‍ ‍and…..SAD NEWS

Hi All! May is an exciting month for me! I’m looking forward to presenting the end of May. I am happy to share my monthly FREEBIES too. I started monthly calendars in April and just finished May with lots of fun ideas. GET 10% OFF ALL TPT PURCHASES NOW THROUGH MAY 3 (automatic discount on my site)
I also wanted to share some SAD NEWS. My loveable black kitty, Shadow, just passed away this week. She has been experiencing dementia for the past several months (cognitive disfunction in cat language). This week she took a turn for the worst , was listless and stopped eating. This is a little love who greeted me every morning with a big meow hello and loved sitting on my lap. Bucky, my other love, grew up with Shadow for 14 years! The little boy I was seeing loves both of my cats, so I told mom in advance. Everyone believes in different ways to deal with death, so I asked mom to help. She was wonderful! Their dog, Sam, died a couple of years ago. So she told her son in advance that Shadow and Sam were in heaven together. Of course he asked me about Shadow as soon as he walked in the door and wanted to know if she was sleeping. I suggested that Sam and Shadow were playing together on a big farm in heaven.
**How have you handled this with your children and families?**

**LOVE YOU SHADOW!**
**Oct 25, 2010 - Apr 24, 2026 16 1/2 YEARS OLD**

*I am speaking at 8:00 am EST.* *PLEASE NOTE 1:00 IS UK TIME (5 hour difference) -* IF YOU REGISTER FOR THIS EVENT (and can’t make it) YOU WILL GET VIDEO REPLAY! This is a full day conference with amazing speakers! It starts at 9:30 UK time. DONATION IS $1.00.
I’m so excited to speak at the ONLINE Apraxia UK Conference on May 26- Child Apraxia of Speech A Global condition. I will be sharing what has shaped my Apraxia experience over 50 years and what I do today. I will share photos and videos too. I have encountered several children with **Apraxia** , read the research (I have favorite strategies), and pursued my own techniques which I am using today!! WHAT DO YOU FEEL IS THE MOST IMPORTANT APRAXIA ISSUE YOU ENCOUNTER? Pop me an email with your thoughts: **ricki@preschoolspeechieplus.com**

May Calendar Link- May 3 Lemonade Day, May 4 Teacher Appreciation Day, May 5 Cinco de Mayo, May 8 World Red Cross Day, May 9 Button Day, May 10 Mother’s Day, May 13 Apple Pie Day, Tulip Day, May 15 Chocolate Chip Day, Pizza Day, May 16 Love a Tree Day, May 17 World Baking Day, May 19 Plant Something, Frog Jumping Day, May 20 Bee Day, Flower Day, May 21 Fruit & Veggie Day, May 22 Turtle Day, May 25 Memorial Day, May 26 Paper Airplane Day, May 28 National Burger Day, May 31 Parrot Day

Special monthly celebrations: May is Better Speech & Hearing Month, Bike Month, BBQ Month, Pet Month

Predictable Books Facebook Group has 2 Admins! Trish & I would love to hear from you! Please share this link,Predictable Bookswith your friends! This group is dedicated to sharing, discussing, and discovering predictable books—those magical, repetitive, patterned stories that boost motor planning, confidence, and participation in therapy and at home. Here you’ll find: lists of the best predictable books for SSD & apraxia….with your input!! Ideas for therapy activities, extension tasks, and adaptations

CLICK HERE FOR PREDICTABLE BOOKS FACEBOOK GROUP

I updated 9 **Favorite EBP Speech Strategies That Work .** I wanted to simplify terminology of all the varied approaches! It can get overwhelming at times - it is not cookie cutter either. Every child has different needs. I utilize a variety of techniques and assess ongoing progress. As a therapist, it's crucial for me to explain a child’s motor speech disorder to parents & staff in a way that’s easy to understand—KISS (Keep It Simple SLP”s!). Ricki’s personal comments are included with each strategy. In addition, Ricki’s Speech Motor Block has been added

WATCH VIDEO - FAVORITE EBP STRATEGIES & MOTOR BLOCKS HERE

**Ricki’s Speech Motor Blocks - connect all the blocks - integrate Foundation, Building, Support and Connection Blocks.**

CLICK HERE FOR YOUR FREE COPY OF 9 SPEECH STRATEGIES

SPEECH MOMENTS - I am helping one of my students expand his sentences and improve word retrieval. I’ve created so many word retrieval activities on TPT, but had to make it even simpler for this child. So far, CAN YOU GUESS IS WORKING WELL! I created a Level 1 and Level 2 activity which expands the scope of critical elements. Understanding the vocabulary attributes is key. It’s difficult to teach a skill if the child doesn’t know the concepts first.

‍ ‍I love Flashlight Book Publishers. I just created a new book buddy for MAYA WAS GRUMPY by Courtney Pippin-Mathur. Why does this work for this time of the year? Well...it's about fun activities at the playground! So I pulled out my playground set and will be tying it intoFun in A Park and Maya Was Grumpy (lots of cute activities with printable cut & glue book) It's such a fun theme. Then it's PICNIC TIME! I'm in the process of creating a toy buddy for Learning Resources Picnic baskets and a book buddy(coming soon),GOTCHA BY Gail Jorgensen (sadly no longer available but there is a youtube story I created!)

Please feel free to email me any time at ricki@preschoolspeechieplus.com‍ ‍

Enjoy! Ricki‍ ‍

More FREEBIES

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All FREE RESOURCES are on my website in the PS+ Store or on TPT. I hope you find them useful! If there are other resources or checklists you are looking for, I am happy to add more to my website!. Check out TPT and MY RESOURCES for practically any checklist you may need. If you would like a PDF with links please email me at ricki@preschoolspeechieplus.com . (FYI adding more than 1 item to your cart can be a little tricky - when you add first free item, after you click on purchase, arrow back to add another item…it will say “adding”. You can keep adding product this way. When you click on continue, it will take you to checkout.)

One other important bit of info about Updated Products - I am often updating my products and so are many other companies! To find these updates….1. Go to My purchases (upper right hand corner) 2. Click on Recently purchased and scroll down to RECENTLY UPDATED. Under View Receipt it will show you date when you last opened the file and date when it was last updated. I recently updated several covers!

CLICK HERE FOR RESELL SHOP!

BELOW ARESEASONAL ITEMS YOU MAY LIKE - CLICK ON IMAGE TO CHECK IT OUT! MY 3 NEWEST SETS ARE CAN YOU GUESS, SORT & PLAY PICNIC TOY BUDDY, HOP INTO SPRING FOLDING CRAFTS FOR EARLY & LATER SOUNDS. CHECK OUT THE PREVIEWS TO SEE A SAMPLING OF WHAT IS INCLUDED! BUNDLES ARE DISCOUNTED