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Inspiration :: Thank Goodness for SLPs!

In our building, we are SUPER fortunate to have 3 amazing speech-language pathologists. While this may seem like a luxury to many districts who don’t even have 1 whole SLP to themselves, our ladies still stay extremely busy! Our building is primary low-income, so a lot of our students need language interventions (wait, you mean they’re not just “speech” teachers!?)

Most days, I don’t know what I would do without our SLPs! Sometimes being a social worker in a school can make me feel like an outsider, but these ladies know exactly what it’s like to balance caseloads, IEP meetings, and medicaid billing, on top of the “usual” school duties. The other day, one of them posted this article to her Facebook. I thought it hit the nail on the head in terms of what working with SLPs is like and thought I ‘d share it with you all. Hopefully it’ll bring a smile to your face!

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Pinterest Find :: Toys for Vestibular Development

Toys for Vestibular Development

The other day, I came across this awesome blog post from The Inspired Treehouse. Now, I’m most definitely not an Occupational Therapist, but I feel like sometimes teachers come to me thinking that I am! It’s probably because our poor OT friends are often stretched so thin and across so many buildings that they aren’t always around every time a teacher has a question. That being said, I try to at least have SOME idea of some strategies I can recommend for teachers to try until I can consult with our OT and make sure I’m not just making things up!

Which is why I was very excited when I found this post discussing the best toys for helping kids develop their Vestibular System! At our school, we have several students with Autism, Sensory Processing Disorder, or other sensory difficulties. One of major areas they need extra support is with movement (usually needing more of it!). This post is actually written by OT’s (which means they know significantly more than I can pretend to know!). It’s one I bookmarked right away and will refer teachers to next time I have a question about a movement-seeking kiddo.

Check it out here!

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New Product :: Positive Thinking Cards

I admit I’ve been a little slow rolling out new products recently. My husband and I are expecting our first child in a couple weeks, so time has been diverted to assembling furniture, washing miniature socks, finding miniature socks ones they get lost in the washer, etc!

However, I’ve been thinking about this product for awhile and have had a few people requesting it, so I really wanted to make sure to get it out before the baby gets here. So, here it is!

This deck was designed to help students learn how to change negative thoughts into positive ones. It’s helpful for students who struggle with depression, anxiety, low self-esteem, or other mental health issues. Many times, the root of these issues is in a student’s difficulty looking at a situation objectively or in a positive light – everything is bad or reflects poorly on them in some way. Most times, students don’t even know they’re doing it, so if we can focus their attention on their own thoughts, we can help them move past the negative feelings they experience.

The download includes 2 separate decks – a version for older students and a version for younger students – as well as an ink-friendly version of each deck! Blank cards are also included so you can customize your own. I’ve made something similar that I use with my students and what I like to do is to laminate the blank cards and have students come up with their own negative and positive thoughts. They’re really good at it!

Positive Thinking Cards

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