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Popper Toys

You guys. How have I gone so long without popper toys in therapy?!  I am in love with the pig and penguin poppers I got for Christmas, and so are my students. We had to set some ground rules at first– you know, things like “We don’t aim the ball at teachers or our friends” and discussions of, “No, the animals are not “farting” or “pooping” but are just blowing out of their mouth.” (Sigh.. little boys and their early obsessions with bodily functions.. ha ha).  Once the ground rules were set, though, the poppers have been a HUGE hit in therapy over the last few weeks!

Initially, I just thought they’d be fun as a reinforcer.  Turns out, they’re good for a lot more than that! Below, I’ll share some different ways I’ve used the poppers!

1.  Articulation
If you follow me on Instagram, you probably saw this recent post:

One of the first activities I did with the popper was put some artic cards up on my door and have kids aim the popper at a card of their choosing.  For mixed groups, I designated each student a color and they had to aim for their color when it was their turn.  My particular poppers also work great for /p, b/– ball, pop, penguin, and pig! You can use a carrier phrase like “Hit the ___” or “Pop the ___” when you aim at cards, too.  Carrier phrases are a great strategy to use with apraxic kids or your artic kids working at the phrase level.

(PS– Lisette from Speech Sprouts had an AWESOME idea to practice the /p/ sound with her poppers- check it out on Instagram!)

2.  Pronouns
I’ve stuck pronoun cards on the door, too, to work on “he,” “she,” and “they.”  BUT, I’ve also worked on that pesky “I” (If you gave me a dollar for every time I heard “my” or “me” instead of “I” in preschool… Well, I’d have enough to buy myself a couple Starbucks beverages on a daily basis ;-)).  You can have students aim at cards on the door, or, depending on the room setup, you can aim at different objects around the room- posters, the door, cabinets, a chair, etc…. and have them say “I’m aiming at ___”

OR, you can decide to designate your popper animal as a female or male, and practice using he/she.  For instance, “He hit the ___”  This would be an easy way to work on pronouns in a mixed group with artic students without having to get out extra materials (because, in the words of Sweet Brown.. “Ain’t nobody got time for that!”)

3.  Increasing MLU
There are so many short 2-3 word phrases that you can incorporate while using the poppers with your late-talkers that may only be using single words…
“My turn” / “Your turn”
“Ball please” “Pig (or whatever your popper is) please”
“Ball in” “Put ball in” “Pop out” “Pop ball out”
“Green ball” “Black ball” (or whatever color balls come with your popper)
“Pop pig” “Pop penguin” “Pop ball”
“Hit ___”

4.  AAC- Core vocabulary
You may have seen this idea on my Instagram, too– I used the poppers in conjunction with AAC with one of my nonverbal kids, and oh man, did he LOVE it! We targeted “in” to put the ball in the mouth, but you could also target core words such as: out, my/my turn, want/want turn, go, put/put in, more, and play.  My one little guy kept verbally saying “ooooh!” and “whoah!” when we played– it was the most verbal I had heard him all school year!

5.  AAC- PECS
I’ve also used the poppers with students using PECS.  They had to exchange a picture of the ball in order to get one to place in the popper’s mouth.  It’s a highly motivating activity, trust me!

Which one is your favorite popper animal? Have you used them any other ways besides the ones I’ve listed? Let me know in the comments below!

**
PS- An exclusive, behind-the-scenes shot (I know- you’re really hitting the jackpot with this one- ha!) of trying to take a photo of the poppers at home, with Bruce, one of my dogs, who just wants to play with them SO badly but was already told “no.”  Hilarious!  #puppylife #rufflife

PPS- A couple days after I had to tell my dog not to play with them, my husband came upstairs with one of them and shot it at me while I was working on this post– Popper toys are fun for both dogs and humans…kids and adults.. a multi-faceted toy anyone can enjoy! 😉

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We’ve been playing with allll the bug and garden We’ve been playing with allll the bug and garden activities this month up until this week when I shifted more to ice cream.. but I’m happy to share that my companion for “Up in the Garden, Down in the Dirt” is finally up on TpT!!

I love this book because it lends itself so well to SO many play extension activities with bugs, birds, flowers, and vegetable gardens.  We are lucky enough to have an outdoor garden where I work, so the classrooms have all been helping to take care of the plants— the best real life extension activity I could ask for!

The book is also chock-full of s-blends— and isn’t anything loaded with s-blends an SLP staple? 😂 I even made lists for you of all the s blend words (and other frequently occurring sound targets within the book) so you know what words you can target if you’re seeing kids in mixed groups. 

Swipe through to see all the fun hands-on activities you’ll get to work on themed vocabulary with your students— through labeling objects, verbs, object functions, and basic concepts.  Easily target multiple goals at once with activities that target different goal areas simultaneously.

Feeling like your brain is mush by this point in the year and just want someone to give you some other play activity ideas for your theme without having to search allll the places? Gotcha covered ✅  You’ll also get a list of some extra play activities with goal ideas to target within them!

Music creates some of the best connections— and it’s one of the best ways to start out your circle times/push in lessons… but you probably don’t have time to search and find the good garden and bug related songs on YouTube, right? 

Well, good news— You’re covered on that front, too, with a separate pdf just for links to different songs WITH Target goal ideas for each song, too! Download to your iPad and go!

I’ll leave this companion on sale for the next 24 hours (through Friday night) so you can still grab it at a discount for next year even if you’re done with this theme (your future self will thank you 😉)

Link in profile! ➡️ @rockchalkspeechtalk
If you’re looking to add some diversity to your If you’re looking to add some diversity to your bookshelf with May’s garden + bug themes, check out these 4 garden books featuring black or Hispanic characters!

1- “Plants Feed Me” - Short and simple text to explain where fruits and veggies come from and the different parts of the plants we eat.

Kids work together to take care of the garden (pick, water, dig, plant, etc.. great for verbs!) No main character, but features kids who are Black, white and Hispanic.

2- Lola Plants a Garden:  Lola wants to plant a flower garden. Her mom helps her through the planning steps. Lola reads books about gardens, chooses her favorite flowers, makes a list, buys seeds, then plants them. She waits and waits, then finally her plants grow! 

This book lends itself to activities that target sequencing, gardening verbs, and object functions. Lola makes a flower book while she waits for her real ones, so art supplies AND gardening tools are depicted in this book— perfect for object function targets!

3- Miguel’s Community Farm: Great book for comparing/contrasting!Miguel is looking for sunflowers, so the book starts off describing all the features of a sunflower.

On each page, Miguel sees a plant that shares a feature of a sunflower and wonders if he’s found them. However, the book then describes one way the plants are different, too (Sunflowers have yellow petals.  Artichokes have petals, too (similarity), but they’re green, not yellow (difference).

Miguel has 2 dads, who aren’t a prominent part of the book but are part of the 1st and last page illustrations.  The last page also depicts a garden party with Miguel’s friends, who are of varying ethnic backgrounds and physical abilities. 

4- Amara’s Farm: Same author/illustrator as Miguel’s Community Garden (featuring the same friends at the end!), and another compare/contrast book in the same format. 

Amara is searching for pumpkins on the farm, but this could fit into a Spring garden theme since it compares/contrasts produce. There’s also a lot of bugs in the illustrations, making it easy to fit into a bug and garden combo theme, too!

Did you find any new books to check out? If you did, share w/ another SLP/teacher friend!
You asked, so here it is! A post about allllll the You asked, so here it is! A post about allllll the things we were able to work on with this St Patrick’s Day “party” we did last week! ☘️💚 

Swipe through ➡️ to see it broken down into separate parts! It can cover so many areas from speech sounds/ syllable shapes, play imitation, to WH questions, following directions, and categorizing!

Have a friend that would love this? Be sure to share this post and send it their way!
Who else loves interactive books?! These are some Who else loves interactive books?! These are some of my favorite things to make because they’re SO versatile for use across your caseload! You can use this one for…

➡️simple inferences
➡️labeling animal vocabulary 
➡️who questions
➡️what questions
➡️core vocab like “turn” “on” “not” “look” “see” “play” and “eat.” ➡️imitating animal sounds (great for CV and CVCV syllables) 
➡️yes/no questions

I’ve also been pairing “Let’s…” and “It’s…” phrases with my kids who are gestalt language processors working on mitigation (Let’s turn the page! Let’s see who it is, It’s a pig/cow/chicken etc…)

Swipe through to see some sample pages and to hear what other people are saying about this book!
TIP OF THE DAY: Print your science experiment visu TIP OF THE DAY: Print your science experiment visuals or cheat sheets 2 to a page to have a small, handy version in front of you to reference for yourself without taking up extra space! 

Speaking of space… Since we all know SLP workspaces can come at a premium in a school… what’s the worst place you’ve had to do therapy?

I haven’t had any seriously awful ones, but one that comes to mind was probably in the preschool/kindergarten pod, at a table just behind a noisy book fair setup.  That was the day one of my kids loudly asked me “Why you got a stick?” But she did d/st blends so it did NOT sound like “stick” and I was mortified and thought “Welp this is how I lose my job” 😂🤣 

Tell me yours below! ⬇️
Tell me with an emoji! Do you plan… 🌼 Just b Tell me with an emoji! Do you plan…

🌼 Just before a session

1️⃣ 1-2 weeks at a time

🦋 Have a weekly theme but wing it from there

😅 lol what’s planning

I always find the wide range of differences between all of us so interesting!
Story props are one of the best ways to keep kids Story props are one of the best ways to keep kids engaged during book reading- and reenacting a story with props is one of the strongest predictors of story comprehension!

Make sure you grab these free story visuals from my TPT store for Little Blue Truck’s Valentine for your therapy this week, and pair them with your farm toys! We ❤️ Little Blue Truck at home, too!

You can find these visuals at the link in my profile or let me know if you want me to DM you a direct link!
10 on the Sled has been my lifeline for planning t 10 on the Sled has been my lifeline for planning therapy since coming back from Christmas break, when every day I never know which kids will be out, which coworkers will be out, or who’s caseload I’ll be covering when I have said cancelations!

It’s been a minute since I’ve uploaded anything to TPT, and I’m super stoked about getting this 10 on the sled unit out to you!

When I was in the schools, it was always a challenge to find enough time to push in to the preschool rooms— there was always centers and literacy/language small group time, but when they’re only there for 3 hours (with recess in there, too) and there’s 30 kids to see during those 3 hours.. those two times are definitely not enough!

And, even though you’re adaptable and can make just about anything be a language activity.. sometimes it’s nice to come in with a plan vs crossing your fingers that whatever is happening during that time is relevant to you.  But, you also want to be respectful of the teacher’s focus during certain times of their day, too!

Juggling all the things.

So, when I create materials for you, I create things you can use to push in during even more times of the day to give you even more windows of opportunity.

▶️Story props to use with the class if you’re pushing in during whole group

▶️ Size concept play dough creation mats that you could use if you’re going in during a math center time.  Compare sizes.  Count how many long and short, big and small pieces you need.

▶️Fine motor-based activities like tracing lines, creating with popsicle sticks, and play dough pages so that maybe you can be a station during sign-in in the morning, too, after they work on their name with the teacher or OT!

The materials are so adaptable, though, that you can push in or pull out, use individually or in a small group, and lots of the pages can be used to target multiple goals at once.  Using real objects with the activities helps keep it play-based, too, to keep your little ones engaged!

So, whatcha think? Ready to check it out? Head over to the link in my profile or let me know if you want me to DM you the link!

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