Speech Therapy Themes

10 August Speech Therapy Themes for Easy Lesson Planning

If you’re trying to plan your August speech therapy themes and need some fresh ideas to get started, I’ve got you covered! Whether you’re jumping back into therapy after summer break or working with students in a year-round program, these themes will help you ease into the new school year. I love using themes to keep therapy fun, engaging, and easy to prep—and these ones are perfect for building routines, connecting with your students, and targeting a variety of goals.

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One Thing to Remember with Theme-Based Therapy

As SLPs with high caseloads, remember that you don’t have to switch themes every week. Using a theme for 2-4 weeks can save you time and energy, preventing burnout. This approach allows you to explore themes more deeply and gives students more time to practice skills within a familiar context. Check out my tips on making November speech therapy planning more efficient in Real Talk SLP podcast episode 45.

Themed Speech Therapy Lesson Plan Activities For Preschool & Elementary

Speech therapy themes is a lot easier to plan for your preschool and elementary caseload using the membership unit lesson plans!

If you love using themes but struggle with planning, consider joining the Themed Therapy SLP Membership. The membership provides three themed therapy units monthly, designed for PreK-5th-grade students. It offers access to 36 themes throughout the year and over 12 mini-themed units, including themes that work well for August, such as back-to-school, all about me, summer, 5 senses, and more! When you get an annual subscription, you get access to all 36 themes at once.

Free Themed Therapy Planner & Idea Guide

Use my free-themed therapy yearly SLP planner to help you organize your monthly speech therapy themes and plan for the rest of the year. The themed therapy planner includes ideas for each month and an editable lesson plan template to keep track of what you did with each theme. In the planner is a lot of August speech therapy themes to give you inspiration!

August Speech Therapy Themes for Back-To-School

These August speech therapy themes are perfect for kicking off the school year, getting to know your students, and building structure and classroom routines. You can use them throughout August and even extend into September if your students need more time to adjust.

Get ideas for planning August speech therapy themes with your preschool and elementary caseload.

1. All About Me

Resources available in my membership: Themed Therapy SLP Membership • Try this What I Like sensory bin: All About Me Likes and Dislikes
An all-about-me theme is easy to adapt for younger and older students, and it’s a great way to get to know your students while also working on speech and language goals!

2. Back to School

Access back-to-school materials in the membership: Themed Therapy SLP Membership • Blog post with ideas: Back to School Speech Therapy Activities

3. School Rules and Routines

A great time to teach expectations with visuals, role-play, and sequencing
• Use a school tour to introduce vocabulary and routines
• Talk about school jobs (teacher, principal, custodian) to target categories and functions
• Blog post: Behavior Management in Speech Therapy

4. Summer Season – if it’s still hot and you start early in August, this is a fun theme to kick the year off.

Perfect for year-round programs or easing into therapy
Reflect on the favorite summer activities your kids did over the break while working on their articulation and language goals.
Blog post: Summer Speech Therapy Activities
More ideas available in the Themed Therapy SLP Membership

5. Five Senses

Use sensory activities to describe how things feel, look, smell, taste, and sound.
Great for building adjectives, categories, AAC Core words, wh-questions, basic concepts, and more!
Push-in lesson: Sound Activities for Kids
Preschool unit: Five Senses Homeschool Preschool • More ideas and books: 5 Senses for Kindergarten
Mini-themed unit is also included in the membership

Social Emotional and Fun Seasonal August Speech Therapy Themes

Want some fun August speech therapy themes that tie into national holidays in August, or just have some fun options for hands-on learning? In fact, some of these August speech therapy themes can be planned at any time of the year. So, if you love using back-to-school or all about me in August, bookmark some of these themes for months when you aren’t sure what theme to plan!

6. Emotions

Teach emotions vocabulary, facial expressions, and coping strategies
Use books, visuals, or pretend play scenarios to talk about emotions and how to navigate what to do when you are feeling a certain emotion
Craft with book pairings: Emotions Craft for Preschool

7. Colors

Practice labeling, sorting, and describing by color
Great for following directions and grammar practice
Sensory bins: Teaching Colors in Preschool
Play-based activities: Teaching Colors Activities
Book pairings: Picture Books About Colors
There’s also a mini color unit in the September membership

8. Watermelon

Use National Watermelon Day (August 3) to target describing, tasting, and the fruit category. Bring in a watermelon to taste and describe the parts of the fruit.
Learn about how to grow watermelons and when to harvest them! Use videos, books, or worksheets to teach the sequence for growing watermelons.
Work on matching or half and whole by having students match up watermelon slices with the same number of seeds.

Get ideas to plan August speech therapy themes for your preschool and elementary caseload.

9. Play and Recreation

Use playground or outdoor activities to target verbs, WH-questions, and sequencing
• Try using movement, barrier games, or small-world play to encourage spontaneous language
• You can easily theme this with beach toys, bikes, or water play vocabulary

You can also teach the social rules and expectations for playing at recess or in their PE class. For older students, you can break this theme down to focus on learning more about different types of recreation.

10. Friendship

Teach what makes a good friend, practice conversation starters, and role-play peer interactions
Book ideas: if you need friendship book ideas, scroll down this themed book list to February for ideas. A friendship theme is great at the start of the school year when kids are making new friends, but it is also a great theme for Valentine’s Day holiday.
Helpful blog posts:

–How to Teach the Language of Friendship with Linda from Looks Like Language

-Friendship in Speech Development with Everyday Speech

What August Speech Therapy Themes Do You Plan?

Get August speech therapy themes by month to help you with lesson planning.

I’d love to hear about your August speech therapy themes you plan for your preschool and elementary caseload! Share your August theme-based activities in the comments below or tag me @themedtherapyslp on social media, and I’ll feature your activities in my stories!