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DECEMBER

     **Christmas break is Dec. 23-Jan.3rd.  Come back to school on Tuesday, Jan. 3rd.  

How did we make it to the Christmas season...again??!!!  Students have been making ornaments to decorate the tree.  We are coloring candy canes, elves, and of course reading some of my favorite books!

   

We have been talking about real vs. fake trees.  Did you know you have to water a real tree, but not a fake one.  Did you know that real trees will drop "needles" on the floor if you don't water them?! LOL  

*Question of the month: 

Do you have a real tree?   
               YES    12       NO     16

Just a few of the books we have been reading this month!

December words we have been talking about: 

Santa, Stocking, Sleigh, Decorations, Ornament, Wreath, Reindeer, Candle, present, glistening, joyous, Elf, poinsettia, holly berries, Eve

**Click HERE for some fun activities to do during the holidays!

**and even MORE websites to have Christmas fun!

I will be talking to my students about a neat website to watch Santa's Reindeer!  Click HERE to see it.  I think Santa shows up at 11am, 6pm and 9pm. We leave it on the computer all day to see the antics those reindeer cause.  This year I saw "The Grinch" steal a stocking and a wreath, while Santa was reading some mail!!  So exciting to share and watch as a family.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all of my students and their families. Have a great winter break!!

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NOVEMBER

This month we are going to be talking about Thanksgiving!  I have planned to read a few stories, make a few turkeys, and enrich the kids lives with fun facts! 

See the updated "poll results" below!!



Books we are reading this month: 

Who Will Carve the Turkey This Thanksgiving? by Jerry Pallotta
The Great Turkey Race by:  Steve Metzger
10 Fat Turkeys by:  Tony Johnston
Pete the Cat The First Thanksgiving by Kimberly and James Dean 



Skills we are targeting this month are sequencing, categories, vocabulary, and recall and retell.  We always find ways to get our good speech sounds into our sessions.  


We have another "poll"!!  In talking about turkey, traditions, food, some of the kids started to tell me that they don't eat turkey!  So I wrote the question on the board:  

           Do You Eat Turkey??  Yes or No.. 
        YES = 22          NO = 4


Also we will take a "poll" for who likes pumpkin pie!?  

           Do You Like Pumpkin Pie??   Yes or No........

                    YES= 18         NO=  8

I was so happy to see most of my students enjoy eating Turkey and Pumpkin Pie.  This is one of my favorite meals!!!     

DON'T FORGET ABOUT PARENT/TEACHER CONFERENCES:  PROGRESS REPORTS WILL BE SENT HOME WITH THE REPORT CARDS!

              WEDNESDAY NOV. 9TH 
              THURSDAY, NOV. 10TH  
              FRIDAY, NOV. 11TH 

We have a few 1/2 days on Thursday Nov. 10th and Friday Nov. 11th. 

Thanksgiving break:   Wed. 11/23-25 - 
                         NO SCHOOL  

A few fun ideas to keep your kids busy during the holiday gathering:  

*Write out the word Thanksgiving Dinner - see how many words you can make using these letters. 

*Have the kids make placemats.  Use a piece of paper and have them draw pictures of Thanksgiving, or something they are thankful for.    

*Talk about Thanksgiving traditions your family might have. Maybe your kid has a new tradition they would like to try?!

*Take lots of pictures and make a scrapbook so your child can use their memory, recall, sequencing, and retelling skills. 

Still looking for more things to do? Click HERE to get some great coloring and activity pages! 

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OCTOBER

October has arrived and we are celebrating my favorite time of the year FALL!!!!! 

This month we will explore a different theme each week: We read stories, have worksheets, and spooky speech words.  We learn new vocabulary, put them in sentences, draw pictures and talk about same/different.   We are carrying over their skills in the classroom with Unlocking the Code and using our lip, tongue and throat poppers. We are also talking about vowel sounds.   

October 3-7 -  All About Fall

October 10-14 -  All About Pumpkins

October 17-21 - All About Ghosts

October 24-28 - All About Halloween

We have finally gotten into the swing of school, and speech therapy classes! The students are working hard to get a smiley stamp each time they attend speech, do their best work, and follow the rules.  Some of the kids are getting a chance to dig through the prize box!  So much fun... 

Some months we make a project for the bulletin board.   We found that some of our speech sounds were in those FALL words!   We even talked about the leaves changing colors and decorated leaves for the board.   

We took a "poll", which means we asked all the kids a question... 

Have you carved your pumpkin yet?     

                           YES = 16          NO = 21

It looks like I am ready for school! My Webster classroom is cleaned, restocked, and the bulletin board is up! Stop by Webster Open House on Wednesday, August 31st from 6pm-7pm, find your name and pick out a folder.  You will get a free "stamp" just for saying hello! 

Welcome to a new school year 2016-2017!

IT'S ALMOST THAT TIME....  I WILL BE BUSY WORKING IN MY CLASSROOMS OVER THE NEXT FEW WEEKS GETTING READY TO DO WHAT I LOVE...WORK WITH KIDS. 

OPEN HOUSE FOR WEBSTER ELEMENTARY:   Tuesday, August 30th 6pm-7pm.  Stop by the Speech room, pick out a folder, and get your first stamp! 

END OF THE YEAR REMINDERS: 

*Speech Progress reports will go home with the report cards

*Speech folders are coming home this week! 

*Don't forget about  summer.  Just like reading, writing, and math, speech skills need practice too!  Please check out my Summer therapy tab on this blog.  It gives you therapy options, as well as some simple ideas you can do at home 

*If you have questions, concerns or need more information,  I can always be reached by my email:   emarlett@eskymos.com 

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MAY

HERE WE GO!!! Our final full month of speech therapy.  As usual, I attend a lot of meetings out of my buildings to get ready for next year.  Kids are going on lots of field trips, and Spring programs will be starting.  It is a busy month. 

This month we will spend time reviewing what we have accomplished in speech this year. We will be talking about the goals they worked on.  Progress reports will go home with report cards. 

 **Speech Folders will start to come home the week of May 23-27**  

It's Speech Party Time!!!  Decorate your own cupcakes, and Marble Monsters game all week long!! Every year we celebrate our speech class with a well deserved party! I am so proud of all of my students and their progress this year. 

Inside your child's speech folder are papers they have collected all year.  They can use these to practice over the summer.  There may be a few calendars to help with carryover summer speech skills.  

Summer Speech Therapy can be an option!!  Please click the link on my blog page "summer speech" for all the latest information.  

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APRIL

SPRING HAS ARRIVED!! So happy to see the snow melt away.  Not so happy about the rain.  But our plants and grass will need it.  I came back from our Spring break rested, relaxed and ready to work for the next 9 weeks. 

This month we will be looking at our individual goals and taking lots of data.  I usually see a huge amount of progress from my students.   

We will be starting a spring unit this month.  We will be using spring vocabulary, do a bulletin board project, and read stories about Spring. We will find words with our sounds in them. We will be creating sentences to help with our expression and grammar. 

Our Bulletin Board "Speech Garden" turned out great!  It is not often that we get to color in speech, so the kids really liked this activity.  They were so creative in their coloring, and it was a great opportunity to have fun spontaneous conversations.  Of course it was a good opportunity for me to listen and see if they are carrying over their skills too! 

 

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MARCH

Its Reading Month! Webster school has been transformed into a Suessville for the month! We are celebrating Dr. Suess, reading, and writing. 

We will continue to use stories and books to work on vocabulary, grammar, sequencing, retelling, rhyming, reading, and of course those speech sounds! Here are a few of my favorite books that I will be reading this month. 

We always create a bulletin board, and this year we are making our "Cat in the Hats"!  They are writing down what they work on in speech therapy.  

                 

We have so many surprises this month the kids are excited! 

           

We started reading One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish..and of course we had to play "GO FISH" game!!  The kids always have fun and it helps carryover their speech sounds, use correct word order, grammar, taking turns, listen, store, and retrieve skills.  

**Spring Break is this month March 25-April 3rd. If you are traveling, please talk about places you are visiting, or model good speech sounds on your trip.  If you are staying home, read and talk and relax!! It is so important to talk and read with your children every day.

**Reminder there is a 1/2 day on Thursday, March 24th for students**

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FEBRUARY

February 2nd was Groundhogs Day! We read a few stories and made shadows in the classroom.  Of course we had a "prediction" question.

"Will the Groundhog see his shadow?" 

        Yes = 14        No = 11 

Do you know what the outcome was???  Ask your student, they should know. Let's just say, Hooray for an early spring!!!

The week of Feb. 8th-12th we will start our Valentine unit.  Targeted areas will be vocabulary, traditions, speech sounds and reading a few books.

***Of course I have a game with "chocolate"!!****

We will read the book Love, Ruby Valentine by Laurie Friedman.  Ruby is a busy little girl, who realizes she slept through Valentines Day!  Ask your child what the town people thought about it?!!  

We will continue the next week talking about our Presidents and celebrating them with board games, bingo games, and of course talking about money!

**DON'T FORGET WE DON'T HAVE SCHOOL ON FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 26TH. Teachers will be in Professsional Development that day.  I personally will be attending the the Special Education conference and will be gone on Thursday, Feb. 25th as well.**

Next month we celebrate Reading Month!  It's always a lot of fun, and we do such fun lessons..... Stay Tuned for hints this month about our theme!!

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 JANUARY

WELCOME BACK!!! It certainly was a nice break.  I hope you all came back refreshed and ready to work!

This month we will be talking about WINTER...brrrrrr.  We will be targeting listening, vocabulary, and speech sounds that talk about the season.

The week of Jan 4-8:  Penguins
The week of Jan 11-15: Snowflakes
The week of Jan 18-22: Snowmen
The week of Jan 25-29: Winter/Season

Students will be playing snow games, using creative writing with snowflakes, reading stories, we might even have some hot cocoa and marshmallows!!! All of this fun while working on our goals for speech and language.

SOME OF OUR BOOKS WE ARE READING THIS MONTH!!! 

When we use books in therapy, we transform them into lessons.  We can learn new vocabulary, strengthen our listening and attention skills, and we can work on answering those "wh" questions about what we heard.  There are always ways to get our speech sound practice in also.

If you want to do this at home, and need help, just ask me!  I can help make up the vocabulary list, talk about ways to improve your child's phonemic awareness skills with sounds/rhyme/letters. I can help you develop those "wh" questions. Besides all this, enjoy reading with your children!!  They love to listen to stories and what a great time to spend with them.

It is almost report card time, so I will be collecting progress data to show how your child is making wonderful progress!

***Don't forget!!  There is only a 1/2 day of school on Thurs., Jan. 28th, and no school for kids on Jan. 29th.  

Stay warm this month!