3 favorites.

 A Camping Spree with Mr. Magee is such an adorable book. It's full of rhyme and had my kids so engaged! Lots of opportunity for inferencing with this one!

Scare a Bear is a sweet little rhyming book about a bear who joins a campsite! How will you scare that bear away?!

Into the Outdoors is a wonderful book for working on preposition words. Each page highlights a preposition word as the story is described.

Here is a peek at some of our other library books!

Our literacy stations used a lot of activities from my phonological awareness packet. My favorite have been these self checking syllable segmenting cards.

I snagged this butterfly house that looked like a mini-tent to pull our cards from! 

Check out this video of one of my kiddos working on the skill!

These students are sorting sounds by their initial sound (/s/ and /f/) from my camping phonological awareness unit. 

These kiddos are using a freebie from Primary Possibilities for identifying beginning sounds! 

You might also want to grab this 'How to Make S'mores' Emergent reader.

Then of course make some gooey s'mores!

 To finish out the week we went on a nature walk outside looking for items that start with each letter of the alphabet! 

Oh my goodness! Camping was BUSY and fun! What are you doing in your summer classrooms?

The Fourth of July!!!! {a sale-abration}

I hope you eat watermelon.

I hope you hug a baby.

I hope you grill a burger.

I hope you see fireworks!

And if you need materials, I hope you snag some things on sale! Let's have a sale-abration! 

My entire TpT shop will be on sale 7/4/13 only!!! 

Happy Fourth of July!

Happy Birthday 'Merica! 

I saw these hand print table pieces and used the idea to make a flag craft. Work on colors, following directions, concepts (long/short) and action words while you make this adorable flag!

They were adorable!

We also made some fireworks! Megan had the idea of making fireworks and Emily cut straws at the end. We dipped into glue and made fireworks on paper. Lots of glitter was added!

To make the straws, just take scissors and cute the straw about 2 or 3 inches high into 6 different pieces. The straw should look kind of like a flower at the end when you're done cutting.

Of course we did lots of other learning with my freebie downloads too! Did you do anything fun to celebrate American's birthday this week?

Down By the Bay Crafts

If you saw my post last week, you know we were doing all kinds of wonderful watermelon activities in my summer literacy group. We finished out the week with some super cute Watermelon Crafts and activities that my friend Meghan created.  Here's a peek at our Down By the Bay Crafts!

Did you get a chance to grab my Watermelon syllable segmenting activity? If not go grab it over at this post!

Celebrating America!

Have you grabbed any sparklers yet? Got your red, white and blue outfit picked out? 

If you haven't planned any activities for summer speech therapy, check out these activities that celebrate our wonderful country! First a few from yours truly: 

Snag this synonyms freebie on TpT! 

The antonym version is also available on TpT. 

I'm LOVING these cute mason jars. This activity targets category sorting! Grab it at TpT. 

Grab this Freebie that I posted last year! The book is made to match pieces. 

I also thought I'd share the TpT freebies I have found to use: 

America WH Questions

Making Words

USA Critical Thinking

American Symbols

Symbols of America Anchor Charts

Wow! America Book

American and Me Book (Kindergarten Writing)

A Camping We Will Go! {Part 1}

I'm prepping my activities for another week of summer literacy camp. I've got SO much good stuff to show you. Some amazing books, apps and crafts. I'm putting those in a post ready for next week! Until them I wanted to show you some little games and activities I came up with for practicing phonological awareness skills. We're targeting a variety of skills including segmenting, blending, rhyme and alliteration.

The document is 33 pages in length. Check out some of these preview shots!

The board game includes BLENDING of syllables and phonemes. 

The alliteration activity asks students to match pictures that have the first beginning sound. 

Syllable segmenting cards can be folded under on the line. Then students can segment the syllables. Check your answers by unfolding and taping each black dot! 

One rhyme matching page in included. 

Phoneme segmenting asks students to identify the individual phonemes in a word. Again the cards can be folded in half to hide answers while students practice. Then check his/her work by unfolding the cards. 

Hop on over to Teachers Pay Teachers to purchase this Camping set! 

Stay tuned next week for the rest of my camping activities! 

Summer Professional Development List

This post was originally published on Crazy Speech World to celebrate Jenn's one year bloggiversary! 


I always have really good intentions throughout the school year. I buy books, borrow books and really mean to do some professional reading on my own time.

But real life always happens. I read two chapters and then I'm too busy. A few months later I pick it up and read a few more chapters. This has been happening for years so this summer I'm planning to finish all those almost finished PD books!

I thought I would let you see what's in my pool bag for summer reading! I included Amazon Affiliate Links for your convenience! 

First up: Bringing Words to Life. 

I'm almost done with with one. Just a few pages to finish up, but it's going to make me feel great to finally finish it! 

From the Author: This book provides a research-based framework and practical strategies for vocabulary development with children from the earliest grades through high school. The authors emphasize instruction that offers rich information about words and their uses and enhances students' language comprehension and production. Teachers are guided in selecting words for instruction; developing student-friendly explanations of new words; creating meaningful learning activities; and getting students involved in thinking about, using, and noticing new words both within and outside the classroom.

Next: Thinking about You, Thinking about Me, Michelle Garcia Winner.

I've read bits and pieces of this one over the years, borrowing it from colleagues and friends. This spring I became an official member of the Social Thinking Blogging Team. Quite an honor to be asked! So I'm working on finishing this one cover to cover! 

From the Author: Students with social cognitive learning deficits face enormous challenges not only in their day-to-day relations with the world around them, but also in the fact that few professionals, educational or medical, understand the core of these student's deficits. One fundamental deficit relates to perspective taking - the ability of one person to consider the point of view and motives of another. Although this sounds like a simple process, it is in fact a hugely complex task that is crucial to successful interpersonal relations, and is a skill that anyone with a social cognition disability will struggle with. This book addresses the different ways this problem can present itself, the current thinking on how to approach the problem and a wealth of exercises and activities that can immediately be applied to the student. Illustrated with clear diagrams and tables, and with photocopiable handouts, this accessible text will be invaluable for anyone assessing, living with or teaching children and adults with this most abstract of all learning disabilities.

And lastly: The Source for Auditory Processing Disorders, Gail Richard.

I don't own this one, but I'm borrowing it to try to finish reading it! 

From the author: Find out WHY your students have difficulty with language processing and what to do about it. Dr. Gail Richard explains the neurological development of language processing in a way that makes sense. This book will change the way you do language therapy! Dr. Richard synthesizes years of research to explain the underlying neurological development of language processing. You'll understand how auditory processing and language systems operate and how that affects treatment decsions. The book gives tons of practical information, such as: how to differentiate between auditory and language processing disorders how to remediate language processing disorders using a hierarchical model based on neurlogical development specific skill strategies and compensatory strategies for language processing disorders and central auditory processing disorders (for students and classroom teachers) the components of central auditory processing assessment the components of functional auditory processing skills (e.g., auditory attention, auditory closure) case studies, sample diagnostic reports, and behavior checklists.

That's the reading list I'm working on! Are you reading anything great for professional development right now? Make sure you leave a comment and share so I can see what I should read next! 

Watermelon Phonological Awareness {FREEBIE}

Monday already? Don't worry if you're like me and running summer ESY or programming,  I'm getting back to the grind. Today is the first day of the summer literacy program I'm co-leading.

During our first week we will run pre-assessments and do baseline gathering. In past years, most of our program focused on phonological awareness skills. With that in mind, I'm planning on focusing on segmenting and rhyming during the first week.

To make that work, I'm playing with watermelons! This freebie is a group activity where the group can chant the Watermelon rhyme. Then let the kiddos take turns grabbing watermelons from a bag and determining how many syllable parts are included. Clap it, tap it or heck 'chomp it' to give your students the multisensory experience!

You can grab my Watermlon Syllable Counting Activity for free on TpT. 

We can follow up with Raffi's  Down By The Bay. I have it in my iTunes account, which is only a little bit embarrassing when it comes on over the Bluetooth in my car. After we sing this a few times, we will make our own class book with this TpT freebie I found"Down by the Bay Book Freebie". Witha focus on segmenting and rhyme throughout the first week we should have a better idea where our students are starting from!

Enjoy the freebie and make sure you leave feedback if you take it!

Ice Cream Articulation (with giveaway)

It's summer time! Ok. Not quite...but let's just pretend it's already June! 

You can find Summer Articulation Later Sounds Here and Summer Articulation Early Sounds Here.

Summer: Later Developing Sounds Game for Articulation practice. S, L, TH, SH, CH, J, R, S blends, L blends 

This is a HUGE game set that includes two ways to play.

Includes 75 pages of articulation card games with an ice cream theme! 384 color pictures for the sounds listed above. 12 cards in the initial, medial and final position for each sound. The /r/ sounds include 12 prevocalic and 12 of each vocalic /r/ sound in mixed positions. 

Spring: Early Developing Sounds, Articulation Game for speech therapy. P,B,M,T,D, K, G, F


Includes 46 pages of articulation card games with a summer treat theme! 216 color pictures for the sounds listed above. 12 cards in the initial and final position for each sound. 

You can find Summer Articulation Later Sounds Here and Summer Articulation Early Sounds Here. If you would like to win a copy, just enter below! Happy Summer!

a Rafflecopter giveaway