Rock Chalk Speech Talk

Sharing Speech & Language Therapy Ideas!

  • Rock Chalk Speech Talk
  • Home
  • About
  • Blog
  • Shop
  • Get on the List!
  • Contact

Back to School Week! If You Take A Mouse to School

It’s that time of year again.. Back to School! Last week was the first full week with kids, so I began seeing my caseload & working out all the kinks in the scheduling (you know, a school-based therapist’s favorite thing to do!!)


For the first week, I used the book, “If You Take A Mouse To School” by Laura Numeroff to base my therapy sessions around.


I had a big book, too, which made it even more fun!

Building A Mouse House:
At one point in the story, the mouse builds a “Mouse House” out of building blocks.  I adapted this, and used my Jenga blocks as the building blocks.  

My artic kids got to roll a die and the number they landed on was the number of productions they had to give me and the number of Jenga pieces they could pick out to build their Mouse House. You could also work on following directions by giving them instructions on how to build their mouse house!


Roll & Cover/Stamp:


I also made these diy cover-all/stamper pages to go along with the book.  Easy as a general reinforcer activity for a variety of goals! See below for the link to download for free!

Lunch Box Craftivity:

You can use whatever arts/crafts supplies you have on hand.  I happened to have dino stickers I picked up on clearance at Michaels a while back, so it kind of matched the lunch box in the book.  

You can download the lunchbox page along with the roll & cover pages for FREE right HERE

Cariboo for vocabulary:


I am L-O-V-I-N-G that I took the time this summer to make Cariboo card sets for all of my themes throughout the year.  It’s making life easier already! My school supply cards were perfect to incorporate with this book.  I can adapt Cariboo for a lot of different things, but I use it mostly for vocabulary and answering questions.  

You can find the Cariboo cards HERE & read about how I use the game HERE. Jenna at Speech Room News also has a post with a great idea on how she organized these cards– you can read that HERE


Mouse Speak: Articulation

Last Spring, I made a universal articulation companion pack to go along with all the “If You Give A Mouse/If You Take A Mouse” books. It features all of the earlier-developing sounds in all positions of words & can be used with any of the Laura Numeroff “Mouse” books (or any other cute Mouse book, such as “Mouse Paint”). Sounds /p, b, m, n, w, h, t, d, y, k, g, f/ are included.
We had run out of lamination at school, so I didn’t get a chance to prep them in the Spring, and forgot they never got prepped until I went to look for them on that Monday morning– whoops! But I definitely plan to have them ready before I use “If You Take A Mouse to the Movies” this winter! If you want to check them out, you can do so HERE.


What do you do for the first week of school?

«
»

Filed Under: Uncategorized Leave a Comment

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Subscribe Via Email

Categories

Search

Latest on Instagram

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle- that’s the saying isn’ Reduce, Reuse, Recycle- that’s the saying isn’t it? (Earth Day pro over here, clearly 😅)

REUSE…. Your spiders that you probably have from Halloween or even from your bug theme, and use them for Itsy Bitsy Spider!

Grab those spideys and a tote lid for a ramp aka your “spout,” and walk them up the ramp.  Use “up up up” as your verbal routine each time. (Taking turns making a spider walk up is great motor imitation with objects, too!) Once it’s at the top of the ramp, let go so the spider slides down your spout. 

Verbal routines could look like…
“Up up up!” or...
“Up, up, up… whee!” or... 
“Up, up, up… down! Whee!”

What else would you use as a ramp besides a tote lid?
Need some basic, simple activities for a weather t Need some basic, simple activities for a weather theme? Use “rain” and plan around Itsy Bitsy Spider!

These “Never Touch A...” books are my 7 month old’s favorite (she repeatedly closes the book on me as we’re reading to feel the front cover again 😂), and they’re great to use at work, too, for introducing literacy to kids who don’t necessarily enjoy books yet. I’ve found that a lot of these kids are also sensory seekers, and the tactile component of these books gets them interested!

In the schools, I always got a lot of new late talkers on my caseload in the Spring from the birth-to-3 service transitions, so working on exclamatory words like “ew!” “yuck!” “ick!” “ooo!” is something you can do with this tactile book, too, for your little ones just starting to imitate!
If there’s a Little Blue Truck book that fits my If there’s a Little Blue Truck book that fits my theme, you bet I’m using it! The Springtime version, while not my all-time fave of the series, is perfect for a farm theme or in May for Mother’s Day with mama and baby animals! 🐤🐣

Annnnd to go with it, this Little Blue Truck BOOM deck can be used...
-in person or virtually
-for a ton of your preschool language goals 
-with ANY Little Blue Truck book (but fits especially well with the original and Springtime version of the books!)

Swipe to see a video of it in action!
Hi! It’s me again. Long time no see. I unexpec Hi! It’s me again.  Long time no see.

I unexpectedly took a long hiatus, and maybe you noticed, maybe you didn’t (it’s cool if you didn’t). 

I kinda poured my heart out in a message to my email subscribers earlier, so I’ll give you an abbreviated version (mostly bc IG won’t let me have as many characters 😂🤷‍♀️)

I was playing the comparison game in pretty much every aspect of life which was so unhealthy for so many reasons so I had to take a step back. 

I was comparing myself to my coworkers who all seem put together each day while having young kids at home, as I feel like I’m riding the hot mess express every day and I’m lucky if I leave the house with makeup on!

I was comparing Olivia to other August babies- mostly worrying whether I was doing enough for her.  I had to mute the due date group I’m in on Facebook bc I’d start going down a rabbit hole of worry when I’d see threads of babies doing things she wasn’t yet- despite logically knowing she was well within the normal range for milestones and that an early August baby is way different than a late August baby. 

I was comparing myself to all of my other sweet and wonderful SLP TPT friends who are killin’ it, creating great, useful content to share and still managing families and work, and some days I felt like I was just spinning my wheels (but for real guys how do you do it 😂)

Essentially I felt like I wasn’t doing enough as a mom, a wife, a friend, a therapist, or a blogger.

But I’ve been feeling more like myself lately, trying to create some systems that work, and learning how to give myself some grace as I figure it all out. I love the little nugget in this picture more than I could ever adequately explain- so I’m working on some things for my own well-being so I can be a great mama to her!

I’m looking forward to being back- I hope you are, too!
Who else is reading The Day It Rained Hearts this Who else is reading The Day It Rained Hearts this week? Between this and Little Blue Truck’s Valentine, we’re delivering Valentine’s to LOTS of our animal friends! With all no prep or low prep activities, you can buy this set tonight and use tomorrow morning!
Easy to prep? ✅ Works for lots of your caseload Easy to prep? ✅ 
Works for lots of your caseload? ✅ 
Preverbal AND verbal kids can participate? ✅ 

I use this every year, at different times throughout the year, and just leave out the “Valentine’s Day” part of the line- voila, you also have an interactive book for a jungle/zoo anima theme or a pet theme, too! 🐵 🐊 🦁

Grab it with the link in my profile!
Olivia and I are Super Bowl ready! #gochiefs ❤️💛 Is the bow and tutu over the top? Yes. Do I regret it? No. 😂 

Since most people are just in it for the food and commercials.. Whats your favorite Super Bowl snack? Mine is buffalo chicken dip 💯!
This little lady knows what’s up and doesn’t w This little lady knows what’s up and doesn’t want you to miss out either!

⏰ The BEST bundle and the BIGGEST bundle is back for version 2.0! Get yourself materials from 23 SLPs-

Need speech sound materials? Gotcha covered ✅ 

Need language materials? Yep- covered there, too! ✅ 

Need both (and want a bundle of mixed group materials thrown in for free?) You got it! ✅ 

Buy the bundles at thisthatorboth.com where we have allll the info you need if you want more details!

Copyright © 2021 · Darling Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in