Needing ideas how to make your speech room functional and pretty? Do you find yourself walking into classrooms and wishing you had a pretty speech room? Instead your speech room is decorated with piles of paperwork. When I spend time at the beginning of the school year to decorate my speech room, I don’t have to worry about decor for the rest of year! My room also feels organized for myself and my students. Over the last few years, I have found ways to make my speech room look pretty with FUNctional decor. Today, I am going to show you how to make your speech room functional and pretty! Amazon affiliate links are included in this post for your convenience.
How to make your speech room functional and pretty
First of, you need to pick your theme or decor colors. If you are a busy SLP and don’t have tons of money/time to shop for “themed” decor, I would recommend picking one or two colors that you love! Pink/yellow, blue/green, yellow/gray are some of my favorite combos.
I used colored fabric for my back drop of my main bulletin board. You can easily get inexpensive fabric by looking in the clearance section or bringing in a 40% off coupon at JoAnn’s or Hobby Lobby. By creating one large bulletin board, you are adding color to your walls and a canvas for organizing all your visuals and resources! Fabric will not fade and can easily be stored for many years to come.
Voila! My bulletin board now has transformed into a therapy materials display! I can do a describing warm up at the start of my session using my Describe It Bulletin Board. When I need to review social skill expectations, I can easily reference conversational rules and making impressions with my Social Skill Bulletin Board visuals. Need these visuals for your social skill kiddos? Download by clicking the pink button below.
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Do you have LOTS of task cards or my interactive flip books? You can store these materials with push pins and hang on the bulletin board. Now you can grab n’ go for therapy!
I recommend buying two different borders and layer them around your bulletin board. Leave one bulletin board empty, so you can hang the student’s work to showcase what skills you have been working on in speech. Update the bulletin every month, once every 3 months or twice a year! I found these borders at Office Depot. I found some Aqua Chevron Straight Border Trim
Visual posters that help teach a skill such as wh-questions are helpful to have up around your room! Primary Punch has these FREE question word posters that are a great reference during therapy.
Look for bins or holders that match your decor to put on shelves or the wall. I have cute green bins that I throw all my extra toys/games in, so my room doesn’t look cluttered. It is like my junk draw in the speech room! I got these “oh snap pockets” as a gift from Thirty One Bags. You can purchase some from this SLP HERE! I put all my grab n’ go visuals in here, so I don’t forget where they are located in my speech room!
These cute wall decor were only $3 and matched my room colors! I am planning on putting inspirational quotes, bible verses and pics of my family to help me get through the day with a positive attitude! You could totally use these for vocabulary word of the week or answer wh-questions from a short passage warm up using these too.
These containers make the top of my book shelf look pretty and functional! I store lots of therapy goodies in tins. You can grab the articulation reminders for FREE HERE. I put all of my Social Skill Breaks Curriculum in these garden tins from IKEA. I never forget where my social skill materials are because they are in this visually appealing tins.
I got this Carson Dellosa Storage Pocket Chart from amazon (affiliate link included) and I put articulation word pages in them. You can download them for FREE at Mommy’s Speech Therapy. I just laminated and hole punched them together. Amazon has the best deal for laminating pouches that I have found (can’t beat prime shipping either) $9.99 for a pack of 100 3 Mil laminating sheets
Dress up your door with growth mindset posters! Visually display your expected rules on your door. I grabbed these from the dollar store and love them.
Find cute storage bins for your binders and frequently used therapy resources. I grabbed these at the Target Dollar Spot and they house my data and caseload binders. I am probably going to put all my themed books in the last one for easy access.
Make your desk pop with a cute office supply organizational decor. I found this apple at Office Depot last year. It added some color to my desk and stored some items that I use often.
How to make your speech room functional and pretty can be done! I suggest working on adding a little bit each week. Then, just re-use your decor materials each year! How do you make your speech room functional and pretty? You can send me pics to my email at feliceclark@thedabblingspeechie.com and I would love to share on my social media!
Great ideas putting the ‘fun’ in functional!
Great ideas and thanks so much! I love your room and you make everything TRANSPARENT for administration and teachers–well done! Plus kids can access what they need and start their work so that’s great for independence.
I have a new job in a new state and one of my schools–the mascot is “The TIgers”–is in dire need of paint on the concrete speech room walls. Instead of fabric, I bought a disposable plastic picnic table with a tiger stripe theme from Amazon to cover one ugly wall. I then mounted cork boards on it to make it a bulletin board.
Thanks for all of your products and great ideas!
That sounds really cool Christine! I would love to see a pic. You can email me at feliceclark@thedabblingspeechie.com
Well, sadly, I had to move the cork as it was too heavy to be supported for very long by the plastic. So, it’s a work in progress. I will take a picture when it’s done! :~)
And in my first post, I meant to write “plastic picnic table cloth” but omitted the key word “cloth.” Sorry, all!
I like the idea of using material for your bulletin boards. How do you attach it?
I put it up with push pins and then I just stapled to my walls. It would be tricky to put up fabric if you have brick or cement walls in your room!