Auctionable Cookies. Year 2. Month 3.

I skipped a month posting about my Auctionable Cookies. Not sure what I made (that's why I've been blogging about them), but I'm sure they were good.

Here is my Halloween cookie treat. They are supposed to be "Black Cat Cookies" and they look like it. Sorta.




Black Cat Cookies (from cooks.com)

1 cup crunchy peanut butter
1/3 cup water
2 eggs
1 pkg. chocolate cake mix
M & M's (plain)
Red hots

Beat together peanut butter, eggs, and water. Gradually add cake mix. Mix well. Form dough into 1-inch balls. Place on cookie sheet. Flatten balls with bottom of glass dipped in sugar. Pinch out 2 ears at top of cookie. Add M & M's (eyes) and red hots (nose). Press fork into dough to form whiskers.

Bake at 375°F for 8-10 minutes.

The Tale of the Turtle and the Rabbit

I have felt guilty about neglecting this blog this year. In previous years, I'd have a spare moment from time to time to update ideas about speech, my family, or a rhyming thought.

This year has been nuts. Like 'pull your hair and run for cover' nuts. No budget. Increased case load. Dramatically increased number of students with significant needs. Decreased staff/assistance to help with increased case load and increased number of students with significant needs. Nuts. Crazy. Loco. Batty.*

*Currently teaching the idiom "driving me batty" to a few students.

This year I am working with two boys with significant fluency issues (stuttering). Because I learn better in story, here is my adapted "turtle and the hare" story we created to help them remember to breathe through their bumpy speech:




Once upon a time, there was a turtle and a rabbit.

The turtle was very slow and steady. He always said, “Slow and steady wins the race.” He also had huge lungs that allowed to swim underwater for long periods of time.

Rabbit, however, was fast and bumpy-jumpy. He thought that he was the fastest in the forest. Rabbit challenged turtle to a race.

On the day of the big race, all the forest animals gathered. The winner would be the first animal to deliver an important message to bear.

At the sound of the horn, they were off! Rabbit, did his bumpy jumps quickly into the woods. Turtle followed slow and steady.

After some time, rabbit saw he was clearly in the lead. He said, “I’m tired. I will take a little rest by this pond.” He soon fell asleep.

Meanwhile, turtle continued on. Slow and steady. He passed rabbit and approached bear at the finish line.

Rabbit woke up with a start. He began jumping to catch up. Just as he was to about to catch up, turtle used his enormous lungs to bloooooooooooooooow rabbit away from the finish line. Turtle crossed the finish line, delivered the message to bear, and won the race.

Moral of the story: Slow and steady gets the message across first. Not bumpy-jumpy.

Scheduling for Speech

Remember in High School when you could have sworn that your English teacher threw all those essays up his stair case. The ones that landed nearest the top step received "A"s, the next steps received "B"s and all remaining papers received a "C"? That teacher was the reason I refused to take any English classes in college.

And remember college acceptance time? When those college admission officers stuck their hand into the Santa-sized bag of applications and pulled out those lucky few?

Well, scheduling 60+ speech students into a school week looks a little like that.
Only, instead of throwing papers up a flight of stairs, I throw 100 post-its onto a huge piece of paper that has been divided into multiple columns.

My goal is to schedule every student to see me at least once per week, and see either my assistant or myself the other time in the week. But, hang-on, I can't have the speech time interfere with ESL, lunch, recess, a 90-minute reading block, music, PE, library, other special education services, or Title 1. And being the last to schedule my students makes it extra-fun in a "I sure enjoy an impossible brain puzzle" kind-of way.



Although I've been serving students for several weeks, today marks the day in which I think I finally have scheduled all of my students.

That is... until someone graduates from speech, someone moves in, someone qualifies for new services, or anything else about the school schedule changes. At which point, I'll start throwing post-its again.




Other school-based Speech Pathologists: How do you create your schedule?