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Turn Your Phone into a Document Camera for Teletherapy

At this point, I’m hoping teletherapy is a short-lived way of life, and that it’s not going to continue into the Fall (Aren’t we all?) Keeping that hope alive also means that spending $50+ on a document cam for a situation so short-term isn’t really at the top of my list!  

At least with investing in digital materials like BOOM cards, I can still use those on the iPad once in-person therapies resume… but in all likelihood, I personally am probably not going to use a document cam once those therapies resume. So, the search for how to turn my phone into a doc cam began!

Setup:

  1. On your computer, download the free IPEVO app called “Visualizer” (download here).

  2. On your smartphone, download the iDocCam app (available on iOS and Android) from the App Store.  This app isn’t free, but it’s only 99 cents/month or $9.99/year.  I personally opted for 99 cents/month so I could try it out and, again, I’m hoping I don’t need this for a year!

  3. Open Visualizer on your computer and iDocCam on your phone, so they’re both running.  Make sure your computer and phone are both connected to the same WiFi network (i.e. your home network).  The exception to this is if you have a MacBook and iPhone, and then they can be connected via Bluetooth and don’t have to be connected through WiFi.

  4. In Visualizer, on the lefthand side, click the first icon that looks like a webcam and choose your smartphone as the camera source.

Setup is done! With a phone, your camera space probably isn’t going to span as large of an area as an actual document cam, but, for 99 cents, it’s a good alternative!

This is the amount of space my phone can span.

I have a small tripod for my phone, so that’s what I use, but you can also create a tall stack of books/boxes/whatever and set your phone on top, overlooking what you want to show through the camera (which is what I did one day when I couldn’t find my tripod… turns out I’d put it in my backpack! #pregnancybrain)

Part of one of the tripod legs shows up in the picture (which you can see above) and part of the books will show up in your space, too, so again- it’s not perfect, but I think it’s a great, easy, cheaper alternative to a document camera.

Another option is to use a clamp stand for your phone- one that will clamp on to the edge of your table/desk and overlooks the table/desk from above.  You’ll eliminate a tripod leg or the edge of books being in your picture, but, it’s a bit more of an investment (generally between $20-$30 on Amazon).

To use this in teletherapy, you’ll just screen share the Visualizer window on your computer so your students can see what’s being projected through your document cam (aka your phone!)

Pretty easy! What do you think- think you’ll be giving this a try?

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A Camping Spree with Mr Magee is always one of my A Camping Spree with Mr Magee is always one of my go-to books for a camping theme! 

⭐️ Full of s-blends and initial /k/ opportunities, it’s a great choice for when you have to have mixed speech and language groups (and who doesn’t have kids working on those sounds?!)

⭐️ Lots of opportunities for pronoun + be verb + -ing verb structure sentences, and regular past tense verbs, too!

⭐️ Lots of AAC core word modeling opportunities

⭐️ Multiple opportunities for “why” questions which aren’t always easy to come by!

⭐️ Rhyming text that has a great flow to it— especially love this during whole group!

⭐️ annnnd they make s’mores in the book, which is *obviously* a necessity in any camping theme 😂

Take a look at the mini unit with printables you can use for circle time and small group therapy- I just updated it so redownload from TPT if you already own it! I added ingredient icons and sequencing/retell pictures for the science experiment, 3 sets of Cariboo cards, and basic concept play dough mats for this unit to help you have even more of your goals covered with super easy planning!

We “packed the camper” at circle time this week and it was a hit! Easily adaptable for different language skills, too— Target receptive id or identifying based on descriptors like function, appearance, location, etc! 

Find it on TPT with the link in profile ➡️ @rockchalkspeechtalk
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

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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!

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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!

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