My Junior High Speech Room and some fun extras!

This is my 4th year at my current junior high and I just love my little space. I was at two junior high's last year so I had to condense two rooms into my space here at this junior high. I am only working 3 days a week this year so I can be a partial stay at home mom with my son, Kade! He is on the verge of crawling and its just so fun to watch! I'll put a video in here to show you that too!

So here is my room! I took a panoramic photo, so its a little distorted.

Here is the awesome shelf space I have! In the baskets, I have some of my go-to TPT materials and some other card decks so I can easily grab them!

Here is my computer, desk and work area. 

Here is my awesome stash of materials. Hi my name is Amy and I am addicting to buying speech therapy materials!

I also have awesome shelf space under my cabinets too! 

I am so excited to welcome my junior high students into my room this year! I have worked hard prepping my room and getting my schedule done this first week! Next week-I meet students! Yay!

PS as promised here are some cute videos of my son Kade beginning to army crawl and babble! I just love him so much!

A quick and easy printout for swallow precautions in acute care/inpatient rehab!

I work in acute care on the weekends and I wanted to revamp the swallow precautions sheet that I use. I tape this above my patient's beds so family members can see and any staff member that walks into the room can see the current swallow precautions for the patient with dysphagia. 

You can grab the freebie HERE! 

Dear Parent.....

Dear Parent,

I am writing to you as your child's speech pathologist. I only get to sit and talk with you at length once a year during the annual IEP meeting because you are a very busy person. You have seen me a handful of times in your life. I don't really feel like you know me, know my heart and dedication although I try to show you each time I visit with you. I see your child every day. I try to show your child my heart, dedication and love everyday whether they come to speech or not that day. I show all of my students that same love.

I am the person you yelled at today. Me, Amy Minor. You kept calling me the speech teacher, but I am a person with a name. The words you say to me hurt sometimes. My job title is a speech pathologist, but my job is to help your child be as successful as possible inside and outside the speech room. I remind myself daily how important my job is before I walk into these school doors. You talk to me as if I am trying to decrease services "just because I want to". You told me I am not doing what is in the best interest for your child. Instead of yelling at me, I gladly would have listened to your input and concerns. I am very open to what you have to say. You brought your threats to the meeting about a lawyer and yes you scared me. Did you realize that? I may have continued to act professionally in that moment because thats the kind of person I am; but as a person who makes significantly less money than you, I was scared. You told me I don't care about your child and questioned my intentions all while I was sitting in a meeting after school hours (hours that I am not paid for) listening to you criticize my skills as a speech pathologist. Skills that I acquired after 6 years of college-a bachelors degree, a minor in psychology and a masters degree.  Skills that I continue to pay for through student loans and yearly continuing education hours. Skills that I have acquired through experience. This is what I want you to take away from this letter, parent.

I am a speech pathologist. I am a person, a wife and now have a child of my own. I LOVE my job. I love my job so much that I get to school early in the morning. Yes I am one of the first people through these doors every morning. Many times it is to prepare for the upcoming speech sessions that day. Your child was the most difficult child I have ever encountered in my speech career, but that made me want to work even harder. I have researched behavioral techniques. I have bought special materials to help your child accomplish the goals we have set this year and took time out of my day at home to even make materials specifically for your child.  I love my job so much that I will drop my child off at child care this next school year. Yes I will drop my child off at child care in order to come help children like yours here at school. Do you realize that I do that? Do you realize that I was so eager to help your child succeed that I used to lie awake at night trying to think of a new way to tackle a goal in order for your child to succeed? There are minutes on IEP paperwork and I saw your child for those minutes every single week. I am so dedicated to your child and all my students that I made up sessions even though I didn't have to. I spent countless more minutes talking to teachers, administrators, making activities, buying activities and setting up a successful environment for your child. I sent home homework and activities over break for you to work on with your child.  I spend a lot of my own money each year to provide the newest of materials for your child and the rest of the students on my caseload. I worked extra jobs so I could do that which was more time away from my family.

At the end of the school year, your child who was moving on to  a new school gave me a HUGE hug, a kiss on the cheek and said "bye minor". This brought me to tears because when I first met your child, there was no production of the sound /b/. Your child went from throwing tantrums because your child had no other way to communicate to three years later being able to tell me "bye minor" using words.  So, when you told me that i don't care about your child. It struck my heart. Please know this parent. I do know your child. Unlike you, your child knows my heart. I would only recommend for your child what I would recommend for my own. A lot of my recommendations came from hours of contemplation over your child's best interest for the remainder of this school year and the for the transition to a new school. I gave up a lot to be able to help your child every day and I make that choice everyday and will continue to make that choice when the new school year begins next year for my new students that I will receive. I love all my students. I love your child. Please keep these things in mind when you want to yell at someone who works with your child.

Love,
Mrs. Minor

Summer Zoo Visit Freebie

I was recently at the Zoo and saw many families and children interacting and talking about the animals. I wanted to provide parents with a simple resource to refer to for some simple questions to ask their school age children when at the Zoo to provide for some real life language/vocabulary stimulation. This is an easy sheet to refer to to provide some carryover for vocabulary skills learned during the school year during speech sessions.

Grab the freebie by pressing on the picture above!!!!

Enjoy your time at the Zoo!!

End of the Year Student Information Page

I always like to have a quick snapshot view of a student at the beginning of each school year. I made a student info sheet to place in the students working file at the end of the year. This will allow any therapist to pick the folder up next school year and not have to do a bunch of research about the student regarding dates and goals/current accuracies.

Pick up the item here!

My first real post (post-baby)!

Hey everyone! I am finally able to squeeze in some time to jot down a post so I decided to let you all know whats been going on in my house.  I wanted to explain where I've been for the last 10 weeks!

My son, Kade, was born on Valentine's Day this year. He turned breach the day before his due date (stupid me tried to get off the couch without asking for help when I was having trouble). I had a c-section the next day! I had a really easy recovery thank goodness--up walking the day of and we got to go home a day earlier than planned.

Kade was a VERY tough baby from the day he was born. He battled really bad reflux and has had issues with that ever since. Medicine didn't help my little man at all and if he wasn't sleeping (which was very little) or eating, he was screaming. It was very very hard on this momma's heart. We ended up going to see a pediatric chiropractor and it helped a lot, but we still battle the reflux every day. I hear from everyone that the baby eventually out grows it, so I am really hoping it happens soon so my baby can have some relief. He deserves it.

Anyways, the reflux (among other things like severe gas and tummy issues), made him not be able to sleep well for the first 6 weeks of his life. After that things got a little bit better, but only until now is it getting much easier for him during the day. When you don't have a baby that sleeps during the day, there is little time to eat, rest or do chores much less be active on my blog FB page or blog.

You all are wonderful and I really appreciate you guys continuing to follow my blog despite this hiatus I had to take to take care of my son. Hopefully now that he is taking some much needed naps during the day I can squeeze in some more time to blog. I look forward to interacting with you guys again and being an active participant in the speech blogging community.

Did any of you guys have a baby with reflux issues? I am really curious what age your babies grew out of it.

Here is a picture of my sweet baby boy! 

Guest Post! Ways to Spice Up Any Word Therapy! by Allison's Speech Peeps!

Hi there! It's Nicole over at Allison's Speech Peeps today.

I am sooo excited to be guest-posting on Major Speech Pathology Fun with a Side of Gluten Free today! This has always been one of my favorite blogs so I'm honored that Amy's letting me spend a little bit of time with you today. 

Today I'm going to talk to you about some fun ways to spice up word therapy. In my mind, "word therapy" can mean anything from practicing articulation words to consonant-vowel-consonant words to synonyms/antonyms. All you need are some flashcards with words on them. My groups were working on learning sight words this week so that is what I used. 

1. Hide and Seek. 

What child doesn't love the fun game of hide and seek? Even if you have a tiny therapy room, it's nice for the kids to get up once in a while and move around. Simply "hide" target words around your room and ask students to find them. For specific words, I always clarify the word I want them to find. For example, when working on rhyming, my students must find the word that rhymes with "book." If they come across a different word, they must leave it there (shhhh....don't tell anyone!) and remember it for later. 

Can you find my sight words?

2. Light it up!

Grab a small flashlight and display cards with words on the table. Turn down the lights and have students say the words that are in the spotlight. My kiddos love this, especially when practicing articulation words!

3. Jump Around!

Use rings or even duct-tape and place words inside on the floor. Call out words and have each student jump into the ring with the word. This is a super easy way to assess whether they know the words. The kids also love it!

Therapy can become hard to make fun during this time of the year. I hope these ideas gave you some fresh inspiration! Thanks so much for letting me have some time with you!

Nicole

Allison Speech Peeps