Activity of the Week: 12/5/16

December is finally upon us, and with that festive time of the year, my special forces students worked on holiday vocabulary with these interactive books.  We got to discuss elves, Santa, and the process of delivering gifts at Christmas, we discussed basic clothing vocabulary with a fun "dress Santa" book, and we opened gifts to see and label what was inside and what the child (using pronouns he/she) got for Christmas. Here are some of the books in action:

Other groups were focused on wrapping up our semester.  December does not leave much time to really dig into therapy with all of the seminars, class events, and other activities that are going on at this time.  I like to bring out each student folder and review it with them.  Here are a few close ups of their working folders (each student has one):

Each folder contains an attendance form that helps me track if a student has had unusual absences or misses from therapy.  I try to maintain a 95-100% therapy fulfillment but sometimes things happen and sessions can't be made up (though I make every attempt possible!).  Ultimately and officially, it is up to the IEP team to decide if make up sessions are warranted for each individual student. Again, I offer make up sessions as much as possible but somethings things just happen.  Here is ASHA's official stance on the matter of making up missed sessions.  Their folders also contain collected data information from previous sessions, graphed progress (that the student tracks), and class/homework.

Students had the opportunity to graph their performance, ask questions about things they learned, review content we had discussed and practiced, tally up homework that was returned to me (important for the following week!), and discuss the reward of speech fun week party.  Each student has a Mickey Mouse reward sticker chart in their folders and they earn stickers by turning in homework, remembering their goal, and remembering to come to sessions independently.  The chart holds 30 slots, with 15 required to attend the following week's holiday party.  If students do not have enough stickers, they still get to attend the party, but they must complete a worksheet packet in order to make up the required missing work for their sticker chart.  After the short work is completed, the student can then attend and have fun at the holiday party, that way no one is excluded.

For our special forces room, we decided on the craftivity of making glitter Popsicle snowflakes. This was a great activity for vocabulary, sensory (glitter, clue), pragmatics (requesting and sharing), following simple directions, and sequencing.  We had a blast!

Next week is speech fun week and the last week of our semester!  Stay tuned for more holiday fun!

Happy speeching!