Review: Canyon Oats Oatmeal

I had an amazing time at the Celiac Disease Foundation Gluten Free Expo in June. This was my first Expo as a blogger! My first product review is Canyon Oats Instant Oatmeal. Canyon Oats uses GF Harvest Oats which are manufactured with only gluten free equipment, so there is absolutely no risk of cross contamination (Other oats can be harvest with the same equipment as non-gf oats therefore causing cross contamination).

Canyon Oats makes instant oats meal in the following flavors (something for everyone's taste): Brown Sugar
Cherry, Cranberry, Walnut
Cinnamon Apple with Stevia and Walnuts
Cocoa-Nut
Honey
Maple & Almond
Maple
Sweet Honey Cinnamon
Honey Crisp Vanilla and Cinnamon Granola

I don't know about anyone else, but I have texture sensitivity to certain foods, oatmeal being one of them. The soft, sticky texture is hard for me to eat, therefore it has been a long time since I have eaten any kind of oatmeal. I LOVE Canyon Oats instant oatmeal because it has chunks of nuts mixed in with the oats, which provide a different texture without changing the taste. I will be eating this brand of oatmeal regularly. Not to mention that it is easy to make at work, to travel with, and only takes 3 minutes in hot water to set up!! 

Don't forget to check the product label if you have any other food allergies. I have found this product at my local sprouts.

Here is a picture of the shelf at my local Sprouts. You can see the instant oats meal in 5 flavors on the third shelf and large bags of oats from Gluten Free Harvest on the bottom shelf. (Canyon Oats is owned, operated, and made by the same family that grows, harvests, and sells GF Harvest Oats)

Breana

Giveaway #1 has begun!!!

Want to win free gift cards? Well here is your chance. Enter the rafflecopter below for a chance to win one of two $20 gift cards at the end of the week. Don't forget to come back next week and the following week to enter to win more gift cards.

Here is the line up for week #1

And sneak peeks at weeks #2 and #3 (I am included in week #3)

 

 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Breana

How to Win FREE Gift Cards!!!!!

I know that title has to be intriguing to some of you!! I am participating in a large giveaway with 23 amazing teacher blogs. Prizes include gift cards to TPT, Amazon, Staples, and Target over the next three weeks. Check back on Sunday to find the rafflecopter!!!

Good Luck to everyone who enters!!!!

Breana

Summer Dessert!!!

Frozen Yogurt Pie is a super easy no-bake pie that can be made in advance and frozen for as long as necessary. This super easy pie only has 3 components and can be personalized to everyone's favorite flavor.

To make this pie you need:
a pie crust
2 single serve containers of any flavor yogurt
1 container of cool whip (I choose to use lite just to make it less calories)

For the pie crust:
I tend to use a premade purchased pie crust when I can find one. When I don't have one I blend up ginger snap cookies, chocolate cookies, any kind of cookie really and mix it with a little butter so it holds in the pie tin. There is also Kinnikinnick Graham Style crumbs with directions for making a graham cracker crust.

 

 For the yogurt:

I pick any yogurt that sounds good to me. I don't suggest fruit on the bottom yogurt but it works just the same. This pie was key lime flavor and it was good!!!!

 

 

For the cool whip:

I choose to use lite cool whip for less calorie count but i'm sure it would taste similar with regular cool whip.

 

 

Now for the instructions:

• defrost the cool whip and let it get to room temperature
• make the pie crust of your choice and press it into a pie pan
• put the cool whip in a bowl and fold in 2 containers of your choice of yogurt
• place the pie in the freezer and let it set
• Enjoy your creation!!!!

I hope you like this recipe. Please comment with your crust choice and yogurt flavor to give others ideas.

 

Breana

 

 

 



How Do You Use It? Linky Party

It's that time again!!! I am linking up with Speech Time Fun for the How Do You Use It? Linky Party featuring Clothes Pins this month. Keep reading to find out how I use clothes pins in my speech room and don't forget to check the original blog post to see what other SLP bloggers linked up and how they use clothes pins.

I find clothes pins to be a versatile product and can be used for a variety of different activities.

I don't seem to have pictures of my activities but here is what I do:
I use clothes pins to...

• Adding prefixes and suffixes onto root words
• put root words on an index card and clip the premade prefix an suffix clothes pins to the index card
• Making compound words
• Word sorts
• make clothespins with a bunch of different words and have the student affix the appropriate pin to a card with different parts of speech, sounds, or a variety of other activities.
• Rhyming
• have students attached clothes pins with rhyming words to the correct word family.  
• Sequencing
• have students attached first, next, then, last clothes pins to pictures or chunks of a story to help with sequencing
• Identifying who, what, when, where, why, and how in a sentence, or identifying parts of speech in a sentence.
• Categories
• have students clip words or pictures of items together for each category.
• Fluency
• students or the therapist can mark pictures of smooth, stuck, or bumpy speech to help students learn to hear the disfluency and work on reducing or eliminating the behavior.

These are just some of my ideas, I hope you find them helpful.

How do you use clothes pins?

I have a lot of idea for next month!!!

Breana

SillySongs App Review!!!

First I will start off with a little bit of background about the app and then I will get in to what I thought about it. Chicken Lips Apps created an app called SillySongs to target phonology and sound awareness. The app can be used with children to improve speech and language needs related to autism, apraxia, and phonological processes, as well as improve early literacy skills. The repetitive phrases played in this app are set to fun melodies and makes repetition easier for younger elementary students.


This is what the menu looks like when you first open the app. At the moment there are only three phonemes available, but I can only hope in the future the app will be expanded.

When you touch a letter a screen similar to this one pops up. The student or therapist must match the shapes to the outline in the drop zone (green circle). That starts a song. At the end of the song this screen pops up again and another shape is matched.

This is an example of a song screen. As the song is sung the words get bigger so students can follow along with it.

This is an example of a bonus game.

 

This is an example of the flash cards. The words in the songs can be practiced ahead of time.

I would recommend this app for students who are working on these sounds as it is more fun than articulation practice.

Pros:

• The artic practice is set to music.
• You have to find/match the correct shape to unlock the song.
• There is a bonus game feature students can earn.
• Flashcards allow for students to practice the target words before singing the song
• The song plays fully and then repeats with a missing word for the students to fill in.
• The target word becomes enlarged so students know which word they will have to repeat.  

Cons:

• All the songs are to the same tune.
• Once a shape is matched and the song starts there is no way to pause.

The opinions in this review are mine and only mine. I was provided a copy of this app and no other compensation.

Ways to make Articulation Therpay Fun!!!

Over the last few weeks I have noticed many of my articulation students not wanting to play games on the iPad, so going back to my childhood I started creating and purchasing inexpensive materials to make therapy more fun.

1.) Fishing for Articulation Words

 

 



 

The upper fish is from a package of die cuts I bought at dollar tree which I then laminated for durability and attached zip ties to for fishing. The zip ties were purchased at the 99 cent store. The plastic fishing set which comes with 1 fishing rod and 4 plastic fish (I purchased 2 sets) was from target.

I love this idea because you can use any combination of articulation, language, conversation, pragmatics, basically any card to target any goal your students may have. This is great for working in groups with multiple goals.

2.) Ping Pong/ Carnival Ball Toss

Just like with fishing you can use this game to target basically any goal. I bought the cups and ping pong balls at Dollar Tree. This game was difficult for my students, not sure if it was because of the low to the ground table or small cups but I may need to adjust this game before playing it again.

3.) Basketball

Using the set up from ping pong I put numbers inside each cup and used the ping pong balls and the trashcan in my therapy room. The students enjoyed trying to get the ping pong balls into the trashcan. With each shot they made they had to pick a number and complete the task or tasks under the cup.


These activities would work great with my new Gone Fishin' series of activities in my TeachersPayTeachers Store.


What fun things do you do in your therapy room?

Breana