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DECEMBER

     **Christmas break is Dec. 21-Jan.4.  Come back to school on Monday Jan. 7th.  

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

December words we have been talking about: 

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

All the kids are starting to make progress that I can hear and see!  We are working on beginning sounds of words and a few rhymes too!  Some of the kids are starting to read words too!  How exciting.

  

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

**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...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.  



A fun activity your children can do is to make placemats for the Thanksgiving table!  Below are some examples of color sheets they can prepare.  This helps with vocabulary, and the kids love to see their artwork on the table. 

Click here to print out more fun placemats for the kids to color and use at your Thanksgiving meal!

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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, color, cut and glue, and play fun games.  We learn new vocabulary, we practice our speech sounds, and we learn how to roll dice, take turns, and have fun!!  

October 1-5 -  All About Fall 

October 8-12 -  All About Pumpkins

October 15-19 - All About Ghosts

October 22-31 - 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 on their folders!  Each time they attend speech, do their best work, and follow the rules I stamp a smiley on their folder.    When they have 5, they get a prize from the prize box.  Some of the kids are getting a chance to dig through the prize box this week!  So much fun... 

Some months we make a project for the bulletin board.   We read the story "I See Fall", and talked about things we see all around us!  The kids are very excited about what their costumes will be for Halloween.  We explored the colors that leaves change and made leaves for the bulletin board. 

Some of our stories we will be reading for the next few weeks! 

Welcome to a new school year 2018-2019!

Lots of exciting new things will be happening at Webster this year!   We are a Kindergarten Center!!  That means that all students in Begindergarten and Kindergarten will be located at our Webster school.  

I have been working in my classroom, open house was a success, and we are ready to start the year!  

June 1st is here and we have plenty to celebrate.  We finished up the year in speech therapy this past week.  We celebrated with decorate your own cupcakes and played Marble Mixer on the iPad.  All students brought their folders home and can use the papers in them for summer practice. Progress Reports will be sent home with their last report cards.

It has been an awesome year in Speech!  I watched my students grow, not only in their speech and language skills, but in maturity, and some of them in height!!   


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As most of you know, our Webster school will now be a dedicated Kindergarten center.  I will stay at Webster, while my 1st, 2nd, and 3rd graders will move to different buildings.  Their IEP's and services will not change, just the Speech Therapist and location.  I will miss my kids deeply, but will enjoy exploring language and speech with our littlest Eskymos. 
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Have a wonderful summer and if you need to reach me, please contact Webster Elementary at 786-6118. 

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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 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 29-June 1st**  

Inside the folders are papers they have collected all year.  They can use these to practice over the summer.  

Please check out the Summer Therapy section on my blog. There is a list of speech therapy programs for your child to be involved with. If you are interested in having your child continue speech and language therapy during the summer, please contact me as soon as possible!

Click HERE to learn how each summer month you can help your child with their speech and language skills. 

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APRIL

SPRING HAS ARRIVED!!  Well we think it has... The sun can stay, but the snow needs to go!!  I came back from our Spring break rested, relaxed and ready to work for the next 8 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.  We may even learn the cycle of plants, which goes great with our science units.  

Have you ever thought about using games at home to help with speech and language skills.  Play Go Fish!  

This simple game can help students with: turn taking, learning names, syntax (word order) listening, remembering, sequencing, grammar, vocabulary, and speech sounds, and math if using a regular deck of cards. We use pictures cards with our sounds on them.  Cards can be hard to hold for little hands.  We have long erasers or use card holders to help us. I think I bought them at the teacher store. We put a fishing pond in the center of the table and let the skills grow.  
If you would like a set of pictures cards, just let me know!


May will be coming quickly....so stay tuned. 

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MARCH

Happy Reading Month!  We are starting our celebration with our "Dive into a Good Book" theme. Anything ocean, beach, sun, is a good thing!  All of our doors are decorated as well as our school.  Stop in and take a look! 

This month we are reading stories about sea creatures and we made fish for our bulletin board. The students were very creative with their fish.  Some of the kids have never been fishing...we might have to do some "fishing" in speech this month!

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

Here are a few of my favorite books that I read each

week to the kids. You can probably find these books at our local library to read again. Or find some new ones that might be your child's favorite. 

Spring break  (March 26-April 2) 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, play, talk, and relax!! It is so important to talk and read with your children every day.  

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FEBRUARY

Where is the time going??!! Groundhogs day came and went so quickly, we didn't even get to "predict" about his shadow! Lots of the kids know that he SAW his shadow.  Ugh, 6 more weeks of winter... I sure hope we can get through it!

The week of Feb. 12th-16th we will start our Valentine unit.  Targeted areas will be vocabulary, syntax, grammar, 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?!!  

The week of the 19th-21st we will celebrate our Presidents! Board games, bingo games, and of course talking about money!

DON'T FORGET WE DON'T HAVE SCHOOL ON FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 23RD. Teachers will be in Professional Development that day.  I personally will be attending the Special Education conference and will be gone on Thursday, Feb. 26th as well.

**Report Cards will be going out toward the end of this month, so I will be sending home progress reports for your students!  Please feel free to call me at Webster 786-6118 with questions or concerns.  I have started seeing progress in almost all of my students.  Great News!**

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.







We started the year off with a marshmallow game.  The kids were so excited to  eat them.  We started talking about hot chocolate.  So this month we are celebrating the almighty HOT CHOCOLATE!!  We made our own hot chocolate mugs and will use the marshmallows to sip on hot chocolate at the end of the month.  We are playing hot chocolate games and having fun with our cold weather.

We will add a few "snow themed" books, but I am searching for a good hot chocolate book to add to my collection too.

We continue to work on vocabulary, grammar, listening comprehension, and speech sounds.  I love to use stories to achieve these goals.  You can do this at home with your child.  Ask all those "who, what, when, where, how, why" questions and always use the "I wonder...." it keeps them engaged and improves comprehension.

Stay warm this month!