Friday Faves from All Y'all Need: May 17

From Amy:
#1  Don't you just love a sale?   I am loving one that is good for my serious clip art addiction.
Head over to the creative Sonya Dehart's site for a $1 sale until Monday.   Don't miss it.   I went shopping last night.

#2  Today will be a fun day.    My dad is coming up to do magic show with the sweeties!   He is generous with his time and talent.   He will be doing a little magic for 2nd grade and kindergarten (the rowdy bunch).   After school is a baby shower for one of our sweet librarians.   She's expecting a second baby girl.   We will be celebrating the retirement of another wonderful & oh-so-creative librarian.    I love getting together with my librarian girls.   Can I also admit they promised a treat since it's after school on a Friday afternoon?   Two words, friends, nacho bar.    Yum!

From Laura:

#1: My first fave is Arthur from feedly. I switched to feedly for reading blogs, and I am really liking it. It's a prettier way to read blogs than Google. When I contacted feedly about sharing subscription lists, I didn't expect to get into an email conversation, but that's what happened! Arthur wanted to know why I want to share my 100+ SLP blogs and why I read so many.

Yep, that's 140 SLP blogs. Did you know there are so many? I didn't! Not until Arthur asked me why I read so many!

My reply to Arthur was that I started out in 1993 when the only resources were catalogs. By mail. I'm overloaded on resources now! I just add a blog when I see it, and I guess I just kept adding! So since I have so many, I thought I could just share my list and SLPs could take it and customize it for themselves.

By the way, Arthur said one guy had 480 blogs on his feedly, so I have some catching up to do! Thanks to Arthur for great customer service!

#2: It was nice to come home to an app store update today:

There's just something about popping pigs!

From Lisa:
#1- Reading

Even though I love and will miss my kinder kiddos, I'm so ready for summer! I've already gotten into the bad habit of staying up to read. This ecard says it all!

#2 - Zumba

I went to Zumba tonight with some friends and loved it! Can't wait to start going weekly with them!

Thursday Therapy: Rainy Days and Wednesdays

I bought stuff at the TpT sale. Stuff I want to try. Stuff I can't print out at school because the color ink cartridge is out. Stuff I forget to print at home. So I improvised this week.

My 3rd-5th graders played Pick Your Points. It's a game I picked up at TSHA several years ago. It is my go-to when there are crazy weeks, and this one had a lot of ARDs, retesting, and a couple of field trips.

K-2 played an open-ended Pizza Game. It is such a cute game. Students build a pizza with foam cutouts. Most really love arranging their pieces into silly faces. The die has colors instead of numbers. I can't find the company anymore, but I have the Cheeseburger, Hot Dog and Picnic games, and I really wish they were still in business.

On Wednesday, it rained, and I got to pull out a old favorite. I got it from a book that I don't remember and don't have anymore. I don't even know the name, but it's perfect for rainy days. Basically, we play with water. We've been in a drought so long that my food colors were crusted shut!

Here are the supplies:

Cups (clear works better), spoons, wax paper, straws, and food color.

Directions:
* Mix food color into water
* Give each student a sheet of wax paper
* Use straws to plop colorful rain onto wax paper
* Move around and make patterns and different colors

Here is a plop:

The wax paper allows the water to blob up.

Use the straw to make beads:

This is a great activity for cause and effect, following directions, requesting, and using language to describe the different colors and patterns. Most students figure out very quickly that they can combine different blobs to make new colors.

It's just water and food dye, so if a student drinks it, it's non toxic. I'm guessing. Not that it happened to me...

It's also a great lesson in understanding directions for cleaning up!

The activity only lasts about 10 minutes before the water soaks through the wax paper. For the rest of the time, depending on the group, I used a David Shannon book called The Rain Came Down, another book called The Rainstomper, or an app/Stella Story called Rainy Days. They were all popular.

What have you been doing?

Wild Wednesday: Favorite Librain

No, that's not a misspelling in the title. My sister Amy is a librarian, and that's how her kids often spell her title. And to prove why she is a previous District Employee of the Year, she passed out surveys. She actually let her students rate her and the library! Here are some responses:

 Another creative spelling for librarian - libaryin.

 A superhero fan.

The Golden Touch must be a recent book. It's a popular answer.

But the best one is from Amy's friend who she has been mentoring. She says she bribed him, but take that with a grain of salt. He wouldn't talk to her when he started PK. Last year, he got in trouble at school, and his dad didn't get mad until he told his dad that Ms. S was mad.

What a sweet reward for lots of time put into working with this precious baby! His favorite thing about the library is Mes S (Ms. S). Aww....

Amy is brave. I don't know if I want to see what my kids write after the last week or two! End-of-year fever has hit! When I opened my door and my first-graders started crawling outside while my diag friend was waiting with another student, that was pretty embarrassing. Amy definitely has better relationships!

Do you do surveys with your students?

All Y'all Need on TpT: ABC Beach {Freebie}!

All Y'all Need has another ABC Order {Freebie} for you! This one is beach themed, perfect for the end of school and talking about vacations and ocean animals.

Download it here, and we appreciate feedback!

Friday Faves from All Y'all Need: May 10

From Amy:

Can I just say yum?   The boys at Baked have such fabulous recipes in their cookbooks.   This week were treated to Good Morning Sunshine Bars (on page 22) for Teacher Appreciation Dessert Day.   Three words Y-U-M!

And speaking of Teacher Appreciation Week, I was treated a little gift card from a sweetie.    She used her own allowance money to buy me a gift card to one of my favorite places.....Sonic Drive In!
It's 15 days until summer, when it will be time for cherry limeades.   Ahhhhhh

From Laura:
Friday Fave #1: Teacher Appreciation Week. Our office staff gave us little treats every day like personalized notepads and keychain flashlights. But on Wednesday, two little sweet Kg'ers made my day with treats. First, a pretzel rod with cute candy flowers.

 Next, a jar full of blueberry and banana nut muffins.

Friday Fave #2: Origami Owl. My order just came in, and I love it! I've been playing around with it and putting Amy's order together, too! Here is my daughter's locket with headphones, a volleyball, a turtle, and a starfish.

From Lisa:

Friday Fave #1: Family

My brother got married this past weekend. Although weddings can be hectic and very busy, I was so glad to spend time with my wonderful family. 

 My Mom and I are also glad that we’re finished baking 1,300 cookies! Haha

 Friday Fave #2: Mother’s Day Gifts

My sweet teacher friend found this adorable Mother’s Day gift idea on Pinterest. All you do is spray paint a washer white and then let your students decorate them with nail polish. It’s easy, cheap, and adorable! My kiddos absolutely loved making them!

Thursday Therapy: Mother's Day Cards

We've been focusing on Mother's Day this week. I always like to start off with a book, this time, What Mommies/Daddies Do Best written by Laura Numeroff and illustrated by Lynn Munsinger. K-2 read this book. 3-5 talked about Mother's Day.

Yes, that's Laura Numeroff of If You Give a... fame, so you know the book is good! If you flip it over, you get What Daddies Do Best.

I was a little ambitious this week and tried Mother's Day booklets from Karen Jones. They are darling, but even with whittling pages, it was a lot for 30-minute sessions.

This is what my room looked like at the end of the day - construction paper and strips and supplies everywhere! Right before dismissal time, a thunderstorm with hail hit, and it was crazy! I cleaned up a little, but because tomorrow's groups are also making cards, I left everything out in neat piles, depending on your definition of "neat".

 But I think the cards are worth it. Focusing on vocabulary, sentence production and following directions while making a cute gift for Mom has to be worthwhile!

One of my 5th-graders got creative.

 Another 5th-grader's booklet. It's actually green. He got a little creative on the third flower.

 A booklet cover in progress.

Inside are pages to write on and illustrate, such as:
* My mom and I love to....
*The best thing my mom cooks is....
*I love my mom because....

I'll admit that's a tough one for some of the kids. Most answers are along the lines of "she loves me" or "she takes care of me" or "she plays with me". My favorite answers came from my FA kids.
What is your mom's name? Mom
I love my mom because.... she's Mom!

Notes for next time: either allow more time for the booklets OR make a single-page card. Buy glue sticks ahead of time. Actually demonstrate the concept of "dot, dot, not a lot" when using glue bottles instead of just thinking the kids know what that means. Even though they can say it and have been saying it since the first day of Kg, the concept of "dot" keeps growing bigger and bigger!

What have you done this week? Have you celebrated Mother's Day with your groups?

May 2013 SLP Link Up

The March link up went pretty well. The April link up? Not so much. I guess everyone has been busy. So in an effort to make linking up a monthly happening, I'm presenting the May link up!

See the acronym down the side? BHSM? I'm so original...

To participate, just follow the directions from this post to share the image.

Here are the rules:
1) You are free to mention your own products, but if you do that, please put in items from someone else. The purpose is networking.
2) Give credit where credit is due - link to original ideas, blog posts, TpT/TN stores, Pinterest, etc.
3) After submitting your blog, visit four more blogs and make comments.

Here is mine:

Buying: Flowers for Mom isn't just what it sounds like, it's a great unit on TpT here! I just bought it during the TpT sale! If you need more ideas for Mom's Day, check out our Pinterest board.

Hearting: I am loving Origami Owl! One of my friends recently became a seller, and I am looking forward to seeing my first charm! To see what I bought, go here. Well, I didn't buy everything, but I'll post pics when it comes in!

Sharing: Since BHSM is designed to promote awareness of communication disorders and since I have 80 students (direct, consult and RtI), I think my school is pretty aware of disorders. Even though I'm not the best example, I plan to share voice tips with teachers from Twin Sisters Speech & Language Therapy.

Making: The diag (similar to an LSSP) I work with is retiring. For her party, I'm making one of my grandmother's recipes, an old Betty Crocker one for white cake. This recipe is similar. Brings back a lot of memories.

I would like to make the link up a monthly one. If you're interested in letting me know when I start one, email me at allyallneed@gmail.com, and I will send you an email to let you know when it's up.

Link away!