Bring on the Vacation!

It's one last hoorah before school starts back up. VACATION! Now that I think about though, it's really the only hoorah. There really haven't been any others so far this summer. 😏 

I've worked throughout the summer. It's a blessing and a curse. I do much better when I stay busy. Schedules are my friend. They keep me efficient. Those are the blessings. But there comes a time when the mind, body, and soul need a break. They need to shut down and regenerate. I am to that point. Even though I am at that point, I'm also mindful to know that by shutting down, it allows new ideas to begin to form. That is so exciting! 

I hope that you are able to take some time for yourself as well before the new school year begins. If you're still in work mode or if you in preparation mode, don't forget that today and tomorrow is the TPT sale where everything in my store is on sale, plus you can get another 5% off (25% total) when you use the code BTS19! Grab up a couple of things that you've been thinking about, but keep putting off. 

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Stacey-Parks-Slp

There are many new bundles that will help save you money now and time during the school year!

The Interactive Articulation Notebook can be used for drill and practice during speech sessions and continued use for home practice!
                                             
Hope you have a great next few days and I'll check in again after vacation!!!

Beaver Lake, here we come!

Stacey

Wrapping up the summer

It's been a fast summer. It always is. I always think that I am going to have so much extra time to think about kids, evaluate and reevaluate by therapy "plan" or roadmap, analyze my approaches to working with children and overall try to learn as much as possible. I have absolutely conquered the last goal on my list. 

I've done more professional development this summer than I ever have before in one summer. Even the free options are happening more and more than I've ever seen before. Last week was the SLP Summit.  I haven't gotten to watch all of the presentations, but with the replays being available until August, I will be able to say I've watched all of them very soon. I've completed at least half and they've been outstanding! The "Making Confident Decisions When Treating Childhood Apraxia of Speech" with  Jennie Bjorem M.A. CCC-SLP was extremely informative. She mentioned there was even more FREE online training for the DTTC technique, so I went on the hunt for that training. WOWZA!!! It's FREE also. I know she said so, but Free?? You can find more information here. It's a 4.5 hour training and well worth the time! You can also access it at the link below. 

https://www.utdallas.edu/calliercenter/events/CAS/

In additions to that type of professional development, I've been trying to learn as much as possible about the world of Teachers Pay Teachers and sharing the resources that I feel have helped me the most. Jennifer Bradley at Speech Therapy Plans and Sell on TPT has been incredible with her different challenges through the summer and she is a wealth of information. My brain has been swimming with goals and plans and meeting those goals and plans all summer long. I'm not going to lie, at one point, I was overwhelmed, but I stuck with it and now I couldn't be more excited about the upcoming school year. 

So with that said, I'm excited to post a resource that I'm really looking forward to using in the upcoming school year. It is 10 seasonal monthly units of vocabulary for preschool and lower elementary students. I combined the summer months into one unit. It targets receptive identification (point to), expressive (naming), independent describing 5 attributes, and cards to help scaffold the student through describing in various ways with visual supports/prompts. PCS is a trademark of Tobii Dynavox LLC.  All rights reserved.  Used with permission



The best part of this is that for the first 48 hours, you can get this resource for 50% off!!! Click here to get to my store while it's still 50% off.

Find more of my other products at my store - 

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Stacey-Parks-Slp

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http://staceyparksslp.blogspot.com/

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Free Professional Development

Who knew???

 I certainly didn't. 

A year ago or so, I learned about the free online conference SLP Summit. I've been participating in this great free professional development through the SLP Summit this past week. They've all been great! I was a little late signing on to the webinar on CAS last night. I'd like to go back and listen to her presentation again. They are available through August 8th, I believe. If you pay an administrative fee, they will report your time to ASHA, but even if you don't, you can still print the certificates and use the hours (CMH hours) towards your 30 hours of professional development. 

Anyway back to the CAS presentation. Jennie Bjorem, M.A. CCC-SLP was the speaker and you quickly realize how passionate she is about this topic as well as how much she loves her students. She spoke about more free online training so I went to look for these resources and I found this free training that can also be reported to the ASHA registry. I'm excited to get started and wanted to share the resource with others. I'm not sure if this was the one she was referring to, but it looks like a great opportunity! 

https://www.utdallas.edu/calliercenter/events/CAS/

This is helping me gear up for the school year. I'm always a little sad that the summer is over, but the beginning of a new school year is always so exciting that those feelings always beat out the feelings of sadness. I hope it's the same for you!

Stacey

Woohooo IEP Internal Audit Day!!!

This has been my day today. No, I am not wanting sympathy. 😊 I actually somewhat enjoy it. I want to do my best to write quality IEPs without mistakes. Sometimes though in the craziness of the school year I need a little extra help to guide myself through checking and rechecking to make sure it's ready. So, I helped at the central office doing an internal audit of some of the IEPs turned in at the end of the school year.

This checklist covers more than what the current internal audit is looking at, I just like to cover all of my bases. If you think it could be helpful to you as well it's FREE at my TPT store.

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/IEP-Paperwork-Self-Audit-3918084?utm_source=Instagram&utm_campaign=IEP%20audit%20post

I think I've brushed up on my IEP review skills enough for today and am going to go enjoy the 100+ temperatures here in Kansas!! 💙

Loving the Christmas Season!!!

What is is about the Christmas Season that motivates me to make and have fun seasonal activities? It's the craziest time of year for students. At my base school, students have the opportunity for a week to shop at "giftland" for gifts for their families. Preparation for the Christmas vocal program amps up, so practices are longer and happen more often and at different times then they are typically scheduled. Some classes are going on field trips to plays and symphonies. All are having class parties and the overall excitement of the season is overflowing. Lights and decorations are donned and often the regular lights are shut off and hallways are only aglow with the Christmas lights. This is actually a very calming addition and I love it!

Even though it is crazy busy and only usually about 3 weeks long, I have THE MOST seasonally-themed activities for this time of year. But there's always room for more. It's just so fun!!!!  I talked recently about the new set of file folder activities that target synonyms, antonyms, irregular past tense verbs, and irregular plurals. There are simpler levels where a single word is given and the student needs to find the one that is the match to the target pattern, but many of my students have chosen to try the activity with the most variation and information to sort through. I love how the little presents turned out. We had run out of cardstock so we printed them on regular paper and laminated them twice. My base school uses the thicker lamination anyway, so by laminating them twice they really turned out nice a sturdy. 

Get your Christmas Activity Pack Here. 

Or check out my other resources at my TPT store Stacey Parks, SLP.

Have fun and enjoy this festive time of year!

Stacey

Home Practice

I may or may not have mentioned that this year has been particularly busy. Ok, I've mentioned it a lot. 😄 Time fills up very quickly with screenings, evaluations, therapy, paperwork, IEP writing, billing, progress reports, training paras, meetings,  and ideally more time in therapy. If I could change one thing about my job, it would be that I'd have more time to lesson plan. For me, it would be having the time right after a therapy session to write down the exact path I want to take during the next therapy session that I have with that child. The time in therapy is so dynamic and critical. We make so many decisions in the moment based on how the child is responding to therapy. Combine that with the high energy needed to keep a young child's attention means there is a lot happening in a short amount of time. I wish there was a way that I could write down everything that I think of and all the ideas of what I want to try to next time. Unfortunately, by the next session, I have forgotten all of those great ideas. I'm sure there's a google app somewhere that would keep notes for me if I yelled them out in the middle of therapy, but that would be distracting for the child. I need an app that can write down notes from my thoughts. Google, can you work on that for me? 

Sigh....I digress. 

I should also mention I am very very fortunate to work with a lot of great families. When I work with preschool age children that are not enrolled in preschool yet, I get to work much closer with families because they bring them in for services. Recently, I've been asked for some ideas on fun ways to practice target words at home. I used to have a blank calendar with general ideas, but I cannot find it anymore. So, I decided to put together a few ideas that I can print and have with me to hand out to parents. It's not a complete list, but if gives parents the idea of what types of activities to try. Many of them have gross motor movement paired with them. Keeping kids moving yet still focused on the task can be a skill, but with a little practice, it's much more fun for everyone involved.  

The best part is that it's FREE!!!!!

Ideas for Home Practice with Preschoolers

Click on the link above to take you to my Teachers Pay Teachers store where you can download the handout to use with parents that you work with. 

Remember...The more fun you have, the more fun they will have!

Check out my TPT store for other resources as well. 

Stacey-Parks-Slp

Holiday Fun

I say it every time, but how quickly time passes never ceases to amaze me. I won't dwell on that though, because I absolutely love this time of year. There's a natural movement of themes every 3-4 weeks. It keeps things new and fun for the students and for us! In the past, I have loved using the seasonal sets of synonym and antonyms. It offers a colorful and creative way to target the same set of synonyms and antonyms.


Seasonal Synonym and Antonym Activities

More recently I've needed a way to target and review these sets in ways that students could more independently practice them. This kit offers multiple file folder activities that target synonyms, level 1 & 2 antonyms, irregular past tense verbs and irregular plurals. Students scan find anonyms pairs listed on presents and put them under a Christmas tree, add the whipped cream to the hot chocolate with the correct change in grammatical structure, add a star to a tree and place cookies on a plate.


 Christmas Language Activities

Once the sets are made or file folders are assembled, they are great "grab and go" activities to pull out through the holiday season for repeated practice. Especially since I've been averaging 3 IEPs a week for the past 9 weeks. Other ways to get through these weeks without an overload of stress will be coming soon. Until then, enjoy this time!!
Stacey