End the Bulletin Boredom!!

Time for a classroom/speech-room make-over, after all, isn't it fun to accessorize your workspace?!  We were tired of wasting precious time on the traditional classroom/speech room bulletin board...unstapling and stapling up themed borders, cut-outs, etc., month after month...BORING to look at and such a time waster!  Not to mention the bins of bulletin board borders and art that was being stored in our rooms. Way easier and more efficient to just add, make, and use themed magnets on a metal sheet!  By using a metal sheet, and cutting it with metal snippers to fit a frame, it takes minutes to just change out the magnets to fit the season, holiday, etc.  

 We purchased some thin sheet metal at our local hardware store and cut it with metal snippers to fit a cheap frame.  First, attached the metal to the wall with strips of super strong double-sided adhesive (we used "Gorilla tape" from the hardware store).  Then, used the tape to attach the frame to the wall to "frame" the metal. 

We bought strong, round magnets at the hardware store and then used coupons and the teacher discount at Michaels to buy silk flowers, a package of leaves, and some felt Halloween ghosts, pumpkins, and bats to be able to sustain our magnet board until December! 





Just used a glue gun to glue magnets to the flowers, leaves, etc.  Now we just stash them in a ziploc, and pull them out when its time for a switch! 

Stay tuned for more bulletin board fashion and speech room couture for the winter months!!

Let the Games Begin!

What is that you say?  The Olympics are over?!  Wa- wa- waaaa (sad trombone).

Olympic fever does not just dissipate over night my friends.  That is why we are just now posting our Olympic-themed activity...or at least that is our excuse anyway.  Now, we can hope, that many of our students have heard about the 2012 Olympics, talked about the 2012 Olympics, and/or have hopefully seen the 2012 Olympics.  We can hope that they have built some knowledge or experiences relating to the Olympics so that we may further explore the vocabulary, figurative language, and concepts involving the Olympics.  Relating to students' experiences regarding the topic allows them to be more engaged and focus on what they're being asked to do, rather than processing a foreign topic and generating definitions, answering questions, etc.

The gold medals have Olympic-themed vocabulary for the students to define and/or use in a sentence, the silver have idioms/expressions for students to interpret, and the bronze are key words (adjectives, actions) that describe an Olympic sport or related term that the student must use to determine the answer.

Use the paper bag "torch" as a grab bag for the medals, having each student draw when it is his his/her turn.  Gold medals are 3 points, silver are 2, and bronze are 1.  We like giving the student the point value regardless of if they answer correctly.  They hold on to their "medals" and points are added at the end...which of your students will achieve "Phelps" status?!

Click here to download Olympic medals page 1

Click here to download Olympic medals page 2

Click here to download the bronze medal questions 

If you are interested in making your own medals, visit http://www.activityvillage.co.uk/olympic_medals_to_print.htm

Here's how we made our torch...

Ta-da!

Come and Knock on Our Door...

We've been waiting for...You!

Welcome to our blog!  We are two speech-language pathologists looking to have fun with therapy and engage our high school students in cool and fun ways to improve their communication skills.  We hope to share ideas, activities, and resources with fellow SLPs, educators, parents and anyone involved in serving students with communication impairments.  Since we both work with different populations of high school students, we hope to provide an array of activities for various skill-levels.  Although not uber crafty (we can admit it!), we enjoy creating new activities, incorporating technology, and integrating pop culture whenever possible (teens love it!).  It's all about having fun...am I right?!

Please feel free to comment and share posts as often as you'd like!

Joanna & Kari Ann