The Doctor is in...

Anyone else celebrating Dr. Seuss' birthday?! I love incorporating real world items into our therapy sessions. The students love making a mess, so in honor of the great Dr. Seuss we make "oobleck". We learn about Dr. Seuss and read a short biography, I read a truncated version of "Bartholomew and the Oobleck" by Dr. Seuss (the original takes over 30 minutes for me to get through!?) and then I present them with the science experiment.

Oobleck is a 'non-newtonian fluid'. Viscosity is the rate at which something pours. Water pours quickly and honey or syrup pours slowly. These liquids have a constant viscosity, it will never change. Oobleck pours both quick AND slow!?

When made correctly Oobleck can be molded into a ball and have properties like a solid, and when released will "melt" in your hand like a liquid.

Oobleck is a 2:1 ratio

2 cups cornstartch

1 cup water

TIPS:
*I love to find youtube videos to help the students see what should happen, before starting.
*Use disposable bowls and spoons for easy clean up.
*Buy the rolls of plastic tablecloths to work on, then just throw everything out.
*If the oobleck is too hard add water, and if it is too wet add more corn starch!
*If the oobleck spills over and out, let it dry it will turn into powder and you can easily vacuum/sweep it up!


PROMPT: *I created a short "Bartholomew and the Oobleck" on my SMARTboard, I can change the words/phrases/sentences to achieve my various targets!

LANGUAGE: scientific method, following directions/steps, math fractions

PRAGMATICS: sharing items, turn taking for measuring, following rules

Oo the messes you will make!

Sweet, Sweet Certification

I have made the leap from "Trained" to "Bridged" to "crazy"...I mean "Certified"! Totally worth it. I have been certified since Fall of 2015 and I am still learning. Things are much more "second nature" now and I feel way more confident in the lexicon and overall practice of PROMPT. The certification process was stressful and tedious, but I learned a lot in 4 months.

Advice:
*Work with a mentor.
*Be organized; schedule, highlighters, post-it notes.
*Prepare for the unexpected; children get sick-things come up. Leave yourself extra time to get things done.
*Clear space on your computer and recording devices.
*Learn how to work "google drive" prior to the process.
*Have multiple cameras taping for the inevitable "out of space" or "random" stop.
*Use your resources.
*Be confident. You're going to make mistakes, but this is always a learning process-not meant to be perfect.
*Don't be afraid to make these mistakes.
*ABR. Always Be Recording. ALWAYS!
(The client won't want to stick their face into the camera every second and you are bound to tape something magical. Like when mine accidentally poked me in the eye, and then 3 months later, in a different video, poked me in the eye...with his toe. $10,000? America's Funniest Video? Of course I'm going to split it with the kid! <----it's in writing now.)

Listening Language

Dingle Dangle: Listening and Language! I love this app it is so adorable and silly. There are two different activities: players can listen to instructions (in noise!) or build their own scarecrow.

This app was created by the Royal Institute for Deaf and Blind Children (RIDBC) by listening and spoken language specialists.

I love to pair this app with the story "The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid of Anything". I use this with a lot of my students.

We color and cut out the pieces and make puppets. They have to listen to the sounds of the pieces and make their puppet do the actions

Shoes say "clomp clomp"
Pants say "wiggle wiggle"
Shirt says "shake shake shake"
Hat says "nod"
Gloves say "clap"
Pumpkin says "boo!"


       

PROMPT:
Phonatory Control: "ah" for on, "mm" for more
Labial-facial control: boo, shake, oh no!
Lingual control/sequenced: clomp, wiggle, clap, nod

LANGUAGE: sequencing, following directions, recall story, describing

      And the mouse went ::click click::

Peek-a-Boo I'm back

Using visuals I can use this for a great listening activity.; for auditory-visual therapy. The animal hiding behind the door makes a sound and the door shakes so it's a good visual for the hearing impaired! Animals include the usual farm friends: horse, cow, sheep, chicken... and some funny new friends: owl, rabbit, llama! From a closed set I show the pictures of the animals and have the child guess which animal they hear in the barn.



I love the Melissa & Doug matching game and pair a simple barn toy to finish our FARM-tastic session.



LANGUAGE: follow directions, prepositions, matching

PROMPT:

Mandibular control: baa
Labial-Facial: boo, moo, peep, woof, meow, baa, me, push
Lingual: one, two

Old McDonald has nothing on me!

"Poppers"

Choose from a variety of animals: cow, horse, pig, fish, alien, squirrel, moose! Push the ball in and aim it at the target *Children need constant supervision...don't let them pop it in their face.

We laugh, we cry, we do a little math! Very fun and entertaining.







PROMPT:
phonatory control: ah, ha, ha-ha, mmm (for more)
mandibular control: up, on, pop
labial-facial control: up, pop, on, moo (is the name of our cow), oh-no, push
lingual control: on, top, in

Language:
-Follow directions to aim at different targets
-Follow directions to pick a special colored ball/animal

Pragmatics:
-Turn taking
-Don't point it at people/yourself!

Don't be a party pooper in speech...play with some "Poppers"

Toca BOOca

Toca Boo is a new and a great game for the Halloween season.

The little girl Bonnie dresses as a ghost to scare her family members! Travel through the big, dark house to find: mom, grandpa, little sister, big brother and the twins.

Hide behind items for a big scare! But don't get caught in the light. Find some snacks for even sillier scares!





PROMPT:
Phonatory control/Mandibular control: ah, ha, ma.mama, pa/papa, pop
Labial-facial control: boo, eat, ew, mom, toot, baby, me
Lingual control: eat, toot

Scare on, Bonnie.

Celebrate November with a Salute

This time of the year many teachers are teaching vocabulary for the big holiday in November. I'd like to take this time to remind you of a very important group that gets forgotten in the hustle and bustle of turkey season...the veterans. I've laid out my November plan in hopes to spread the love to our brave soldiers and of course express my gratitude!

I introduced the topic of Veterans Day with vocabulary: honor, respect, thankful, salute, celebrate, faithful, loyal, serve.


I work in a school for the Deaf and hard of hearing and targeted auditory skills by counting syllables for words from arlenesandberg.blogspot.com:

Words included 1-4 syllables: world, war, peace, wreath, sailor, parade, solider, salute, medal poppy, November, 11th, veterans, memorial, ceremony, military.

I explained what Veteran's Day was and we made flags out of hand prints. Some of the terminology used on the poster is from a pin I found on pinterest (http://www.mylifeasathirdgradeteacher.com/).

November 11th: a day to honor those who have served and are currently serving in the military

What is a Veteran?
-A person who has fought for our country
Navy, Army, Air Force, Marine, Coast Guard

What do they do?
-Protect our country!
-Fight for our freedom!

I used "The Wall" by Eve Bunting and created my own reading comprehension questions based on the student's goals (i.e. main idea, recalling details, sequencing).





My older kids (5th-7th grade) get a kick out of my "Speechgram". We created usernames in the beginning of the year and I post a new picture every week. The kids can ask questions and write (grammatically correct) comments! It's fun to see what the kids come up with, and they are all super motivated to write! This is my friend Bridgett, she is a marine.

#who #what #when #where #why #how

(We are still working on the grammatically correct...and spelling)

Now for my favorite. Writing to Bridgett and her soldier friends. Operation Gratitude is always looking for letters to soldiers! Collaborate with your OT friends for a super fun writing a letter lesson! It was a fun process for the students and they were excited and motivated. I broke down the process into parts and really drilled ASKING and ANSWERING questions. I created statements (i.e. "My favorite movie is Frozen.") and had the students create their own questions; What's your favorite movie? Who is your favorite character? Again, since I'm in a school where Auditory Verbal is a big component of speech; I asked questions presented orally only and incorporated it into this part of the lesson.

It was an easy way to transition into Thanksgiving; as we were all feeling very thankful for the brave men and women in the military.

THANKS for reading.