March is here! I love the month of March for so many reasons, not the least of which is my birthday!! March also brings warmer sunshine, blooming flowers, a sneaky little leprechaun, and March Madness…oh how we love March Madness in my therapy room! The basketball hoop is set up and ready to reinforce good effort! March also brings me so much more inspiration for thematic therapy plans. January and February always feel a little daunting with the holidays/events piling up around each other on the calendar and I need to plug in the holes with thoughtful instruction. I tend to pick and choose different lessons each year depending on the current needs/interests of my students. I do like that variety. This year, I plugged in those holes with some great ideas/materials from other therapists. Through blogs, instagram, and TPT, we all have marvelous accessibility to the strategies and ideas of other SLPs! No need to sail this ship solo!
One of the new strategies I tried was from Speech Time Fun’s post about POQ (parts of question). I have been working with several students on expanding sentence structure to comment and answer questions. We use all kinds of visual (color cubes, written words, highlighted lines) and tactile cues (tapping arm from shoulder down to hand). Her explanation of the idea to color code what stays and what goes had been a missing piece for me.
Not only is this helping my students working on expanding expression, but this is helping many students organize their responses to questions in their writing.
I was able to immediately teach this just using markers and a white board. My plan moving forward is to create some story/lesson specific questions using color coded cards to have a few pre-planned materials. They beauty of this strategy though is that once you have taught the principle, you can incorporate it on the spot! Please check out her post and video that explain this very useful strategy! Thanks Speech Time Fun!!
I also love the transition from February to March because it means Dr. Seuss is in the air! Everywhere! Every year I realize that even though I have a ton of his books, I need more!! (I can’t believe I don’t own Wacky Wednesday!) The primary targets were categories, sight words, articulation, descriptive language, following directions, and expanding sentences. And of course, being silly and having fun!
Keep an eye on my store this week…On March 7th I will choose a product that will be 50% off for the #MarchSLPmusthave sale. Tuesday March 8th is my birthday and since I can’t share birthday cupcakes with everyone, I thought the next best thing would be throwing a birthday sale!
glad it worked!!