Speech-olutions
I won’t bore you with my personal new year’s resolutions because there really isn’t anything groundbreaking to share. The typical, eat better, exercise more, keep my space cleaner, be present, and unplug pretty much sums up my personal resolutions. As a new speech and language pathologist I’ve been doing my best to keep my head above water during my first year in the public schools. Knock on wood, nothing has gone too horribly amuck this far, but there is definitely room for improvement! I’ve chosen 4 New Year’s Speech-olutions for the year 2014. Does putting them down on “paper” make it more likely that they are achieved? I can report back on that in the beginning of 2015-hope the suspense isn’t too much to handle!
1. Be more organized. This one spills over into every area of my life. Have any friends who live in a constant state of chaos? Their house looks like a mess, but they swear it’s an organized mess? All of my friends would have to answer yes because that person is me! I use traveling as an excuse for my need to bring 2-3 big therapy bags with me wherever I go, but I think if I just took the time to organize everything I could get down to one big bag! And as for my data collection system, you don’t even want to know how many sticky notes I go through in a week. Also, what good ways have you found to organize your TPT materials? I am still struggling here…
2. Use more technology during therapy. I don’t have access to a smartboard (super jealous of all you smartboard endowed speechies) or a school laptop or Ipad. However, I do have my own personal Ipad, with lots of speech apps that I have purchased and NEVER used! This is sad, and in 2014 I am going to change this!
3. Use all of my TPT materials. I LOVE LOVE LOVE downloading everyone’s freebies and purchasing TPT materials that I know my students will benefit from. I do NOT love the printing, laminating, and cutting part of using TPT materials. However, this year I AM going to use A LOT of the materials I have downloaded from TPT because I know that my students will benefit from them!
4. Use more books during therapy. Literacy skills are so important and many students who receive speech and language struggle with pre-reading or reading. I already try to incorporate books whenever possible, but I am going to try to do even more of this. Books are so versatile and can be used to target any goal. My “office” (I use this word loosely) is located about 1 step from the library in 2 out of my 3 schools…I have no good excuse for not using more books during therapy. What are your favorite books to use during therapy?
In honor of New Year’s Speech-oloution number one (be more organized) I created a product with a pre/post test page to help you keep your data! I found this adorable, video game character inspired, clipart on Etsy. I just couldn’t resist it. Thinking about which students would be more interested by my new clipart find I created a figurative language/idioms activity out of it. Check it out HERE in my TPT store. It’s on sale for 50% off, but only for the first 24 hours so check it out sooner than later!
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