I am such a seasonal person. My first contract day is August 19, although I have a few days before that for eSped training. Any tips on that?  And picmonkey has new school themes. So this month's link up goes with the acronym of BTS for Back to School. Buying, Trying, and Speeching. I loved how Jess from the blog Figuratively Speeching used the word Speeching, and Jess was kind enough to share her word.

If you want to play along, the easiest way is to take a screen shot of the image, open it up in {free} picmonkey, and add text. After posting, be sure to click the link at the bottom of this post. You can talk about speech stuff or personal stuff. Or a blend, like I'm doing. Here's mine:
Buying: Our Target Dollar Spot has been great lately! Luckily, they had the dry-erase pockets, but if you didn't get them, Crazy Speech World has a great alternative. I've also gotten a few prize drawer items and some slinkys for visuals to help students stretch out words and sentences. And I have 10 little buckets, but I still got two more. I love them for holding small cards in games and for storing school supplies.

Trying: I can bake. I'm not very good at daily cooking. My husband is much better. But I need to step it up and be a lot more prepared for dinners once school starts.

Speeching: I'm starting year #21. Yikes! I had a major purge at the end of last year and threw out two filing drawers of things I haven't used in three years. That means that I need to actually print out and laminate and organize all of my TpT purchases. Those bundles to help out Moore, OK are huge! So many fun things!



Congrats to giveaway winner DiAnna R!

Thinking about going back to school? Still have lingering thoughts of summer? Well, here in Texas, it's still HOT when we go back. A beach unit to talk about vacations and summers is still appropriate for back-to-school here. Introducing Sweet Summer Unit for SLPs:

It's a 45-page celebration of summer targeting categories, rhyming and spatial concepts! First is a summary and a list of our favorite books for summer (not shown):
In categories, there are 20 cards with beach items and the student is asked to name the category. Included with this game is an answer key and penalty and reward cards.
Next up is Rhyme Time at the Beach with 20 cards and 6 challenge cards. Two rhyming words are provided, and the student is asked to name a rhyming word, which can be a nonsense word:

The third game is a matching game targeting spatial concepts:

Each game also comes with a take-home sheet (only 1 of 3 shown):


Thanks for taking a look, and good luck in the giveaway!





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Congrats to Sue B!

Looking for ways to incorporate speech/language with reading, writing, and movement? Introducing Write and Say the Room: Back to School from All Y'all Need!
Write the Room is used in many classrooms. Words are hung up around the room, and students walk around with clipboards and recording sheets to find words with, for example, the long ee sound or vocabulary words. This seemed to be a great activity to adapt to speech/language!

This unit includes a directions page. If your space is small, like mine, the words can be hung up as a word wall. If you have a space that's bigger, scatter the words around and let students walk around!

There is a list of at least 10 words for the following sounds: f/v (combined), k/g (combined), l, r, s/z (combined) and sh/ch/th (combined). For artic, ask students to find words with their sound. For language, incorporate vocabulary and ask students to find something we write with, something we do at school, etc.
The packet includes two options for recording sheets, both in B&W, easy for making copies! The first recording sheet can be copied and cut apart. The second recording sheet (not shown) is one full page for students who need more space to write. The recording pages have directions for home practice that can be checked and a parent signature for home practice.
There are 14 pages of cards to print out and cut apart, plus 3 empty cards for personalizing.
Look for more seasonal Write and Say the Room activities coming soon!

Write and Say the Room: Back to School is $3. Since we are introducing this packet, we are also running a giveaway. Thanks for taking a look, and good luck! a Rafflecopter giveaway
Congrats to giveaway winner Kelly B!

Lisa is the second L in the All of All Y'all Need. Time to meet our glitter gal! She's on the right of Elvis.
Here are a few things about Lisa:
* On my mom's side, Amy and I were the first two grandchildren. After about 10 years, 3 grandsons came along. Then came Lisa. So she truly was everybody's little princess!
* Lisa is the youngest grandchild and the younger of two kids in her family. She and Amy refer to themselves as the "baby club" because they're the youngest in their families. They have a lot of baby club moments. Like fooling me with zombies.
* Lisa is very talented at making things and making them look good. Last year, she had never made a deco mesh wreath or even looked at a tutorial for one, but she got the materials needed and went to town. I'm envious.
* Lisa is a Texas Tech Red Raider. Guns up! Her favorite Tech item right now is a chevron bag.
* Brinkley is Lisa's dog. He is the most spoiled dog ever! He makes Sonic runs. When it snows, Lisa has to clear off the grass before he will go. He sits at the table during dinner. He thinks he's human!
* Lisa's favorite color is pink, but she's partial to all happy colors.
* Lisa has taught 1st grade, but she seems to have found her home in Kg.

Lisa has made some freebie Kg subway art. There are three pages in different colors - brights, primary, and B&W.
Lisa's giveaway is her fabulous My School Memory Book: August to June. It has 40 pages, and like Lisa, it is really cute!
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Thanks for celebrating these 3 days with us!
Congrats to giveaway winner Danielle F!

Today's my day. I'm Laura, the first L in the All of All Y'all Need.
Here are a few things about me:
* I'm a firstborn, a bossy firstborn according to Amy and Lisa.
* I have a wonderful husband and two awesome teens. My son is almost 18, getting ready for his senior year, and taking college visits. Yikes! My daughter is 15 and is asking for the car keys at every available moment now that she has her permit.
* We love, love, love to go to Disneyworld. We are planning our 5th family trip since 2006. That's not as much as some people, but I think it beats the average. The picture above is me and my hubby at Via Napoli, one of our favorite restaurants at Epcot.
* I'm starting my 21st year as an SLP. I have a special place in my heart for the /r/ kids because I was one. When I was much younger, only my mom could understand me, so I can only guess that I had final consonant deletion, blend reduction or fronting, or possibly some combination.
* I've been with the same district for my whole career. Not only that, I've been at the same school! Although I've worked at other schools in the district, one stands out. I served a school in the middle of our town. In 1999, that school closed as an elementary, and the whole staff moved out to a brand new school, including me, and I'm still there!
* I'm very much a technology immigrant. I'm convinced that HTML stands for Hard to Make for Laura.
* I had a journey with breast cancer last year. There are still a few things I'm dealing with, like follow-ups and chemo brain. I'm looking forward to everything being finished, but it will still be a couple of months.

So that's basically me. Let's get to the freebie. {Freebie} Chalk One Up for Communication has a bright chevron pattern and a chalkboard effect. Just print out and hang up!
For my giveaway, I'm going back to the beginning of our journey. I Know an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Pie: Activities for Thanksgiving was our first big unit, and we all contributed. The packet contains all of the things I love - a good book, vocabulary, scrambled sentences, and a game.
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Thanks for celebrating Day 2 with us!
Congrats to Bethany!

Welcome to our 1-year anniversary of working together! The ALL in All Y'all Need is an acronym, and we are taking three days to celebrate, one day for each of us!

For the first day, meet Amy. She's on the left.
Amy is my sister - younger sister, she will quickly point out. Which I will rebut by just 2 years... Amy is a librarian. I am very proud of my sister. She was named her district's Employee of the Year several years ago! That's a great honor, but what I'm really impressed with is her heart and dedication.

Amy works in a school that serves PK-2. It's one of the the older schools in her district, and it also has a low SES population. Whenever I visit her and we are out in the community, we run into her fellow teachers, parents and students, and it is so apparent that everyone loves her.

Amy's big push is READING, and she started young. For Career Day in 3rd grade, she dressed up as a librarian, not a teacher. She was specific about that. Then, she carried out her dream, got her Master's and went to work. She has gone to read in PPCD classes, worn Velcro vests with story characters, loved on special needs kids, and has become practically a member of one family after she mentored the two kids.

Here are a few more things:
* Amy loves rubber ducks and has quite a collection. She will never have a collection of turtles, though, after that one incident when a turtle chased her.
* If I ever have to know anything about pop culture, I will call on Amy and her extensive knowledge thanks to years of reading People magazine.
* Amy's love language is presents. Good for me because she's always giving, bad for her because that's not my language. She even refers to Dropbox as Giftbox because it's a better term for her.
* She has gotten our mother to mentor at her school and for our parents' church to adopt her school, which means the staff gets all kinds of treats and breakfasts.
* When one of the students she mentored got into trouble in school, his father wasn't upset until he learned his son was in trouble with Ms. Amy. Don't worry - it all worked out and the student is doing great now!
* Amy loves my kids, her nephew and niece, and spoils them rotten.

I could go on for days about Amy, but I think you get the idea.

To celebrate, each one of us has a freebie and a giveaway of one of out store's items. Here's a picture of Amy's freebie. Just go to All Y'all Need to download Chalk One Up for Reading and print out!
Amy's giveaway is Orange You Smart: All about Fruits and Veggies. This is a fantastic almost 200-page packet that includes fiction and non-fiction elements.
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Thanks for celebrating Day 1 with us!
Congrats to Cherie O!

After Lisa made her darling memory book last spring for her Kg class, I wanted a memory book for me. Amy and Lisa got busy and made this cute memory book for SLPs. Here's a preview:
The pages have plenty of room for a picture and a quick written note. Here's a closer look of Fall in black-and-white and in color.

And spring:

There is also a goals page for a short note about what students are working on.
All of the pages come in both color and black-and-white. The students can color in their own pages with black-and-white. I plan to use this to start out the year, have a mid-year review, and to celebrate the end of the year!

My Speech Therapy Memory Book is $4 and includes these pages, all in color and black-and-white:
Cover boy version
Cover girl verson
My Goals
Happy Fall Y’All
Back to School
Trick or Treat
Happy Thanksgiving
Merry Christmas
It’s a Super New Year
Happy Valentine’s Day
St. Patrick’s Day
Happy Easter
Mother’s Day
Happy Summer


We are also running a giveaway until next Monday for the memory book. Thanks for taking a look, and good luck!

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Instagram and Pinterest are such great resources! This project is something from both.
There are some very savvy shopper teachers on Instagram. So when I saw pictures of dry-erase pockets at the Target Dollar Spot, I went and grabbed 6. Hopefully, I won't have a bigger group than that because three days later, my Target was out of the pockets.

Onto the markers. Last year, Lisa saw an idea on Pinterest for using pompoms as built-in erasers on dry-erase markers. My idea was to glue on the pompoms so that students put the cap on the end of the marker and then just  turn it over to erase. But Lisa said the pompoms actually go on the other end because the caps pop off during erasing. Lisa makes her students put the caps aside. And Lisa teaches Kg and knows, so now I have two sets.
The pockets were $6 and the pompoms were less than $4 at Michael's with my coupon. Not too bad for something I can use all year!

Here's how. Last February, I realized that a lot of my students were having difficulty asking questions. I started implementing a lot of Ask Away activities. Here's an example of an /r/ Ask Away activity in a dry-erase pocket:
There are two rows of small pictures at the top and a set of 24 pictures to guess from. One student chooses a picture, in this case, the doctor. The student can circle the small picture or the big picture. It doesn't matter because no one else will know. My 2nd-graders and older usually just mentally choose their picture.

The other students in the group ask yes/no questions to try to guess the picture. In this case, the question was, "Is it a person?", so all of the "no" answers have been crossed out by using the dry-erase marker on top of the pocket:
We keep on going with questions until only one picture is left. Language students get practice with asking and answering questions, artic students have to ask questions with their sounds, and fluency students practice strategies.

Yes, I need a color printer for this project. But I don't need laminating! I can just print, insert and go!

One project down, about a million more to go...
I have a confession to make: I don't give students speech/language homework.

There, I said it. But before you judge too harshly, let me tell you what I actually do because I do hand out what looks like homework.



Let me describe my situation. Most parents want to help but aren't sure how. So they ask for homework because that's what they know. I mean, we are in a school after all. But here is what was happening:

Me: Johnny, here is a list of your words. Take these home, practice with your parents, bring it back, and I'll give you a sticker.
Johnny: I'll take it home, but my parents won't do it. They say we don't have time.
Me: It only takes 5 minutes.
Johnny: Well, I have soccer practice and then we have to eat and then we're all too tired.

And if a student actually brought back homework, you could have gotten out the feather and knocked me over because I was so surprised.

I went through a phase. Why am a making all these copies if parents won't do it? I could spend the time actually working with the students instead of writing on their papers.

I also went through empathy with the parents. I get it. I worked at the elementary school my own two kids attended, and the backpacks didn't get checked every day. There were days when I was just so worn out that I couldn't handle any more school, and then we were off to baseball practice and dance.

But then parents complained that they didn't know what their children were working on. And they complained about not getting homework at IEP meetings. In front of my principal.

I had to make a change. And I struggled with my decision, but I've come to terms with it.

My decision was that every student got a take-home sheet once a week. I copied off tons of Year-Round Articulation pages. I learned to mark out the directions on top and quickly write my own. Artic, language, fluency - everyone got something. I started making take-home sheets for our own products.

My struggle was this: Is what I'm doing a CYA move? Am I taking time away from direct therapy just to avoid conflict? Just to make parents and my principal happy? Because that was something I didn't want to do. I didn't have a good answer at first.

As the spring semester progressed, there weren't any more comments at IEP meetings about speech homework, but parents were more knowledgeable about their child's goals and objectives. Parents usually see the "homework" and then know what their child is working on. This gives me an opening to talk about the benefits of home practice. Also, surprisingly, once my thought process changed, I even had a few students return their homework with parent signature!

So here's my conclusion: parents ask for "homework" because that's what they know. We give homework because that's what we know. What parents really want is communication. They want to know what their child did in speech. And if I put that in the form of homework but they use it as communication, I've learned to be okay with that. I'm providing what I think is a benefit, but I can't make anyone use it. I plan to keep on communicating.





Congrats to giveaway winner Stacy L.!

Check out our latest offering, Thematic Organizer for SLPs!
I have a small room at one school, but I still forget what I have, what I need, what I've purchased and haven't made, and what I'm actually going to do in therapy. I decided that a binder with thematic pages was what I needed, and my sister Amy really took off with the idea!

The packet includes a cover page, perfect for slipping into the plastic sleeve of a binder:
Inside are 50 themes! They are listed alphabetically and by subject. They can be printed out and arranged in any way that works best for you! Each theme has 2 pages, a title page and an organizer page:
And yeah, I know... It's been a great summer...
Organizer pages come with the following sections: Books, Units, Games, Craftivity, and Notes.

There are 50 themes: 100th Day of School, All About Me, Animals, Back to School, Beach, Birds, Birthdays, Camping, Chinese New Year, Christmas, Cinco de Mayo, Colors, Community Helpers, Dinosaurs, Dental Health, Earth Day, Easter, Emotions, Fairy Tales, Farm, Father's Day, Fire Safety, Food & Nutrition, Frogs, Groundhog Day, Halloween, Happy Fall Y’All, I Love to Read, Insects, March Madness, MLK Day, Mother’s Day, My State, New Year, Patriotic, Peace, Pirates, Spiders, Spring, Sports Stars,  St. Patrick's Day, Superhero, Summer, Texas, Thanksgiving, Transportation, Valentine’s Day, Veterans Day, Where I Live, and Winter.

My plan is to place the pages in sheet protectors in a binder. I can write down the things I have and put post-it notes on the sheet protector. This will be my inventory. I can also print out extra organizer pages to use for lesson plans and then put those in the notebook to refer to so that I'm not doing the same thing every year and boring my students!

I think the Units section will help me out most. I can write down what I already have purchased, what's laminated and cut out and what needs to be made, and even use it as a wish list.

The packet is 100+ pages for $10. 

As with all of our new items, we are also running a giveaway. Good luck!


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All Y'all Need has two new freebies for July! Today I Feel ABC Order {freebie} is perfect for introducing and talking about different emotions.

All Y'all Need: Family Business on Facebook also has a new item, ABC Order Baseball. Just go to our page, like it, and click the Freebies tab to download!
Enjoy the freebies and summer!

Wanna plan ahead? Lisa has updated My School Memory Book: August to June with 2013-14 dates. If you have already purchased the memory book, just go to My Purchases to download the updates. The memory book has 40 darling pages for $5.50.
Well, hello July! It's time for another link up!
A link up is a way to share with others. The easiest way to participate is to take a screen shot of the image above, put it into Picmonkey, which is free, and then add text to it. Then share the information on your blog and click the link to your blog post through the button at the end of the post.

I have loved reading everyone's link ups. I'm looking forward to seeing updates on weddings and fun vacations.

I've had rules on the link ups before, but it's summer. Rules are out the window. In fact, I'll be overjoyed if anyone even sees this post because of 1) the demise of Google Reader and 2) everyone is on vacation.

In Picmonkey, just complete the JULY acrostic. Here's mine:
Just: Amy and Lisa will tell you I'm not enjoying summer, but I truly am. I just find working on stuff for All Y'all Need much more fun than deep cleaning.

Using: bloglovin'. For me, it beats other readers, and I have tried others. bloglovin' is easy. This old technology dog needs all the easy new tricks I can find.

Loving: My son will be a senior. There, I wrote it. And it's still hard. I've gotten to spend time with Amy and Lisa. We'll be seeing my in-laws soon.

Yummy: HEB has started carrying saltwater taffy. It's pretty. It's tempting. And HEB keeps moving the stand around so every trip is a game of hide-and-seek! You can find us using the big scoops to get the best variety of flavors along with about 23 other people at one time.

That's how my summer is going. Pretty good so far! What has yours been like?
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