Toy Tips

Better last minute than never!  At holiday season parents are often overwhelmed by requests from their children for new toys they want and by family members asking what they can buy for the children.  I would like to share an information sheet that is provided by the American Occupational Therapy Association to help parents figure out what toys to buy their children.

In case you would like to read more about this, you can follow this link to the AOTA website.

Happy shopping and happy holidays!

Thankful :)

The focus this week in the therapy room at the ECC has been on Thanksgiving.  I think we sometimes forget how lucky we are and to take time to be thankful.  This past week has reminded all of us to take that time and be thankful for the people we love and the things that we have.  I'm so thankful for all of my friends at the ECC and that they are safe and healthy following the tornado last weekend.

Here are some of the fun activities we have been working on this week:

In kindergarten, we made a giant turkey and used the feathers as a way to describe the things that we know about turkeys.

In preschool, we added feathers to our turkeys based on categories such as food, animals, and people.

This activity was used to work on articulation skills.  We added our target sound feathers to the turkeys and then came up with our own words to add.

In the preschool language group, we learned all about the different kinds of food that we can eat at Thanksgiving and used the pictures to make our own Thanksgiving dinner.

With my older students we worked on some writing and describing.  I love hearing what the kids are all thankful for.  They put a smile on my face everyday!

I hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday, we will see you in December!

Thankful

With Thanksgiving just around the corner, the therapy rooms at CCES and CCIS have been filled with all things Thanksgiving.  This week we have several Thanskgiving themed activities to play targeting skills such as answering questions, following directions, describing by attributes, and practicing our good speech sounds such as /r/ and /th/.   Last week most of my students took time to write down three things they are thankful for, and in light of the recent events within our school district recognizing all the things we have to be thankful for takes on a whole new meaning this year.

Here are a few of the things my students mentioned that they are thankful for this year:

"I am thankful for my XBox because I like to play video games."

"I am thankful for Mrs. Ludes because she helps us read."

"I am thankful for days off school because it gives us the freedom to do activities like riding bikes and playing outside."

"I am thankful for Mr. Spencer because he does cool things like Minute to Win It."

"I am thankful for my house because it keeps me warm and safe."

"I am thankful for my family because they protect me."

"I am thankful for food because it helps me be healthy."

"I am thankful for my dog and cat because they love me."


I know I am speaking for all of us at Tales from the Therapy Room when I say that I am thankful for my students, their families, the first responders, and the amazing support, love, and generosity shown by the members of this entire community in so many ways.

Happy Thanskgiving to all of you!

ASHA 2013

It has been a shortened week in the speech therapy rooms at the ECC due to the annual American Speech-Language Hearing Association (ASHA) Convention in Chicago.  The theme of this year's convention is "The Magic of Teamwork: Science and Service Delivery."

As Chicagoland therapists, this is a great opportunity for speech language pathologists, audiologists, and speech and hearing scientists to come together and learn about the latest technology and evidence-based practice in our field.  More than 12,000 attendees are expected to gather at McCormick Place for this annual event.  Multiple oral and poster presentations are offered by experts in the field, and an exhibit hall is set up for companies to showcase their products.  Not only do professionals who have been practicing for years get to participate, but many graduate students are also given the opportunity to display posters based upon their research.  I had the opportunity to present a poster at the 2012 ASHA Convention in Atlanta.  The topic of my research was the complexity of narrative stories in school-aged children.

To learn more about this event, click here.  We are excited to learn new information that can be used in therapy sessions and help advance our skills and knowledge as clinicians, and to share this information with colleagues and families. ASHA's website is a always a great resource for information about speech, language, and hearing disorders.

Fine Motor Friday

The preschool kids had a great time playing a new game in Occupational Therapy this week.  It's called The Sneaky, Snacky Squirrel Game.

The game, for up to 4 players, includes acorns of different colors that are meant to be collected on a log.  Each player uses the spinner to determine if they are to pick up a specific color or number of acorns or if they steal an acorn from another player with the Sneaky Squirrel.  The first player to fill their log wins the game.  

The occupational therapist in me loves this game for so many reasons.  This is the first reason:

The adorable little squirrel is actually a pair of tweezers and the children have to pick up the acorns using his paws.  Taking the fine motor fun to an even greater level, I had the kids take the acorn out of the paws and insert it into the log with their fingers, which was a great opportunity to use the small muscles of their hands to manipulate and orient these little objects.  

My friend will demonstrate. (watch how nicely he turns the acorn around to put it in the log!)

I love coming up with fun activities to work on in-hand manipulation of objects.  It is so important for kids to be able to do this because the skill supports refined control over pencils and crayons.  The in-hand manipulation skills you see the kids do in this next video complete are called translation skills.  

These skills are usually present in children by about age 3 and continue to be refined up through about age 6.  This game is such a fun way to refine in-hand manipulation skills, which will support hand function and participation in school activities.

The Sneaky, Snacky Squirrel Game is made by Educational Insights and can be purchased through their website or through Amazon.

It's Called Respect!

A group of students at Coal City Middle School taped a video message in honor of Bully Awareness Month.  I think their performances were fantastic and sends a great message about being respectful.

 

Great job, Warriors!  I respect your talent and courage in spreading this very important message about standing up and doing what's right!

Monsters visit the Speech Room!

These last few weeks at the ECC have been fun in speech and language.  We have been going crazy with MONSTERS!  We have been using monsters to practices our size concepts (big/medium/small), follow multi-step directions, make descriptions, expand vocabulary, and answer a variety of question types.  The students seem to love the little monsters, it has made therapy very motivating.  Here are some pictures of our activities!

I look forward to seeing many of you at Parent-Teacher Conferences this week!  Please feel free to contact me at any time!  

Cassie

What's Been Happening in the CCES and CCIS Speech Rooms?

Since my last post, we have been very busy in the ES and IS speech rooms working on our speech and language goals and objectives.  Our themes over the last month have included pirates (students really enjoyed this unit so we stretched it out over two weeks!), football, and community helpers.

This week we are doing a Zoo Animals theme.  Students are working on identifying and labeling zoo animals based on descriptions of each animal as well as using EET to describe the animals by their attributes.  Some of my students are practicing answering and asking wh- questions about zoo animals while others are following multiple step directions with zoo themed worksheets.

So far the favorite activity of the week is a "Who Am I?" PowerPoint.  I have provided a link to the document HERE that you can download if you'd like.  In this activity, three clues or riddles are provided and students are then asked to name the correct animal.  After that, we click on the animal's picture and learn more about that animal on the San Diego Zoo's website.  Students are loving expanding their knowledge with interesting information, pictures, videos, and even live animal cams!  The website is loaded with great information - you should definitely check it out! Another great zoo website that's a little bit closer to home is the Brookfield Zoo.  Fourth graders at Coal City Intermediate were lucky enough to visit the zoo in person on Tuesday, but you can check out what this local attraction has to offer by checking out their website.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Next week will be a short week due to parent/teacher conferences on Thursday and Friday.  Although I do not set up a formal conference schedule, if you would like to schedule a conference in advance or just stop in to chat while you are in the building I would love to discuss your student's progress with you.  You can reach me by phone at (815) 634-2334, ext. 1363 or via email at apatten@ccu.net.

Fall Fun in Speech/Language Therapy!

Happy Fall everyone!

To celebrate the start of a new season, the past 2 weeks in speech therapy focused on fall-themed activities.  One game I played with my kiddos was Scarecrow Memory.  This was a great activity to target both speech and language goals.  The game was played just like any other Memory game (where you start off with all the cards, or in this case scarecrows, flipped over so you can't see which scarecrow is which).  Scarecrows were matched by color.  The student with the most matches at the end was the winner!

Many of my speech only kiddos enjoyed getting to make "speech spiders" in therapy.  The body of the spider had the sound we have been working on in therapy (or in the case of some language kids, a vocabulary category), and students then got to draw the face. Each of the legs had a word that contained their target sound, that they had to practice before they could glue on the leg. Many of these speech spiders are now crawling around on the walls of my speech room!

Students also enjoyed getting to draw their own pumpkins!  Using a game called "Roll a Pumpkin," students would first practice their articulation and language skills, and then get a chance to roll a dice.  The order in which they drew in all the parts of their pumpkin depended on the number they rolled on the dice.  Each kiddo got to give their pumpkins a stem, nose, mouth, teeth, eyes, and even some silly accessories such as earrings and hats.  

The students have really seemed to enjoy getting into the fall spirit!  Click here for some more great activities to help build your child's language. Please continue to check back frequently with our therapy blog, especially with Halloween right around the corner!

Margaret 

Mat Man Comes to School

The preschoolers in Ms. Stout's early childhood classroom spent a week learning about body parts.  As an occupational therapist, I am very invested in children developing a good understanding of their bodies.  Without a good sense of what their bodies look like, how they move, and where their bodies are positioned in space, children may struggle with motor coordination.

During group this week, the children visited with Mat Man.

Mat Man is a character and learning activity that we use from the Get Set For School curriculum.  The purpose of Mat Man is to provide an engaging learning experience with music and hands on manipulatives to support body awareness, communication, motor planning, and pre-writing skills.

The students help sing a song about all of the different parts of Mat Man and build him with lines, curves, and a large rectangle.

   

The song that we sing not only names the part and how many of those parts Mat Man has (two ears, one body), but also tells us what that part is for: Mat Man has two hands so that he can clap.

After we completed Mat Man, the children each tried drawing him.  This was a great opportunity for them to project their perception of how the body is assembled in a 2-dimensional way.

We had discussions about how our arms are attached to our bodies (not our heads!) and our feet are at the end of our legs (not our bodies!).

Click here to meet Mat Man and explore how to use this activity at home with your preschooler!

Football Week in Speech/Language Therapy!

Hi everyone!

This past week was a fun week in speech and language.  We learned all about football!  We used a football and football helmet to follow directions and practice our location concepts such as under, behind, and on top.  We learned all about different football vocabulary words and played games to practice the new words that we had learned.

We also practiced our size concepts: big, medium, and small all while following silly directions.

The kindergarten friends had a great time learning to describe and expand their thoughts and ideas about the vocabulary that they had learned throughout the past two weeks using the EET (Expanding Expression Tool).

The next few weeks we will be focusing on Fall in therapy.  Don't forget to check back to see what we are up to!

Cassie

Greetings from Mrs. Patten

Hello and welcome to Tales from the Therapy Room!  I am so glad that you have found your way to our collaborative therapy blog and hope that you find some helpful information while you are here.  

My name is Amanda Patten, and I am the speech-language pathologist for Coal City Elementary, Intermediate and Middle Schools.  I received my undergraduate degree from the University of Illinois and my master’s degree from Northern Illinois University.  This is the start of my 12^th year working with the students in Coal City.  This is my fourth year as an employee of Coal City; prior to that I was employed by the Grundy County Special Education Co-Operative.  It is a joy and honor to work with the students, staff, and administration of this district.  My students teach me something new everyday and always put a smile on my face.  

In speech this year I am asking my students to work hard during their therapy sessions to in order to gain new “superpowers”.  Those superpowers are the goals and objectives that have been written for them in their IEP and include tasks like answering questions following a story, describing by attributes, improving expressive and receptive vocabulary, and expanding their use of age appropriate speech sounds in their conversational speech. 

Last week students identified one “ultimate superpower” that they want to master before the end of the year.  It was a great activity for helping students recognize and understand their learning objectives when they are in speech.  My students this year are very motivated, and I have no doubts that they will all do their very best at obtaining new superpowers in the speech room and beyond!

Make sure you bookmark this blog and check back often for updates from the therapy rooms throughout the district.  My contact information is located on the right sidebar of this blog - please do not hesitate to get in touch with me if you ever have any questions or concerns about your child's speech and language development!

Welcome Everyone!

I hope you find this blog an exciting place to keep updated on what goes on behind the scenes in speech and occupational therapy here at CCUSD #1!  My name is Margaret Marsaglia, and I am the new speech-language pathologist in the district.  I currently provide speech-language services at the Early Childhood Center and the High School.  Before graduating in May 2013, I completed my education externship at the ECC, so I am excited to be back in Coal City as an employee!

The start of my therapy has been focusing on the theme "Speech is Super!"  Using super heroes such as Spiderman, Superman, and Super Girl, kids are learning to "Be safe, responsible, and respectful!"  They are also learning to be a good friend to one another, and to listen and speak well.

To go along with the Super Hero theme, students had the opportunity to create their own super heroes during the first week of speech therapy.  Everyone got to pick out all of the different parts to build their super heroes, which included suits, capes, masks, and symbols.  Many kids chose to use elements that reminded them of their favorite super heroes, while also choosing parts that represent their own unique personalities (such as picking out a mask that is their favorite color).  I have so many creative super heroes that are now flying around on my walls!

During these first full weeks of school, various Super Hero games have also been played, including articulation and vocabulary board games.  It has been a great way to target speech sounds and language goals while still getting to play a game that is fun and features super heroes.  I have really enjoyed getting to know all the kids, and look forward to many more weeks of fun therapy activities to share!

Margaret

Welcome back friends!  I'm excited to be starting off another school year with the students, staff, and parents of Coal City Unit District #1.  My name is Jen Swanson and I am the occupational therapist for the district.

I have the pleasure of serving the entire district and enjoy the opportunity to work with students in all of our buildings.  Occupational therapy is a profession founded on the belief that people are healthiest when occupied with meaningful activity.  It is my job to help students to achieve functional skills and independence in performing activities within the school setting that help them to be successful in all they do at school.

Here is a little info about me.  I earned my undergraduate degree in Occupational Therapy from the University of Missouri--Columbia and my master's degree from the University of Indianapolis.  I have worked in the district for 10 years now (WOW!), 7 years with Grundy County Special Education Cooperative and the last 3 years as a district employee.  Areas of concentration for professional growth for me include sensory integration, visual impairments, and assistive technology.

I believe in the potential of all of our students no matter their level of ability.  I love supporting them and challenging them to become the best they can possibly be and helping them find joy in their journey.  Please continue to check back on this space for updates about what the students are getting up to in therapy as well as helpful information about supporting their growth.  I'm looking forward to an adventure-filled year!

Welcome Back!

Welcome back to school everyone!  We are all so excited to be back and to see our students again after a fun and relaxing summer!  My name is Cassie Spicer and I am the Speech-Language Pathologist at the Coal City Early Childhood Center.  This is my 9th year as an SLP and my 4th year with Coal City.  This school year I will be working with students in preschool and in kindergarten.  I look forward to seeing my old friends as well as meeting new friends this year.

I hope you enjoy visiting our blog and catching up on the fun activities in the therapy rooms across the district.  We love our jobs and can't wait to share the fun with you!

Cassie

Welcome to Tales From The Therapy Room!

We are so glad you are here! It is our goal to use this space to update visitors - students, parents, colleagues, and administrators - on the fun and exciting things that happen during speech and occupational therapy sessions within Coal City Unit District 1. We hope you find this blog informative, giving you an insight into what happens behind the closed doors of the therapy room.  There are many amazing things that go on during therapy sessions with the students of Coal City, and we can't wait to share them with you!