What's in my cart? Link up for the TpT sale!

A new age group means I am hunting for new materials.  What a great time for a TpT sale!  In case you haven't heard, Teachers Pay Teachers is hosting a sale August 4th-5th.  

I'm linking up with Speech Room News to tell you all what's in my cart for my Early Childhood kids.  I am really excited about these great finds!

1.) Phonological Process Palooza! from Mia McDaniel.  I must say, I LOVE LOVE LOVE Mia's products.  They are always thoughtful, versatile, and pretty low prep.  I am a big fan of her Quick Drill games (all of my kids were gaga for them last year!), and her co-articulation binders?  C'est magnifique!  My late elementary students also loved her iPhone inferencing activity- it was a great challenge!  But enough of me singing her praises. Let's talk Palooza.

What I love is the number of targets in this packet and the fact that it's multiplied by SEVEN processes.  Also, the use of pictures, which is essential with my 3-5 year old population.  I can easily see working on this with some of my kids and using sheets for home practice, too!  Tons of opportunities for productions.  I'm ready to pick up my pencil and start jotting data!


2.)Preschool Speech Therapy Activities: Big Value Bundle! by Speech Therapy Games.  OK, so this one could be sort of a doozy, in terms of both pricing and prep commitment.  HOWEVER, I am walking into an office that was literally stripped bare.  I am starting from scratch, and boy howdy, this VERY thorough bundle hits about 80% of my kids goals.  Add in the home practice sheets, and I'm pretty sold.  

The bundle is a combination of EIGHT different packets - pronouns, asking & answering questions, plurals, possessive -s, basic concepts & prepositions, adjectives & describing, verbs & sentence structure, and practical vocabulary building.  Sound familiar?  This is why it's in my cart!  

3.) Cariboo Wh- Questions: Who, What, and Where by The 'Peech Teacher.  I was first introduced to Cariboo in grad school.  Before it was cool to save things for later use and put them on TPT, I made a series similar to this.  My clients LOVED it.  

I so appreciate that I don't have to reinvent the wheel here.  In fact, it has separate sets for each type of WH- question, so I can target one at a time, or mix them up, depending on student level.  Bonus: it's all picture based in regards to what the kids actually see. Score!

4.) The building theme this year is college readiness.  Each classroom is taking a college or university, and those of us in related services are allowed to pick our own.  Early childhood went with Monster University as their theme, and I am tempted to jump on board!  Because how cute are these monster themed classroom decor bundles?

Those are my big purchases this go-around, I think.  What about you?

If you are an SLP who uses the Common Core Standards for goal writing, I encourage you to pick up my product, Common Core State Standards for Speech Language Pathologists.  It's meant to help you find applicable goals based on a goal area and grade level for quick reference to the standards.  I'm pretty bummed that I have to retire mine until next spring when my preschoolers head to kindergarten. My state has separate standards for Early Childhood, so I'll have to create my own new cheat sheet!

 What's in your cart?  Am I missing any Early Childhood must-haves?

Ch-Ch-Changes!

This is going to be a quick one, folks.  It's been a summer of change for me, mostly good.

The good news is that all my dedicated work in the last year to justifying the need for more SLPs in our district helped make our case.  The result? We hired an extra .5 person (half-time) to alleviate some of our caseload numbers and allow us to think more in a workload perspective.  It was great to be able to sit down with the Director of Special Education and the Superintendent and make my case.  Both listened and were completely on board.  Wahoo!

The meeting came with a bit of a twist, though.  After they agreed to more SLP time in one of my schools, they asked if I wouldn't mind moving to the Early Childhood program (ages 3-5).  It's a great opportunity, but it means learning (another) whole new caseload, and leaving behind my students that I've worked with for the past few years.  And the worst part?  This all happened after the school year ended, so I didn't get a chance to say goodbye to them!

I've shed quite a few tears for the students as well as the buildings/staffs I'll be leaving (I found my nameplate in my mailbox the other day when I went to pick up materials and started crying again!), but I'm optimistic about my new position.  I had the opportunity to do part of my internship in an Early Childhood program, which was pretty amazing.  I'm super excited to jump in and create materials for those students.  I'm already signed up to take a LAMP Training in my area in September on Core Vocabulary, and know I will be working to implement that.  I'm pretty comfortable with Boardmaker, which is good, because I am going to need to spend quite a bit of time making visuals, schedules, and things like snack mats! 

Hello new office!

I've also hit the thrift stores and yard sales this summer, and have some great things to share in the upcoming weeks!

What are your must-have items for the 3-5 year old population? For classrooms that have no visuals right now, what would be on top of your to-do list?  I'd love to hear your ideas!