Communication Graffiti

It's better speech and hearing month! Whoo hoo! I love nerding out this month. A few of the things I tried this year include: vocal hygiene presentation for staff, all school BHSM newsletter, staff email blast with Identify the Signs webiste, and Communication Graffiti (pictured above).

I got the idea for a graffiti wall from Jenna Rayburn over at Speech Room News. Because I have such a teeny tiny room, I actually had my students color on the paper after it was taped to the wall. This got such a great reaction from my kiddos and even from other students. I had students who have no services come up and ask to draw on the wall. That made my kiddos feel pretty good about coming to speech. 

Here is the finished product, with my slanted writing for the "I can" statements we used to guide our lessons. Ta Da! (or Da Ta as I used to say).

As you can see, I have some pretty good artists in my speech/language groups.

With my wide range of kiddos all the way from K-8, the wall had a variety of activities on it by the end. On the left you can see a word list for /s/ and /z/ from a student, a category circle, some drawings of vocalic /r/ words, a 3 part story, and some facts about stuttering. Below are some additional stuttering facts, and an idiom.  

A few of the other things we did on the graffiti wall were drawing some Unthinkables, using the EET to describe different things, and draw actions. Overall, this is a wonderful activity and really gets the kids to think about why they are in speech/language sessions. I plan to do this next year and with a new classroom, I should have more space (I'll even have windows)!

This graffiti is truly a work of HEART!