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DECEMBER

     **Christmas break is Dec. 25-Jan.1st  Come back to school on Tuesday, Jan. 2nd.  

How did we make it to the Christmas season...again??!!!  Students have been making ornaments to decorate the tree.

   

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?

RESULTS ARE IN.......

              YES  8      NO   20  

I am always surprised by how may families still have "real" trees. They do smell great, but I can never remember to water the tree! 😂 


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 have been 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...Thanksgiving!  I will read a few stories, play turkey games, and even do a worksheet or two.   



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 

Books continue to help us reach our goals in speech therapy.  We are working on skills for retell, sequence, answering"wh" questions, and practicing our speech sounds.  I get to introduce "characterization" and we also make sure we know the difference between an author and illustrator.  


We are taking a "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.. 
         Results are in!    34 Yes     15 No


I admit, I am always a little surprised how many kids don't eat turkey.  When I asked them what they eat, they said they didn't know.  My little girl, eats all the "side" dishes, and passes on the turkey.  Her favorite....mashed potatoes, yum!
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OCTOBER

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

Every month we make a project for the bulletin board.  This month we learned words like, /prepare, hibernate, migrate, frost/.  We even talked about the leaves changing colors and decorated leaves for the board.   

We just finished up our pumpkin unit.  We read the story I Like Pumpkins, and talked about fake vs. real pumpkins.  We talked about carving and eating pumpkins.  We played a pumpkin board game and worked on our goals!  I was surprised by how many kids love pumpkin pie...maybe we will get to taste some!!! 

Have a little fun.  You can carve a pumpkin on line!!

Oct. 16-20 we start our "ghost" fun.  We read books, play ghost games, and get ready for the fun of Halloween!!

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SEPTEMBER   

Welcome back!!!  I am excited to begin a new year! The bulletin board is up and my classroom is ready.  I am looking forward to seeing familiar faces, and meeting new ones:) 

This year each student will get a folder for speech class to collect worksheets, projects, or speech cards.  At the end of the year they will bring it home to use for carryover practice. 

My reward system will continue to encourage students to do their best work.  Each time they attend Speech Class and do their very best, they will receive a stamp on their folder. When they reach 5 stamps they can choose from the prize box.  

I work at 4 different schools, so the easiest way to reach me is by email:  emarlett@eskymos.com.  I check this frequently throughout the day.  I look forward to meeting you at our annual IEP's.  

Welcome to a new school year 2017-2018!

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:   Wednesday, August 30th 5:30pm-6:30pm.  Stop by the Speech room, pick out a folder, and get your first stamp!

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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, and taking end of the year data on their new skills!  Progress reports will go home with report cards. 

 **Speech Folders will start to come home the week of May 22-26**  Inside the folders are papers they have collected all year.  They can use these to practice over the summer. 

  

🎉 Speech Party!! 🎉

We have been decorating cupcakes, playing IPAD games, digging through the prize box, and bringing our speech folders home...happy children! 😃!!

**Check out the Summer Speech section** There are speech therapy services that your child can attend in the summer.  Contacts are on the page.  

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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. 

**Reminder that there is no school on Friday, April 14th**

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MARCH

Happy Reading Month!  We are starting our celebration with our "Superheroes" theme.  All of our doors are decorated as well as our school.  Stop in and take a look! 





We continue to use stories and books to work on vocabulary, grammar, sequencing, retelling, and of course those speech sounds.  

"This just in"...........I ordered some fun Superhero books to share with the kids! 

We decorated the bulletin board and created our own superhero.  
We talked about all the fun "powers" they could have, and gave each one a superhero name.  I made up "Fireworks Girl".  She shoots fireworks from her hands which makes everyone happy!!

Spring break  (March 27-31) is right around the corner.  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. 

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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 = 20        No = 11 

Do you know what the outcome was???  Ask your student, they should know. Let's just say, we can expect to see more snow and cold for a few more weeks...

On February 8th 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 24TH. Teachers will be in Professional Development that day.  

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!!

SNEAK PEEK!!!!  Next month we celebrate Reading Month!  It's always a lot of fun, and we do such fun lessons..... just a "hint" as to the theme this year.....

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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 vocabulary and speech sounds that talk about the season.

Students will be playing snow games, and will continue working on their goals!  It is almost report card time, so I will be working on those progress reports this week.

We read The Biggest, Best Snowman by Margery Cuyler.  This book targeted our skills for sequencing, recall, and social language.  We paired it with a snowman listening worksheet and learned basic concepts for "widest/narrowest" "first, second, third" and first, middle, end".  

Next up, let the Marshmallow games begin! Ask your kids about this! We may get to hot cocoa by the end of January.

We traced our hands to create our classroom snowman!! He's adorable, and I love seeing all the kids hands up on the bulletin board.

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.

**FLASHCARDS!!!! I love to use flashcards.  I like students to make their own.  I encourage them to use cards as a way to study and practice.  I have tried different websites to create them, and this site is my favorite!  Click HERE to be directed to a link that will let you make cards and save them as a file to your computer! ** 

Stay warm this month!