Speech Trading Post

Hey Fellow SLP Bloggers and TpT Store Owners! How would you like to participate in a fun Speech Trading Post where you can promote your TpT Store and get better acquainted with one another?

 

 

Here is how the Trading Post will work.  After you sign up to participate, we will randomly pair you with another SLP/TpT Store Owner.  We will email you your trade partner’s information by Friday, April 10th.  You will take a look at his/her TpT Store and choose an item valued at no more than $5 to use for therapy.  After using the product with your students, you will write a positive review of the product on your blog or Facebook page and host a giveaway of this product.  Your trade partner will be given your information and will do the same. 

We think this will be a fantastic opportunity for us to network with one another and get some great exposure for our TpT Stores as well!

If this sounds like fun (no pun intended lol), read the rules below and click on the link at the bottom of the page to sign up.

To participate you must:

     Have a blog or a Facebook page which is associated with your TpT Store.

Agree to trade any one product worth up to $5 from your TpT Store with your randomly assigned trade partner.

 

Contact your trade partner to determine how to trade items (Google Documents, email, download from store, etc.

 

Use the item from your Trade Partner’s TpT Store with your students.

 

Write a positive review of the product on your blog or Facebook page.

 

Give away the product to one winner on your blog or Facebook page.

 

Agree to allow your trade partner to give away your product to one winner on their blog or Facebook page.

 

Post the review and run the give away by May 1, 2015.

You don't want to miss the fun so Sign Up Here!

 

Boo for us! Yay for you!

If you read our previous post from March 19th, you know we have been competing in a March Blogger Match-up.  Sixty-four different bloggers were paired with teams from the March Madness Tournament. We were matched with Louisville and we had a pretty good run in the tournament.  We are so sad we lost yesterday and didn't make it to the Final Four because there are some awesome prizes available. Dang! We only needed one more win and we would have made it. 

Our bad luck means good luck for you! Losing bloggers are giving away products from their TpT stores on their blogs. Our tournament free product is our Language & Literacy Farm Bundle which contains book companions for Big Red Barn by Margaret Wise Brown, Mrs. Wishy-Washy's Farm by Joy Cowley, and The Cow That Laid an Egg by Andy Cutbill. This bundle is designed to be used with kindergarten but can be used with pre-K and 1st grade, as well. Activities include listening comprehension, vocabulary extension, phonological awareness, language target, and a fun summary. Items include a bingo game, sequencing cards, graphic organizers, etc.  Just click the picture below to download this item for FREE!

 

 

 

 

 

Below is a list of the other bloggers who are participating in this match-up if you want to check out their free items as well :)

 

Learning with Mrs. Langley cheering on Belmont

Second Grade Stories cheering on Indiana

The Neat and Tidy Classroom cheering on UC Irvine

Live, Laugh, I LOVE Kindergarten cheering on Coastal Car.

Miss Johnston's Journey cheering on Maryland

The Creative Classroom cheering on San Diego State

Fifth in the Middle cheering on Wichita State

Lessons with Coffee cheering on Arkansas

The Kinder Garden cheering on Notre Dame

Exploring Elementary cheering on NC State

Inspired Owl's Corner cheering on Oregon

Frampton's Fundamentals cheering on New Mexico State

Learning in the Little Apple cheering on Michigan State

NC Teacher Chick cheering on Utah State

A Tall Drink of Water cheering on Baylor

Sara J Creations cheering on Oklahoma

ELA Everyday cheering on Duke

The Blessed Teacher cheering on Lafayette

Mrs. 3rd Grade cheering on VCU

Rock & Teach cheering on Albany

Create Teach Share cheering on North Dakota State

One Happy Teacher cheering on Gonzaga

Fern Smith's Classroom Ideas! cheering on Iowa State

First Grade Roars! cheering on SF Austin

The Learning Chambers cheering on Hampton

Teaching is Sweet cheering on Eastern Washington

Confessions of a Teaching Junkie cheering on Cincinnati

Year2tastic cheering on Kansas

Sparkling in Second cheering on Wyoming

Making Meaning with Melissa cheering on Purdue

One Sassy Teacher cheering on Villanova

Brittany Kiser cheering on Texas

Coach and Teach 24/7 cheering on St. John's

Hardcore Teacher Resources cheering on LSU

The Whole Wheat Class cheering on Oklahoma

Mixing It Up In The Middle! cheering on Mississippi

Teaching Maddeness cheering on UAB

Its Elementary My Dear cheering on Ohio State

Live Love Serve Teach cheering on Providence

 Education Kingdom cheering on North Carolina

A Dab of Glue Will Do cheering on Dayton

Learning to be Awesome cheering on Kentucky

Technology Timeout cheering on Harvard

Kovescence on the Mind cheering on Butler

Blossoms of Blue in 2 cheering on North Eastern

Mrs. D's Corner cheering on Robert Morris

Where the Wild Things Learn cheering on Buffalo

Bright Concepts 4 Teachers cheering on North Iowa (UNI)

A Trendy Teacher cheering on Valparasio

Lucky to Be In First cheering on Wisconsin

O-H So Blessed! cheering on Virginia

Tales of Teaching with Tech cheering on Woffard

Very Perry Classroom cheering on Arizona

A Kindergarten Life for Me cheering on Georgia

First Grade Buddies cheering on Iowa

Miss Case's Classroom cheering on Georgetown

A Grace-Filled Classroom cheering on West Virginia

Third Grade Cupcakes cheering on SMU

The Class Couple cheering on Xavier

More Time 2 Teach cheering on Georgia State

Owl-ways Learning cheering on UCLA



Happy Anniversary!!!

Wow! This is a big day for us! We have so much going on. I am excited to announce that today is our one year anniversary of our TpT store. Last year at this time, I would never have dreamed we would have come this far in just one short year! Granted, we haven't made a fortune, but we've had fun building our store, sharing our ideas, and making new friends! When we started the store, the idea of a blog never entered our mind. Neither of us had any idea how to even begin blogging. Hooray for Google! With a little research and some trial and error, what do you know? We now have a blog, a Facebook page, and an Instagram. So much work, but so much fun!!!

In celebration of the one year anniversary of our store, we are having a sale this weekend. Beginning tomorrow, Friday, March 20th and running through Sunday, March 22nd, all of our TpT items will be 20% off.  Also, as a thank you to all our TpT followers, we will be sending them some special anniversary give-aways. If you haven't had a chance to follow our store, head on over there by clicking the picture below and follow us so you don't miss these special anniversary gifts!

In addition to our anniversary, we are participating in a fun March Blogger Match-up.

64 bloggers have been matched up with a team in the NCAA tournament.  Big Shout Out to Ashlyn Ellsworth at The Creative Classroom for all her hard work in setting up this fun event! We have been paired with the Louisville Cardinals.  Not being familiar with this team, I immediately called my basketball-loving hubby this morning when I saw the bracket. He said we could have done better, but we certainly could have done worse so . . . . Go Louisville!!!  For each win Louisville gets in the tournament, we receive a free product from the TpT store of our blogger opponent. When we lose, we have to give a product to our opponent and we also give away this product here on our blog. Be sure to follow the bracket and if Louisville loses, check back on our blog to get your free product.

Our tournament free product will be our Language & Literacy Farm Bundle. This cute bundle contains book companions for Big Red Barn by Margaret Wise Brown, Mrs. Wishy-Washy's Farm by Joy Cowley, and The Cow That Laid an Egg by Andy Cutbill. Activities include listening comprehension, vocabulary extension, phonological awareness, language target, and a fun summary. Items include a bingo game, sequencing cards, graphic organizers, etc.  Mrs. Wishy Washy's Farm and The Cow That Laid an Egg are our two very favorite farm books! We love them and once you have read them, you will too.

 

 

We are so grateful for all of our followers! Thanks for your support! Happy Anniversary to us and Go Louisville!!!

Fun in the ATL

We had a blast at the GOSSLP Best Practices Conference last week. The conference was great and we learned so much. Char Boshart was a great resource for help with articulation difficulties and we especially liked Michelle Garcia-Winner's presentation on Teaching Social Thinking to Foster Learning the Common Core. However, not everything at the conference was smooth sailing :(


First of all, I was in charge of making the hotel reservations.  We like to stay at Embassy Suites because they have a delicious free breakfast in the mornings and the manager's reception at night. I made sure to make the reservations in plenty of time so we would be certain to get a room there.  So we arrive Wednesday night at Embassy Suites at 8:30, walk up to check-in, hand over our confirmation sheet, and guess what?! I had registered us for February 4th instead of March 4th (BTW both just happened to have fell on Wednesdays this year). Don't worry, the fun was just beginning because they were fully booked for the night and had no room available for us. To top it off, they had charged our cards $200 for a no-show fee from February 4th!  To make a long story short, we were able to get a room at another hotel and finally got checked in around 10 p.m.  Embassy Suites made us a reservation for the next night and refunded our no-show fee since it was an honest mistake. We just had to do a lot of packing and lugging around bags.  I was mortified about the mistake and felt horribly, but my co-workers were great sports and never even complained! They are the best! :)

These are our tired, sad faces on Wednesday night when we finally got settled in our room.  Aren't we pitiful?!

The next day at the conference, we did a poster presentation during the afternoon session.  When we signed up for the session, we assumed we would be standing around and answering questions about our poster. Boy were we wrong! When we got to the room to set up our poster, we found out the participants would be circulating from poster to poster in groups and we were going to have to give a short 10 - 15 minute presentation on our materials. Good thing SLPs are never at a lack for words, because we ended up giving presentations to ten different groups.  Here's a public apology to our first and last groups of the session.  The first group was used as guinea pigs as we figured out what to say, and by the time the last group came around, we were just exhausted!

All in all, it was really a lot of fun and we decided if given the opportunity next year, we would do it all again.  Here are a few pictures from our trip! I hope to be able to share our presentation on here with all of you very soon :)
 

We were so excited to meet Meredith Avren, the Peachie Speechie and buy one of her super cute t-shirts! We can't wear to wear them on Friday on our dress down day.  I'll post pics soon :)

Here we are presenting our poster. (Jessica Finch, the Speech Peach, Angela Wiggins & Kim Cummings, SoundsLikeFunSLPs)

Our poster for our presentation.
Special Shout out to Meredith Avren (Peachie Speechie) and to Karen Parden (Speech
 Umbrella) for their help!
 

 

Our food at P.F. Chang's & The Cheesecake Factory was yummy!

 

Best Practices for SLPs

My colleagues and I are getting ready to attend the Best Practices for SLPs Conference sponsored by Georgia Organization of School-Based SLPs (GOSSLP) in Atlanta, Georgia on March 5th - 6th. This is one of our only opportunities for continuing education where we actually get to interact face-to-face with other school-based SLPs. We look forward to this conference every year. Not only is it a time for learning, we get to catch up with old friends, meet new ones, and eat at The Cheesecake Factory and P.F. Changs! Whoop! Whoop!

This year we (along with Jessica Finch, The Speech Peach) registered to do a poster session at the conference.  Our session is entitled, You Know the Drill! Practical, Fun Activities for Increasing Student Engagement During Articulation Drill & Practice. Research indicates drill and practice has been shown to improve performance by "systematic repetition of concepts, examples, and practice" (Lim, Tang, & Kor, 2012).  Additionally, Weichman & Balfanz collected data showing a 27% reduction in caseload when drill and practice activities were used (2007). We all know drill and practice can be so BORING! That's why we wanted to do this poster session, so we could share our ideas on making drill and practice fun for the students.  Our presentation will include SLP-made low-tech and high-tech therapy ideas, commercial products and apps we like and recommend, and TpT products designed for drill and practice.

If any of our blog followers are from Georgia, please plan on stopping by to see us! We are going to have many of the materials on hand for you to see AND we are doing free give-aways!

For those of you who aren't from Georgia, here's a free sample from one of new packs that will soon be available on TpT. I absolutely love this carnival games pack and I cannot wait to use it with my kiddos! The entire pack is designed to be a fun way to create and elicit numerous speech and language practice opportunities. Click the picture below to download your free sample today and be sure to look for this pack which will be available soon in our TpT store!

 

 

We'd love to hear some comments about the free sample if you have a minute to leave one! We hope to see some of you next week at Best Practices! :)

What's In Your Cart for the TPT Teachers are Heroes Sale?

I'm one of those people that will buy something just because it is on sale whether I need it or not.  I just can't pass up a good bargain. That's why I'm so excited about the TPT sale . . .because there is always something on TPT that I need! Today, I'm linking up with Jenna at Speech Room News so I can find tons of bargains! Here's what's in my cart, what's in yours?

This basketball speech and language pack by The Speech Peach will be just perfect with March Madness about to start!

Also, take a look at our Silly Sentences for Articulation Practice and consider adding them to your cart :)  Our kids think they are a hoot and yours will, too!





 Your students won't mind practicing their /r/ sounds when making these silly sentences. Just divide the cards into a red stack, a yellow stack, and a green stack. Have the student pick one card from each stack, place it on the corresponding color on the sequencing mat, and practice saying a sound loaded /r/ sentence that will make everyone smile.



 

 

Heartbreaker!

Valentine's week is always a fun time in our speech classroom. All kids like to make, give, and get valentines, so incorporating valentine crafts is a quick, easy plan for therapy. Lately though, we've gotten burned out on doing the same activities year after year! Recently, I was looking for some fun, new resources online when I ran across a game called Don't Eat Pete! Many of you may be familiar with this game but I had never seen it before. After seeing this game, I started thinking of ways the game could be adapted to be a fun speech reinforcement game. I came up with this really simple game board and decided to call the game, Heartbreaker! While I thought the kids might like the game, I never imagined how much fun they would have playing it! We have had a ball this week and possibly the best thing about this activity is it can be played with Pre-K all the way through 5th grade (and maybe even beyond, our school only goes to 5th grade) with no adaptions needed! Our Heartbreaker Game is included in our Valentine Therapy Pack in our TpT store, but since this is the week for love and kindness, we wanted to share this game with you! Click the picture below to download the game and instructions. We hope you and your students enjoy it as much as we have!