I love materials that are adaptable to a variety of levels and easy to make, and this one is both of those things!

In fact, this is SO easy to make that I’ll tell you how to make it AND use it in this post!

(1) The first step is to make a background using any visuals you would like. I made two: one with racing visuals, and one with just words. (ignore the Velcro on the second word one when you get to the Velcro part later on!!)

 (2) Write a basic beginning, middle, and end for the story in boxes as shown below:

3) To make the small pictures as shown in the picture above, all I did was copy the pages of the book at 50% reduced size and cut off everything put the primary image on the page. You might need to do a bit of trial and error with that percentage depending on the size of the page/picture of the book you’re using, but 50% worked well for me.

4) Laminate everything!! Cut out the text summary and the pictures, but leave the background visual (the racecar or words visual). By keeping the background one piece, you make it much easier to store and keep together!

5) Velcro, velcro, velcro! You can see some of my Velcro-ing above, but below you can see the backs of the moveable pieces as well. Velcro-ing like this makes the activity incredibly adaptable, as I’ll show you later on!

Overall, for the Velcro, put a small Velcro square on the exact middle of the pictures. Then on the longer sentence strips, I put two pieces as shown above. Look at the pictures in the previous parts of this post to see how I Velcro-ed the rest (except please ignore the visual I pointed out earlier!!).

Okay!! Now you’ve got the product created. Below are some ideas of how you can use it:

The picture below is how it looks all put together, and how I store it:

 One obvious way to use this is to just remove the sentence strips from the mat and have your students arrange both the picture/sentences in order to describe the beginning, middle, and end of the story.

For your students who don’t need the picture support, you can have them match just the written parts of the story with what happened in the beginning, middle, and end.

For your students who aren’t at that reading level yet, forget the words and have them arrange the pictures from the story in order! (this is why I redid the arrangement of my Velcro!) The pictures will stick perfectly on the story macrostructure mat as well!

Have your students match the pictures to the written text. For your non-readers, you could read the text aloud and have them find the corresponding picture:

Have your students do it all!! Mix up all of the pieces and have them match the picture to the text, and then the text/picture to the correct part of the story (i.e. beginning, middle, end).

This activity can easily be used for understanding story macrostructure, picture description, sequencing, retelling stories, narratives, and SO MUCH MORE.

Hope this has been helpful for you! I love how small this activity is, and how adaptable it can be for ANY book!

Jenn, from Crazy Speech World, is hosting a “Show Me The Data!” Linky. I wanted to participate, and share the way I took data throughout my first year of graduate school!

This way worked incredibly well for me in our on campus clinic, and hopefully it helps get some of you started! Feel free to leave a comment or 2 or 3 about the way you take data. I’d love to learn more!

I posted a little bit about how I take data in my How to Survive SLP Graduate School post, but here it is again, with more detail (after going through second semester!). I’ve provided affiliate links to Amazon so you can see the exact products I use!

First, you will need to buy a binder and binder pocket inserts. And a good pen!

Then, find a data sheet you LOVE. My personal favorite is from Let’s Talk Speech-Language Pathology. You can see her data sheet here. I just print the second page and make billions of copies I’ll probably make my own eventually, but for now, this one works!

Let’s say for example you have 3 clients. Put one binder folder in a binder for each client. I like to choose a client’s favorite color or something to help keep it straight! In the folders, I put worksheets/some materials I use every week with that client. For kids, it might be a rules sheet or for adults it might be a favorite visual. Then behind the folder, I put the completed data sheets for that client. I keep blank data sheets in the very front of the binder.

Here is an example of what it looks like. The green folder is for a young artic client I had. You can see his data from the first session. Some keys to making this easier:

1) Put the objectives in the same order each time. That what you can flip through the pages and compare performance session to session easily!

2) Calculate and write in percentages in a different color. I chose red. It’s much easier to see!

3) Make a key if necessary. We aren’t experts yet! Sometimes on the bottom of the page, I’d write in my cueing hierarchy with a code for each level so that I didn’t forget how to mark it! (see picture below)

Below is a picture of how I took data for a client with aphasia. As you can see, I wrote down many more subjective notes!

Keeping track of data is really important for all SLPs! This way has helped keep me organized, analyze long-term trends of my clients, and write those SOAP notes!

Hopefully most of you saw a previous post of mine about regulation, and having my clients find their optimal level of energy throughout our sessions together. If not, click here to catch up and read it!

Many of the clients I see have trouble maintaining a regulated state, or maintaining an appropriate energy level throughout our sessions. In order to help them eventually learn to regulate their energy levels themselves, we discuss various ways they can calm down or perk up!

According to a research article you can find here, “it is not developmentally appropriate for the kindergarten students to receive Direct Instruction for more than 8 minutes”. According to a second article you can read here, “taking a movement break will not compromise any student’s academic achievement even when the children lose instructional time”. Many other articles point to movement breaks as a great strategy for a variety of students!

Below are three of my favorite ideas, that typically take 5 minutes or less!

1) Slap Your Name
Cut 1 large circle out of construction paper for each student. Cut a slightly smaller circle in white paper and write their name on it. Hang in on a wall above the level of their head. Put 1 minute on a timer and start the countdown. Once the timer starts, the student will jump and try to slap their circle/name. If they can do it, raise the circle. If they can’t, lower the circle. The point of the game is to see how high they can get their circle. This is extra fun if you have a couple kids together in a group! They love competing to get their circles up and up! Jumping is a really great movement break because it doesn’t require a large space and uses up a lot of extra energy!

2) Speech Boot Camp
This is another fun, and easy idea! Using the materials and space you have in your room, make boot camp cards. You can use index cards! Write ‘boot camp drills’ on each card. For example, “Do 5 pushups”, “Do jumping jacks for 20 seconds”, or “Jump up and down as many times as you can in 10 seconds.” You (the SLP, teacher, etc…) can be the drill sergeant, or pick a lucky student! The drill sergeant should pick cards, and direct the group to do each action. You can put 5 minutes on a timer to see how many exercises they can do as a group in 5 minutes! The whole group needs to work together to finish each exercise! This is a great movement break because it can also be used as a following directions activity!

3) Dance Party
Have a dance party! I keep a playlist on my iPad called “PG Playlist”. Every song on it is relatively recent and ‘cool’, but are all appropriate and pre-selected by me. I’ll play one song and everybody can dance or wiggle or move as much as they can during the song! Looking for some fun music? Check out this timely blog post from Rockin’ Teacher Materials.

These ‘movement breaks’ are often called ‘brain breaks’. Check out this fantastic Pinterest board I found filled with FUN ideas for brain breaks, including some videos you can play! How easy is that?

What do you use to keep your kids focuses? Let me know in the comments below! I’d love to get some new ideas!

Biggest hit in therapy so far this semester? Elephant and Piggie books! And it’s no surprise! These books are great. Wanna know why? Read on.

1) Kids LOVE these books. In my experience, they request them over almost all other books.

2) Elephant and Piggie books are easy to read. There are few words per page, and very few difficult words. This makes them perfect for children who struggle with reading or who are beginner readers. Because of the way the text is written, it is easy for beginner readers to add emotion and a little gusto to their reading as well!

3) Every book is hilarious! I laugh out loud at all of them, and kids do too!

4) Each book has a variety of lessons. (see my ideas below) There is an unlimited number of ways to use these books and topics to cover with these books!

Below are some Elephant and Piggie books, and what topics you could cover with each:

Let’s Go For a Drive: sequencing, problem solving, inference, prediction

My Friend is Sad: social skills, being a good friend

Should I Share My Ice Cream?: sharing, social skills, prediction, friendship

Can I Play Too?: inclusion, friendship, adaptation (for friends with a variety of needs/likes)

Today I Will Fly!: determination, not giving up, being creative, problem solving, friendship, supporting your friends

We Are In A Book: perfect for reluctant readers!

In my therapy sessions, we made our own Elephant and Piggie comics that I downloaded here! Check out the picture below:

After they group wrote their own comics, they presented them in front of everybody!

It has been such a hit. I’ve gotten kids who hate writing and/or reading to ask for these books!

Want a TON more Elephant and Piggie ideas?? I’ve done all of the work for you by compiling a Pinterest board dedicated to Elephant and Piggie ideas that can be adapted for speech therapy. Check it out here.

Wanna buy some of the books? They are VERY reasonably priced through Amazon. If you weren’t convinced by me, READ THE REVIEWS!