Why do we come to speech?

We have been getting back into the swing of things here in speech at Rice Creek. We have been having a lot of discussions about "why" we come to speech therapy. See some pictures below of our students learning about why we come to speech and how we can do our personal best! 

Signing our speech contracts!

Writing about our individual speech goals. 

We're talking about how we can use what we learn in speech outside of the speech room.

Welcome Back, Dolphins!

Welcome to the Rice Creek speech and language blog. We are happy to be back here at Rice Creek and working with your students for the upcoming year. On this website you will find:

• newsletters with suggestions for home practice
• home practice pages for various skills (language and articulation)
• links to websites related to speech and language 
• information about us (the Rice Creek speech-language pathologists)

We look forward to a wonderful year filled with growth for each of our students. 

Summer Break

Dear Dolphin Family,

Summer is finally here! We have been working very hard on your student’s speech and/or language skills during the 2015-2016 school year. Due to the fact skills are best developed with continual practice, please continue to practice with your student over the summer months. Below you will find some suggestions on how to practice with your students at home while having fun! We wish you all a restful summer and will see you all in the Fall!

April Newsletter

A messaging tool for us to stay in contact.....please join!!!

Websites to Target Speech and Language Goals

We are often times asked for websites to practice language or articulation skills at home. We decided to publish a blog post with a few websites and games you can use at home with your children to work on their speech and language goals. 

1) Mommy Speech Therapy: 
http://mommyspeechtherapy.com/?page_id=55
This website has printable worksheets for different sounds your child may be practicing. You can print off worksheets to practice sounds at the word, sentence, and story levels. 

2) Sheppard Software's Verbs in Space: 
www.sheppardsoftware.com/grammar/verbs.htm
This is a fun game to help your child to identify action words.  Your child will be presented with a group of words and will be required to click on the verb. 

3) Sheppard Software's Preschool Animals Games:
 http://www.sheppardsoftware.com/preschool/animals.htm
This website offers a variety of interactive games perfect for preschool aged children. These will work on simple animal identification and counting and will give you and your child opportunities to talk about different animals you would see in a variety of areas such as farms, oceans, jungles and more. 

4) Turtle Diary Direction Words Game:
 http://www.turtlediary.com/game/direction-words.html
This game will help your child practice following spatial directions ("in", "on", "behind", "under", etc).  

5) Turtle Diary Describing Words:
 http://www.turtlediary.com/game/describing-words-fill-in-the-blank.html
This is an interactive vocabulary game for younger kids, which is designed to help them learn new words and expand their vocabulary. A simple lesson will introduce kids to the concept of describing words or adjectives and their use in a sentence. 

We hope you find these websites helpful when practicing at home with your child. Please contact us with any specific questions you may have regarding your child's speech or language needs. 

March Newsletter

Spring is officially here. Check out our March newsletter for ideas of how you can practice good speech and language skills at home with your child.

February in Speech

This month in speech we have talked about the cold weather and Valentine's Day. Some of us read the story, "There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Rose" by Lucille Colandro and discussed what Valentine's Day means and how we can be a good friend.

While reading the story, we practiced answering questions about the story, sequencing and finding each student's target sounds. At the end some of us made Valentine's for friends, teachers or parents. 

Sequencing the events of the story

Working on our sounds

Making Valentines 

Here are some ideas to continue to talk about Valentine's Day at home and to carryover what we are talking about in speech.

Winter Home Practice Activities

Welcome back to school Dolphin families! We hope you all had a nice winter break with your families. 

We have some books and a list of free winter themed apps for you to to use at home to encourage good speech and language with your children. 

1) PBS Parents Play and Learn: features a winter background and dozens of new stickers for lots of winter fun! Build a snowman! Count snowflakes! Play in the snow with polar bears and penguins! Go sledding with characters. 

Key Features
-13 interactive games that automatically adjust to a child’s level
- A variety of proven methods used to build early math and literacy skills
- Completely bilingual (English/Spanish)
- Over 100 everyday and seasonal stickers in free-play area
- Parent ‘teachable moments’ tips associated with each game
- Easy hands-on activities and game-related resources updated regularly
- New activities and resources added weekly
- Social sharing feature

2) Animals: Sounds & Games

This app will help your child get ahead in early childhood education. For example, challenges inside of the app will help your young child:
- improve fine motor and spatial orientation skills (especially in jigsaw puzzle),
- develop logical thinking and attention to detail,
- instill leadership skills
- enrich vocabulary
- exercise memory

3) Snow Fest- Joyful Celebration

This app would be good for both younger and older students. With this app you can take pictures of your student or family and apply winter weather filters (skiing, skating, snowboarding, snow balls, etc) and winter accessories (gloves, hats, boots, etc). Talk with your children about:
-what is going on in the pictures

-how the people feel (cold, happy, etc) and why ("They are cold because of the snow", "They are happy because they are skiing" "I think they are happy because they are smiling", etc)

-where you think the people are ("I think they are in the mountains because.....")

4) Happy Feet Two: The Penguin App

This is a good app for your student working on speech sounds. There is a

section of this app called "The Talking Penguin" where your student can say their target words and the penguin will repeat them! Your student can listen for correct productions of their sounds. 

Here are some of our favorite winter themed books to read at home with your children. With these books you can target concepts such as: story comprehension (who, what, when, where, why questions), categorization (winter clothing, foods, winter animals, etc), feelings (tired, excited, happy, etc), sequencing (steps for getting dressed) and you can always have your child listen for words that contain their target speech sounds. 

1) The Bear Snores On by Karma Wilson

2) The Mitten by Jan Brett

3) There Was a Cold Lady Who Swallowed Some Snow by Lucille Colandro

4) Froggy Gets Dressed by Jonathan London

5) Polar Bear, Polar Bear, What Do You Hear? by Bill Martin Jr

6) Three Snow Bears by Jan Brett