Looking Back on 2013 and Looking Forward to 2014

I cannot believe we are at the end of 2013 and are about to start 2014! Can you???  I just think it's crazy!

Here are some of the highlights of my year:
-I blogged for all 12 months!
-I completed the rest of my graduate classes (no more class EVER!)
-I ran my first half marathon
-I went to a lot of Cardinals' games, even though I'm a Cubs fan at heart
-I developed more products than I ever thought I could have this year
-My mom downsized into a new townhouse
-My baby sister completed her first year of college (CRAZY)
-My placements included 2 preschool placements and one at a nursing home
-I worked hard on my thesis--the data has been collected and now we are analyzing it!
-I took a vacation with my mom to Cape Cod, Massachusetts
-My poster was accepted for a presentation at the National Association of Neonatal Therapists' Annual Conference in April
-I attended ASHA in Chicago

I'm sure I'm missing TONS!  Those are just the highlights! :)


Here's some things I have to look forward to in 2014:
-Graduation from graduate school
-An internship at a Children's hospital
-An internship at an elementary school
-A job (hopefully!)
-A lot of friends' weddings
-A presentation at the National Association of Neonatal Therapists' Annual Conference

And I'm sure many many many more.

What were your favorite moments of the past year?  What are you looking forward to in 2014? 

Merry Christmas!

I know you are probably busy with family and friends today and tomorrow, but I just wanted to say MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

I hope you enjoy this special time with family and enjoy the usual things--presents, cookies, hot chocolate, songs, cheesy movies, etc!

Remember the reason for the season!

xoxo,

December S...peachy Feedback Linky Party

Hope you are all enjoying your winter break!!  Hopefully, you are resting up a bit before the holidays!

Nicole is hosting another S...peachy Feedback Linky Party this month!!  Because this month included the Cyber Monday and Tuesday sale, we're featuring TWO winners!  Head on over to her blog to see all of the bloggers who have linked up!

For paid products, my winner is crystalawbrey!  Check out this feedback she left on my new SLP Student Teaching Binder:

For free products, my winner is sewhappy!  This is the feedback left on Fast Dash Categories {freebies}:

I absolutely love hearing feedback! I love hearing how you plan to use the product and/or why you like it!  Thank you so much to everyone who has ever left feedback.  It seriously means so much! You also get TpT credits to do it, so there is some reward for you!!

If your TpT user name is crystalawbrey or sewhappy, please email me for your choice of a product from my store!!

And the winners are...

Thank you thank you thank you so much for making last week SO fun!  I really hope you enjoyed all of the giveaways!  It was so fun to celebrate one year of blogging.  It really has been a great year full of many blessings.  I love this community!

So, without further ado, the winners for all of the giveaways are listed below! If you are one of the winners, PLEASE email me at homesweetspeechroom@gmail.com ASAP to claim your prize.  If you don't, I will have to draw another winner.

Speechy Musings + Home Sweet Speech Room bundle giveaway:
-Katherine Anderson

Badge Reel:
-Crissy Beach

Listen Close Articulation:
-Shannon Lisowe
-Alison Welgand
-Shanda Guant

Sunny Articulation and Phonology Test: 
-Sue Blankenship
-Morgan Androzzi
-Lindsay Anne Miller
-Teresa Yarbor

Custom Boards:
-Nicole Taylor
-Shari Fredrickson Weitekamp
-Amy Carlton
-America Browning Salyers

Again, email me ASAP please!

Congrats to all who won! Thanks again to all who participated!!

Educents Discount

Note: This post contains affiliate links for your convenience.

As you are reading this, I will be taking my LAST two finals EVER!   This week has been crazy busy with preparations for the finals and department Christmas parties.  We are officially done with classes, so some of our classmates are leaving for the semester.  I won't see them again until graduation...

Anyway, today I have a little surprise for you!!  Educents has set up an exclusive discount for all of you Home Sweet Speech Room readers, just in time for the holiday season!

All you need to do is enter the code HOMESWEET20 at checkout to get a 20% discount off of everything!! This code expires on December 31st!

They have a lot of fun educational products!  Be sure to check them out! Feel free to share this post too!  Just click on the picture below to get started!

Remember:
Code: HOMESWEET20
Why: 20% discount
Expires: Dec. 31

Custom Boards {app review + giveaway}

To continue celebrating, I'm excited to bring you a giveaway from Smarty Ears of one of their most beloved apps.

I distinctly remember the first time I heard about Custom Boards.  I was sitting in my apartment and was playing around with my new (at the time) iPad, trying to figure out which apps were good choices to start with.  I was reading about Custom Boards, saw that it was on sale, ran to Target to purchase an iTunes gift card,  and immediately purchased the app.

Some fun facts about this app:
-It was a finalist for "Best App for Special Needs of 2012"
-It is evidence-based! (Wilkinson, Carlin, and Jagaroo, 2006; Mirenda and Iacono, 2009; Wendt, 2009).
-It uses 11,000+ symbols!
-There are over 125 templates on the premium version!

You have six options for types of templates you would want to create!  They are: activities and games, devices and switches, signs and labels, grids and boards, schedules and calendars, and worksheets.

Click on whatever category you want, and it will open the template options under that category.  As I mentioned above, you have lots of options.  You can make your own game templates, visual schedules, signs for your classroom, worksheets, and templates for select devices! It is so versatile.

In honor of the season, I created an example Christmas tree worksheet for you.

To create this, select whichever worksheet or template you want to use.  Click on the white circle/square. You will get this screen:

On the right hand side, you can search by category of image, target sound, and position of that target sound.  Pretty awesome right?  Then, just scroll through the images, click on the one you want, and it will appear in the big box on the left.  You can add a background color if you want.  Just click on that box to add it to the template.

So when you create a board, activity, or template, you can save it to your archive!

As with all Smarty Ears apps, you have a full page of support, where you can access a video tutorial or contact information.  Another great feature of this app is that it backs up to iTunes!

Here's what I love:
-It's evidence-based.
-It's SO versatile.
-It can benefit kids with AAC, language, and social communication goals, among others!
-You can email and print directly!
-It has lots and lots of templates!
-It has thousands of symbols!
-You can use your own pictures.

Do you see yourself using this app?  You can find it in the iTunes store here.  It is currently listed at $29.99 (at the time of this review).

Smarty Ears has very generously donated codes for FOUR lucky Home Sweet Speech Room readers!  Enter the Rafflecopter below for your chance to win!


a Rafflecopter giveaway

Note: I had previously purchased this app myself.  No compensation was received. All opinions expressed are mine. 

Sunny Articulation and Phonology Test {giveaway}

Happy Tuesday!  I hope you're staying nice and warm.  We are enjoying cold cold cold weather here.  I secretly love it.  I makes me appreciate the hot chocolate, fuzzy pants, and radiator heat that much more!

Today, I have another giveaway for you, this time from Smarty Ears!!  A few months ago, I had the great opportunity to review Sunny Articulation and Phonology Test.  You can check out the full review here.  Here's a quick synopsis of what I wrote:

This is a great evaluation and assessment app that can give you more information than some standardized tests will give you.  It is not a replacement for standardized tests for those of you who need to report a standardized score. However, I would recommend giving this test to gain additional information, report progress, and add your own notes!  It is quick, too!!

Here are some pictures to refresh your memory:

Smarty Ears has generously donated FOUR codes to lucky Home Sweet Speech Room readers!! Enter the rafflecopter below for your chance to win one of the copies!  Good luck! :)

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Note: A code was previously provided for my review.  All opinions expressed are mine.

Listen Close Articulation {app review + giveaway}

I hope you all had a fabulous weekend! I enjoyed a snow day, some time with friends, and some ugly Christmas sweaters!  By the way, I hope you're having fun with all of these giveaways!

Today, I bring you one from my friend Erik X. Raj.  I had the pleasure of meeting Erik at ASHA last month!  He recently released a new app called Listen Close Articulation!

Click on the sound you would like to target.  Then choose which position you want to target.

Once you choose that, you will be given a list of words.  You can either hit "Play the Game Now" or "Try New Words."  The first will take you to the next screen. The second will pull up a new set of four words for you.

When you choose to play the game, you get this screen.

How to Play:
Erik will count down from 3. Then the student will listen closely and watch which kid says the word.  Say the blonde kid in the photo says, "Male."  The student will then say the target word and press which kid they remember saying the word.  If the student selects correctly, the app will move on to a harder sequence of two words.  The sequence increases in length each time the student gets it right!  Who can remember the longest sequence???

You can watch the demo video here.

The app also keeps score in the little orange bubble up to the right.  It records the high score for each game too!

If a student gets the sequence wrong, the game ends and the final score is shown.

Two other features I love about this app are the pages all about Erik and about the app.

What I love:
-I've never seen anything like it before!!
-It is SO fun for the students!
-It targets articulation, but can also target memory, social skills, attention, sentence formulation, etc!
-The words are common words that the students will likely encounter in their daily lives.
-It's simple and straightforward.  Your students will pick it up right away!
-It gets away from the traditional drill therapy.
-It can be used for carryover skills as well!

What do you think?  Want it for your speech room?  You can find this app on iTunes!

Erik has very generously donated THREE codes to help celebrate!  Enter the Rafflecopter below for a chance to win! GOOD LUCK!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Note: A code for the app was provided for my review.  No other compensation was received. All opinions expressed are mine. 

One-Year Blogging Birthday/Anniversary: Day 2

Happy Friday, everyone!! I hope you all had a great week and stayed out of inclement weather, if you're not doing so right now! Today, instead of Fab Find Friday, I have a little giveaway for you!  I hope you don't mind ;)

As a graduate student, I have to wear my ID everywhere.  Do you??   If so, I have a simple and cute solution for you.  Sometimes I find lanyards annoying, and if you're anything like me, you play with it all day long.  (I'm getting better at it...).  So I find these badge reels a perfect solution for it!!

Badge Blooms has created a whole series of badge reels, and she generously donated one for my celebration!

It came in this beautiful box!

And then...ta da!!

Isn't it so cute???  I love it!  It's great quality and you will NOT be disappointed with it! This will add to your outfit and you will no longer have to have a boring/standard badge reel!  

Do you want it?  Enter to win it in the rafflecopter below. Good luck!!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

One- Year Blogging Anniversary/Birthday: Day 1

Tomorrow is my 1-year blogging anniversary/birthday!!! I cannot believe it has been ONE YEAR!! Whoa. Seriously, where did time go?? I have enjoyed writing, creating, reviewing, and playing.  I am so very thankful for each and every one of you readers. As a thank you, I'm throwing a little celebration for a few days!  I've got some great giveaways lined up for you all!  Stay tuned for more details soon.

For the first day of the fun, I wanted to start by celebrating with one of my blogging friends. Shannon at Speechy Musings just had her 1-year blogging anniversary this past week.  We thought we would combine forces and throw a giveaway together!  You could win TWO products (one from each of us).

I am giving away a copy of my Evidence-Based Practice binder!  Shannon is reviewing it on her blog today, so head on over there to take a closer look.   I am reviewing one of her newer products called Articulation Words by Theme!

This is a product you definitely don't want to miss.   Here she gives you suggestions for use of this packet:

Shannon has created lists of articulation words by themes and has separated them out by sound.

But she doesn't stop there!  For every theme, she has also created cards. These can be used in conjunction with the parent letter (below) or on their own as flashcards.  I'm picturing a binder ring with all of these cards on them...

She also provides a parent letter:

What I love about it:
-It's a super helpful.  If you plan your therapy around themes, then target words have been chosen for you!
-It's in black and white, which makes for easy printing.
-It includes a parent letter!
-It has a list of possible activities, which are A LOT.
-It will save you so much time.
-You can print the lists in 1/2 or 1/4 size and create a little flipbook for quick reference.

I could go on and on.

Do you want to win this product AND my EBP binder?  Enter the Rafflecopter below for a chance to win. The winner will be announced early next week.  Good luck!


a Rafflecopter giveaway