Middle School linky party

Hey~ welcome to the Frenzied SLP blog party on Middle School Materials and Motivators! I've worked with middle level learners for 17 years and love this population! From the awkwardness to the crazy drama- these kids want nothing more than to be understood.  

Did you know that the middle school student goes through the most physical, emotional, and social development during the tween years?  I feel so fortunate to be a part of this impressionable time of my students' lives and want to share with you my top 5 keys to motivate your students!  

1. Make connections: Take genuine interest in your students.  Get to know their likes, hopes, and dreams. Connect learning to students' interests and make it relevant to their lives.  I've helped a student write rap songs (best apraxia progress), aided another student with her lines in the play, taught mnemonic devices to help upper grade students pass hunter's safety courses and driving tests. Students show up ready to learn when you care enough to make connections. 

2. Make it okay to fail: I am purposely goofy with my students.  I share so many stories of how I messed up, struggled, and failed that my students know it's okay be be themselves in my room. They are not afraid to take risks and understand that perseverance is more important than perfection.  

We work on growth mindset (based on the book Mindset). My students know their positive character traits and hear language that helps them to make progress.   

3. Incorporate movement: Our students' bones, muscles, and organs are growing at an accelerated rate. Students are awkward with these body changes, and they even have fluctuations in their basal metabolism. This can cause extreme restlessness at times and listlessness at other times. I'm lucky to work at a school that incorporates middle school philosophy. We have advisories, recess, block scheduling, and teach to the whole learner. We know that movement is critical to learning. My students may use brain breaks, dribble a basketball to multi-syllabic words, walk outside to incorporate EET tasks, or simply follow physical directions. You won't believe the difference a 2-minute movement break makes in attitude and focus.  

4. Keep it cool: Be aware and respectful of the stigma that goes hand-in-hand with special ed services. Sorry peeps, coming to speech isn't considered cool in middle school. But, you can do some things to make it semi-cool and fun. Check out my most popular blog post for tips on reducing special ed stigma HERE.  

5. Be creative:  Middle schoolers like to have fun. Motivate your students by incorporating lots of senses. Play games, create projects, listen to music, cook, and bring in new creative materials.  I have a lot of materials in my TpT store created specifically for my middle school students. Check out some of my best-sellers below: 

I had a real hard time narrowing down my many middle school products so I narrowed it down to my best-sellers.  

Topic Text incorporates sparkly smart phones with social pragmatic turn-taking, topic maintenance, and active listening skills. We always run out of time playing this very engaging game.  Like most of my products, this one includes social language rubrics for students to self monitor progress and SLPs to chart growth. 

 Taking Perspective is my all time best seller. It's a meta-cognitive activity which helps students to understand others emotions and identify what someone may be thinking or feeling in a given situation.  You will find work sample pages, rubrics, an emotion bank, and many situations for students to analyze. I have many perspective taking activities in my store, including one that specifically targets social media and the impact posts, likes, comments can have on others: Safebook HERE

 Here are a couple loves of mine that I ALWAYS pull out for my students and they NEVER get old.

Top Hits Figurative Language

 Brain Storm: Problem Solving, Safety, & Perspective Taking

So relax and have fun with your middle schoolers. And remember that you are an important part of their lives during these critical years.  

Check out the other link-ups for more tips and product ideas.  

An InLinkz Link-up

Rubber Chickens for Social Thinking!

Rubber chickens~ Well that's an unexpected post topic!  I attended Michelle Garcia Winner's Social Thinking Mentor Training Program a few years ago and have implemented many of the programs, tips, and strategies with my students.

I wanted to share with you a simple and fun cue that I use for my middle schoolers to identify when behavior is unexpected.  Here is my first and very amateur You Tube video.  

Paper, Pencil, and Paper Clip Challenge~ linky party

I must be an SLP geek because I had so much fun creating with this challenge from The Dabbling Speechie.  

I came up with a million ideas for these three props and chose to hook you in by tackling a fishing game.  I simply ripped my paper into 6 cards, wrote fish-themed expressions on each card, punched a hole in the cards with the paper clip tip, and bent my paper clip in the shape of a fish hook. I contemplated making the paper into origami fish, but decided to keep it simple.  Oh, and I even had a page left for data tracking.  

 Students need to hook a fish and deduct the meaning of the expression. It may look like this lesson is quick and only targets one goal, but there are many goals and activities that may be targeted in this fishing game.   Use this game for turn taking, listening, asking questions, story telling, sequencing, fluency, and artic.  Using a variety of skills, the lesson can be expanded to last a 30 minute session.  When targeting figurative language, ask students to give examples of when they were "A fish out of water", etc.  

Short on time, kill two birds with one stone by asking your students to help you make this Fishing for Idioms game.  Creating will not only save time, but also implement skills of following directions, sequencing, and critical thinking.  

Expressions Used: Plenty of fish in the sea, Fish out of water, Fishing for a compliment, Big fish in a small pond, Gone fishin', and Just keep swimming. 

Thank you Dabbing Speechie for this fun challenge.  I can't wait to see some of the other ideas.  Head back over to the linky party.   

Sea you soon...

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:  

Finding Your TPT Niche

Thanks Teach Speech 365 for throwing this linky party which highlights SLP bloggers interests and areas of speciality.  

I started teacherspayteachers a year ago this month.  My work is primarily with grades 5-8 and also with my school's Life Skills population which may span grades 3-8.  Most of my products are geared towards services with the middle school student and life skills populations.  

Calendar activities: All of our students follow a schedule and have to understand calendars.  It is amazing how many language skills are involved in calendar work: from understanding concepts to sequencing events I realized that a lot of goals could be incorporated into the functional skills of calendar work.  These monthly activities are labor intensive, however, it is worth the effort as I receive great feedback from my buyers and have begun to see major improvements in the skills addressed.  I almost have a year of calendars made and will update these calendars yearly for no fee.  This summer I plan on adding data pages to each month.  

Perspective Taking: I recently traveled to Michelle Garcia Winner's  Social Thinking Clinic in  San Jose to participate in the Social Thinking Mentor Training Program.  I was able to observe Michelle working with adolescent groups of learners with social needs and talk with her about her passion for working with this age group.  This opened up my learning to a world outside of "pragmatic" language and sparked my interest in developing products that address the important areas of safety, problem solving, empathy training, and perspective taking.  Here are a few of my best sellers:  

  

Taking Perspective: Problem solving, empathy training, and perspective taking with situation cards and an emotion bank.
Safebook: Perspective taking and problem solving with social media.  


Figurative Language: I love making these products because idioms and multiple meaning words are so much fun to work with.   I have a spring, summer, and holiday themed figurative language products.  Fall and winter are in the works.  

My new Spring Figurative Language product has multiple meaning words, idioms, personification, similes, and metaphors.  It includes at least two activities for each area as well as black/white printables for easy prep.  Data tracking forms are included for baseline and progress charting.  




Describing and EET Companions: I received a grant last year and was lucky enough to be able to purchase the entire EET system and most of the extras.   The skill of describing is so important in all modes of expressive language and I've made all my activities of descriptive language easily able to be used with Sara Smith's EET.   

Dazzling Daisies comes with bulletin board daisies, printable daisies, cueing daisies, and describing data may be collected in oral and written forms.  

Language Logic: When I worked in the rehab setting I used language logic puzzles to improve critical thinking skills in my CVA and TBI patients.  Language logic activities are hard to come by for the school age population so I made some for my students and decided to sell them on TPT.  I absolutely love working on goals of critical thinking, problem solving, deductive, and inductive reasoning using these activities.  

Sentence Scrambles:  For some reason, most of my middle school students have a really hard time with the Sentence Assembly.  They present with long delays on standardized SLP tests and would have benefited from cues if they were allowable.  I made a variety of sentence scramble products to target this specific skill and have provided a cueing system in these products.  This is one area in which I have student work samples and evidence of improved ability (sometimes hard to find concrete data in our field).  I just tested a student for her triennial and she's moved up two scaled scores in this area!

 My Spring Sentence Scramble has been one of my go-to tasks.  They are so easy to pull off the shelf and work with groups of students.  You may use the writing paper (included) or have students use dry erase boards to sequence their sentences.  When they are finished, students just pass their scrambled sentence on to the next person in the group.  This gives me the opportunity to individually check-in with students, provide cues (cueing system included), and chart data.  

These are the primary areas in which I have multiple products in my store.   Thanks for hanging out with me and make sure to go back to Teach Speech 365 for more from your favorite TPT authors.

Love it & List It Linky: Social Skills

I'm excited to join my first Love It & List It linky party! 

This month's topic is: Social Skill Activities.

I was lucky enough to have joined the brilliant Michelle Garcia Winner at her clinic to participate in her mentor training program.  I recommend many of Michelle's products but I believe that the meat of her program is in the Thinking About You Thinking About Me workbook.  This is a must-have for school and clinic based SLPs.  

I'm having a blast this year co-teaching with the OT at my school.  My Facebook fans helped us to name our group SPOT-ON (get it- Sp=Speech OT=Occupational Tx). She teaches the Zones, while I work with the students on identifying feelings and emotions.  Together we teach  calming and coping strategies.  I believe that these skills are so important for our students.

The Second Step Program has some great visual social story situations and practical techniques for students to learn.  I especially like the middle school focused program as it is life relevant and keeps the kids engaged while learning the important life/social skills of empathy, anger management, and impulse control.  

Here are some of my perspective taking activities.  

 Click here to see more.    

Make sure you go check out the link up on Speech Room News and see all of the other blogger favorites!

Safebook

Recent brain research has shown that the frontal lobe of the brain is not fully developed until after high school age. This is the area that helps us reason, make good judgments, and problem solve. It helps us to realize the consequences of actions which reduces impulsivity and risky behaviors.
 The scary fact is that social media is inundated with adolescents who may not have the skills to safely and appropriately use these sites. The consequences of posting inappropriate and/or unsafe information about oneself can be devastating. 


I created the Safebook product to help students to think before they post, “like,” or upload photos and videos to social media sites. It targets perspective taking skills by asking students to take on many character roles of people who may be viewing their social media. While beneficial for all ages using social media, it is especially important for students with poor perspective taking skills (ASD), impulsivity (ADHD), and students with decreased ability to understand cause and effect relationships (Learning Disabilities).

Click Here to go to Safebook on my TpT Store!

Safebook targets judgment, reasoning, safety, cause-effect relationships, perspective taking, and social skills while connecting to real world experiences as found on popular social media sites.

Appropriate for all ages using social media and critical for students with higher level Autism Spectrum Disorders, Attention Deficit Disorder, and students with generalized learning and language weaknesses.

Students can play in a one-on-one setting, small group, or large group. Three types of cards are used to describe ways of interacting on social media: Direct posts, "liked" and linked sites, and pictures and uploaded videos. The comments, "likes", links, and visuals are reviewed through the lens of varying identified persons and determined if they are appropriate, safe, or inappropriate (unexpected).  

 "Know Your Audience" Perspective Taking Board/Mat

Cards: 

 Direct Status Posts

Shared/"liked"link

 Photo/Video Uploads

"create-your-own pages

Thumbs Up/Down Chips

Answer Key: including explanations of online: 

Safety, TMI, Negativity, Rudeness, Permission, Bragging

 Thanks for checking out this blog post in an area that I'm very passionate about. Our students can be so vulnerable and I believe that we as educators are able to help our students make smart decisions.  

Thought Box

We all have students who have a hard time staying on topic.  There are many reasons why kids have trouble with this skill.

1.  Attention Issues
2.  Poor Impulse Control
2.  Fear of Forgetting the Thought
4.  Not Understanding the Topic
5.  Poor Pragmatic Language Skills

There are also many ideas out there to help students to stay on topic and the goals should always center around the reason for the difficulty.  A Thought Box is a simple strategy that may help all students to stop and think about their thought.  

A Thought Box is:

-  a concept and not literally a box (although it could be)  

-  a place for students to document thoughts 

-  a compensatory strategy for topic maintenance

Students are asked to write down or draw the thought instead of blurting out a comment, response, or answer.   Next, they need to ask themselves a few questions.

 1.  Is it relevant to the topic?
 2.  Is it the appropriate time to give input or ask questions? 
 3.  Can it or should it wait?

Examples of thought boxes may include:  

- a pack of post it notes 
- dry erase board 
- journal book

It is wise to introduce this skill in a one-on-one or small group setting.  The long-term goal is for students to recognize their thoughts and improve topic maintenance skills within the classroom.

Here is a fun activity that would pair nicely with the Thought Box concept:  

SLP Blog Hop- Topic: Student Accountability

Welcome SLP Blog Hoppers!

I'm so happy you've found my page.  We SLP bloggers have been working hard for the past month to get ready for this huge blog hop.  

Use the linky tools at the bottom of the page to hop from blog to blog collecting freebies, SLP ideas, and the secret code words.  When you have collected all 17 to form the secret message you will be able to enter and win some great prizes.  

About me:  My name is Jennifer Moses and I'm an SLP for grades 4-8 in a public school.

As my screen name (SLPrunner)would imply , I run.  I ran my first 1/2 marathon in March and am running one again in September.  The thing is, I have a hard time getting and staying motivated and I need accountability.  For this reason, I chose my screen name, have a bumper sticker on my car that reads "Runner Girl," and lately I've been engaging my Facebook Followers for weekly motivation, inspirational quotes, and tips.   The accountability helps me to stay on track (pun-haha).  I know how tough it is to stay focused on a goal and often think of my students on my runs.  

Many times our students don't know why they are receiving services and/or may not be motivated to make changes.  How do we increase student motivation, ownership, progress, and carry-over of skills?  I've found that student-directed rubrics and punch cards are great ways to accomplish this.

Student directed rubrics are developed with the student and for the student to have an active role in assessment.  In turn, the SLP has data documentation to share with parents, RTI groups, and IEP teams.  In addition, the generalization rate may improve as students, para-educators and classroom teachers use the rubrics in other settings.

If you haven't already downloaded my free student rubric for active listening click on the rubric below:  

Another fun idea to improve generalization is to use punch cards:  Here is a new freebie that may be used in and out of the SLP room.  

  

 

Many of my products include Common Core Aligned rubrics.  You can save time and start your year off in the right direction with this Pragmatic Language Rubric Collection: 

Click photo: $3.40

You won't want to miss more tips, promotions, freebies, and fun on my Facebook Page!  Follow me at:  https://www.facebook.com/slprunner

Teachers Pay Teachers followers receive 50% off all new products for the first 24 hours.  Here is my brand new product (click image).  

Thanks for hanging out with me and have fun on the rest of your blog hopping adventure.  

Blog Hop:
5 Winners will receive a goodie bundle of TpT products from our stores!
   
Here is my donation to the collection:  

$4.00: Targeting Language in Common Core
click schoolhouse to download

1 Grand Prize Winner will receive the above in addition to the following:               
TpT Gift Card for $50
Speech and Language Apps:  Little Bee Speech, Virtual Speech Center, and Kid In Story from LocoMotive Apps 

Contest rules:

*  You must decode a secret message
*  In order to complete this task, you will need to visit each of the 17
    blogs and find the OWL CLUE
*  When you enter the contest through Rafflecopter below, you will be  
    asked to type in the secret code. Have fun and enjoy blog Hopping with
    us!  

The contest will run from Aug. 11-17.
Good Luck Everyone!  

                         Find my secret code: 

Here are the 17 blog hop sites: 

a Rafflecopter giveaway