Unless you've been living under a rock, you've probably figured out that May is "Better Hearing and Speech Month"!!! If you're a speechie, I hope you're participating in some way! My fellow speechies (Stephanie & Donna) and I have decided to have some fun this year!
First, we created this informational bulletin board (sorry for the glare in the picture!). It's located in the front office where both parents and staff can see it.
In the center, you'll find the BHSM poster from ASHA. There are also some handouts for parents and staff - a brochure on communication, the ASL Alphabet (we wanted to be sure to include a lot about hearing/ASL because my school houses the Deaf and Hard of Hearing program for our district. ), a chart of speech sound acquisition from Speech, Listen, & Play, and a Handy Handout on fluency from Super Duper (#65). The speech bubbles have the following quotes:
"The most important thing in communication
is to hear what isn't being said."
-Peter Drucker
"The limits of my language mean the limits of my world."
-Ludwig Wittgenstein
To kick off BHSM, on May 1st, we put this handout from ASHA and Progressus Therapy, and TheraSimplicity in the mailboxes of all the staff. You can find this handout (along with some other BHSM ideas) HERE.
We actually lined up 5 handouts for staff information/education (one for each week in May). There's another Handy Handout (#51) from Super Duper on fluency for teachers and parents, a handout on hearing conservation (2-sided, you can find one side HERE), and one on how speech and language skills affect academic success:
For week 2, we attached a handout on voice disorders to bottles of water. One side has information on symptoms of voice disorders. The other side has information on how to prevent voice disorders for teachers.
After hearing at least 4 or 5 teachers complaining about losing their hearing, we decided it would be fun to offer hearing screenings for staff as well! Here's the sign-up sheet I created (you can download an editable version HERE).
Last, but probably most fun, we're hosting a trivia contest (with prizes!!) for the staff! Since Donna splits her time between two schools, we decided to do the trivia questions only on the days she is at our school - Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. So, we came up with 13 questions (there are 13 M, W, F days in May). Some are easy (Name the three SLPs in the building), others are Google-able (Name the three bones in the middle ear), and some are more difficult (How many total students receive speech and language services in this school?). On Wednesday, Donna introduced the kick-off to BHSM during our morning announcements and read the first question. We were a little bit afraid that no one would participate, but we got a LOT of responses! My favorite part of Wednesday was seeing teachers that don't know me very well - this is my first year at this school and I only work with preschool - walking by my door and copying my name from the sign on my door! Stephanie and I even had a student stop us in the hall to ask what our names were!
Here's the form I made for teachers to submit their answers (you can download HERE).
We used a tissue box (what else?!?) covered in duct tape for teachers to return their answer forms. (If you don't know about my love of tissue boxes, you can read more HERE).
I hope I'm not forgetting anything! We've been having so much fun planning these activities and I really hope the teachers/staff get a kick out of them as well!
Oh, Donna gave us these from ASHA. How cool are they?!?
I have to say that I feel blessed to be in such a terrific school with some truly awesome co-workers! Stephanie and Donna are fabulous to work with!! (I work with some pretty awesome teachers, counselors, OTs, & PT as well).
Happy Better Hearing and Speech Month!!!
Are you doing anything fun to celebrate BHSM? Also, if you're interested in seeing the questions we came up with for the trivia contest, let me know. I don't want to post them here and give people an unfair advantage, lol!
Bloggers, link up your BHSM posts using InLinkz below.