Can you describe a Thinga-ma-jigger? Freebie included!

 

I've been throwing out hints on my Instagram page this week about my little surprise. Many of you have responded that you too have one of these commercial mop contraptions at your school. For years I've been thinking it reminds me of the Thinga-ma-jigger from Dr. Seuss's The Cat In The Hat. Do you agree?

This year, I finally decided to re-create the cleaning machine and rallied my students to help. We used our executive functioning skills to visualize the big picture and plan along the way. Students brainstormed materials, created a list, and sequenced step-by-step instructions. We used latex gloves, mega phones, blow horns, a broom, spinners, and made spirals out of construction paper. We also borrowed lots of slinky sound tubes from our OT friends. 

Drum roll please....

Isn't it fun!

Our school maintenance staff were so accommodating and even agreed to drive it around for the week while wearing the signature red and white top hat!

No theme would be complete without a cool activity to go with it. I created a freebie describing activity to use as a stand-alone activity or Expanding Expression Tool Companion. You can see above that I started my bulletin board where students will display their work. 

Click HERE for link

I would love to see your Thinga-ma-jiggers and/or bulletin board! Just share your pix on my Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter page. Hope you have a whimsical week! 

Top 5 office to classroom ~ Life Hacks

If you follow me on Instagram, you'll know that I love posting life hacks! And I know that you all love them too because they are my most "liked" and commented on posts.  I've decided to make it easy for you to view my favorite SLP office Life Hacks which may transfer into many other school settings. 

5. Are all of your students taking your pencils? Simply mark your belongings with your favorite duct tape. It takes no time at all and if you are decor obsessed, you can even match your room with the tape. 

 4. Pom Poms are one of my favorite crafts. You can use them for so many life hacks. From dry erasers (glue to the cap of a marker) to EET warm fuzzies, (Product here: Warm Fuzzies EET Companion Activity) these soft fuzzies  are useful and fun. 

3. Old tights or socks make great rice packs. My students absolutely love making rice packs. They work great for calming sensory kids and are something the kids can take home to keep warm at night. Here is a blog post and free sequencing activity on making them. 

2. Keep germs at bay with this simple little trick.  My students no longer throw their dirty tissues on the table~ yay!  

1. I hate when my testing books get unraveled. Search your craft drawers for a bead that will fit on the spiral and glue it into place. You can also use clay for this trick. 

Bonus: This is one of those Life Hacks that I use at home and work. It saves time and frustration to know exactly what type of battery all of those toys and electronics use.

I hope you found something useful in this post. Let me know your favorite Life Hack in the comments below. Be sure to follow me on Facebook and Instagram for some new surprises to come. 

Gobble Up Holiday Goodies!

It's the most wonderful time of the year!  Happy holidays friends.  I'm so glad you joined The Frenzied SLPs for this link up full of holiday goodies.  

Ready for this week?  Here's a quick and easy craft that everyone loves.  Pop some popcorn in a paper bag and tie as a turkey leg.  Write Thanksgiving words on the legs and have kids describe the words.    

Click for directions

How cute is this cupcake ornament!   Simple and age respectful for all grades, this ornament idea will surly bring a festive feel into your speech and language room.  

Click for video tutorial

Give yourself the gift of relaxation over Thanksgiving Break by knowing that you are set for the upcoming month.  

Click here for holiday products

Click for freebie!

Thanks for gobbling up these holiday goodies and enjoy a wonderful holiday season!

An InLinkz Link-up

Free stuff for your classroom!

If you work with elementary ages you probably have a treasure chest, prize box, craft drawer, and game cabinet!  Parents, grandparents, and daycares are inundated with toys, crafts, pencils, markers, and party favors to stock your classroom!  The truth is that they are dying to declutter and free up some space.    

Don't believe me, let me show you all of the stuff that my kids have hoarded since my last summer clean up.   

Crafts: 

Pipe cleaners, beads, and three more drawers full this stuff.  

Cute themed stuff!  

                         Under the Sea                                        Rocks

                         Party Favors:

My all-time hoarder, middle child, has 4 pair of sunglasses, 5 watches, and can you spy the chatter teeth (perfect for SLPs).  

  

Stickers:

What educator doesn't like stickers? 

Scholastic Stuff:
We buy tons of stuff at the book fairs and just like most kid toys, these get played with for 10 minutes and put in a drawer for eternity.  

Basement Stuff:

I cleaned out the basement today and have a pile for the thrift shop and a box going to my elementary teaching buddy. 

   Coloring Stuff:

I found hundreds of extra crayons and bet some teacher would love to melt down the broken ones to make a colorful creation. 

So there you have it.  A multitude of stuff just from my home that could fill a classroom.  

Post this letter to your Facebook page and I bet you get loads of great stuff for your classroom.  People love to clear their clutter and especially feel good if they can donate to a good cause and a friend.  

 If I were to see this post on Facebook, I would run for my kids' rooms and come out with a garbage bag full of stuff for you.  Grab the letter by clicking HERE.  

And it goes on and on. After I organized my kids rooms, I bought them more stuff.  You see, my oldest two were at a summer sleep-away camp and it was suggested that kids get a care package.   

Maybe I need to be on Horders.  

Thought bubbles freebies!

I have loved using thought bubbles the last couple of months.  I'm not sure why I didn't incorporate these into my social language therapy sooner.  If you're in the same boat, have no fear and read on.  

Have you ever heard of Chogger?   

You must check out this amazing website which allows you and your students to create comics by adding thought and speech bubbles to your pictures.  My sixth graders are currently working with this website and having a blast.  It targets a wide range of meta-cognitive skills as well as social language and syntax.  

 Next up is my little gift to you for Teacher Appreciation and Better Speech and Hearing Month. 

Head on over to my store for my new Thought Bubbles Freebie.  You and your students are sure to get many laughs out of this product.

Here's some more great news! 

The TPT last sale of the school year is going on May 6-7!!! 

 My entire store is 20% off including already reduced bundles! Use the code TPTXO  to get an extra 10% off!  

You may also like:  

Fan Freebie

I have a new fan freebie on my Facebook page.  

Click on my Facebook page, go to the Fan Freebie tab, "like" my page, and it's all yours! 

Your students are sure to get a kick out of it! 

Thank you and enjoy!  

April Fools' with a little Freebie!

We're reading the cutest story in Speech today.  April Fool! Watch Out at School is a Scholastic book by Diane de Grout.  It's a fun story about playing April Fools' pranks in school and how the best prank may be no prank at all.  Gilbert's teacher has fun with the class when she asks her students to use funny sounds for punctuation in reading.  I've modified this a bit and have a freebie page for you to use with your students.  The targets are: following directions, speech/reading fluency, articulation at reading level, and/or skills of auditory processing. 

Click here for freebie page.  

You may also like my April Fools' Absurdities.  I was so excited to see it featured on the teacherspayteachers blog last week!  You're students will enjoy this activity for the April Fools' Day or any time of the year and the pictures and absurdity cards are sure to bring about lots of laugher.

PS- My own children are waking up to find black rice in their beds (white rice colored with marker).  They'll learn the hard way that food in bed attracts mice and it will also get them up on time for school.   I'm a little worried about what they'll plan as revenge.  

Tasty Expression Freebie!

It can be challenging to incorporate hands-on fun with my middle level students, but when I came up with this idea I knew it would be a hit.

My students LOVE candy and with Easter coming up there are an abundance of jelly bean flavors and options out there.  Fun and unique flavors like: buttery popcorn, dill pickle, toasted marshmallow, and spicy cinnamon open up a variety of subjective and objective descriptor words.  And the more traditional flavors of strawberry, grape, peach, and of course black licorice (love it or hate it)  can be found at any drug or grocery store. 

Because of the wide array of flavors, I thought it would be fun to work on using descriptive words to describe the jelly beans.  My students have been using the words "good" and "bad" way too much lately and this activity has stirred up their creative expression.  

Download the freebie to see how your students can also become connoisseurs of jelly beans.  

Click for FREEBIE!

This activity would be great for those spring observations and is a wonderful way to incorporate many goals of expressive language. 

You may also like these spring activities. 

Spring Updates and Freebie!

It's been almost a year since I started blogging (stay tuned for my big bloggy birthday bash).  I've learned a lot within this year and am revising many of my spring products by adding more pages, data tracking forms, and multi-leveled teaching opportunities.  

I've started with Blooming Directions.  

This product was made because so many of my students have difficulty with following directions and understanding concepts.  I've incorporated directions with manipulatives, paper and pencil directions, and "point-to" directions in order to target a multitude of goals and language levels.  

Check out Blooming Directions at a special price and receive your FREEBIE by downloading the preview Here  

Which One Doesn't Belong is the second spring product that has been updated.  

I've added 4 learning level tasks and data collection forms for tracking student progress.  WWDB is also on sale until all of my spring updates are completed.  

If you already have these products, please upload the revised versions.  

Here's the BIG NEWS!

  

My Super Spring Bundle is in the process of being revised.  So far, I've added 6 pages to the bundle and I have the remaining 5 products to update.  The 93 page bundle currently sells for the reduced price of $9.50.  When the updates are completed, the bundle will go up in price so this is the time to grab it.  Your job will be to keep checking in for the updates which will be completed by April 15th (a big deadline day).  TPT will notify you of updates.  This deal will save you at least $6.00 from purchasing the products individually.  

I hope you're as excited for spring as I am.  

Now if Mother Nature would just get the memo….

New Freebie!

Enjoy this new Eggs-cellent Freebie!  

 Just hop on over to My Store and hunt for the Basket of Prepositions.  

It's almost spring!!!!!

I also have lots of new Spring Themed materials.  I don't know about you but I'm  ready for some warmer weather. 

Enjoy and head on over to Speech Freebie Linky party for some more freebies!

Holiday Freebie!

I want to thank all of my bloggie followers with this Freebie.  Just click on the picture to download.  

Have a wonderful holiday and 

God Bless Us Everyone!  

Rice Pack Crafty Freebie!

Baby It's Cold Outside!

Rice Pack Crafty

I don't know about you but I hate being cold!   This simple rice pack craft activity is practical, inexpensive, and appropriate for any age.   Best of all, it will certainly help keep your students warm during those cold winter nights. 

Click here
for the free step-by-step instructions and adorable directions of use.

   

      

I hope you enjoy this free crafty. 
Thank you for your feedback and may your winter be full of warm and cozy moments!

  You may also like this 3-4 step winter themed sequencing activity.