Preschool Leaf Lesson Plan for Co-Teaching

Preschool Leaf Lesson Plan for Co-Teaching

by | Oct 1, 2022 | Collaborative Services, Themed Speech Therapy, Therapy Plans, Uncategorized

Working with the Prek-2nd grade population can be hard to plan your co-teaching lessons because there are a LOT of goals to juggle. That’s why you can format your themed co-teaching sessions in a way that gets the adults in the room to participate. Check out this blog post for ideas on structuring your push-in or co-teaching lessons.

Today, I wanted to help you with a leaves preschool lesson plan that you can adapt for small groups and your whole class lessons.

Although the leaves lesson plan is for your preschool-aged students, you can also adapt the activities with K-2 grade, especially with your self-contained classrooms.

Books for Your Leaves Preschool Lesson Plan

Have a preschool leaf lesson plan for your small groups and whole class speech therapy sessions!

On the carpet, you will want to do a leaf-themed book. Here are some of my favorites (Amazon affiliate links are provided for your convenience):

We’re Going on a Leaf Hunt by Steve Metzger (has repetitive text)
Red Leaf, Yellow Leaf by Lois Ehlert
Leaves by David Ezra Stein
There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed Some Leaves by Lucille Colandro

As you read the leaf book, pair verbs with iconic gestures to help increase engagement. An iconic gesture is a movement that resembles the word.

Visual supports for language and story retelling goals are super handy in your sessions. I created this easy-to-prep story retell visuals resource for the old lady series. You have a printable or digital option! Check it out HERE.

Themed Therapy SLP Membership Makes Planning Lessons Easier

When planning themed therapy activities for your Prek-5th grade caseload, overwhelm immediately sets in as you try to find engaging materials to use with your students.

You either become burnt out trying to prepare lessons or feel lost with how to cover all the speech and language goals.

To make themed therapy planning easier, join the Themed Therapy SLP membership. We take lesson planning off your plate so you can enjoy doing therapy. Check out the October months with a fall, spider, and pumpkin theme for your elementary caseload. 

Movement Activities for the Carpet Time

Don't stress about planning a preschool leaf lesson plan for your speech therapy groups! This one is done for y ou.

If you co-teach in a classroom with a SMARTboard, you can do a leaf song. Here are a few fun songs:

Season Song for Kids by The Learning Station
The Leaves on the Trees by The Kiboomers
Why Do Leaves Change Color by Super Simple Songs
Autumn Leaves are Falling Down by The Kiboomers

Check out this video from Miss Nina for some movement ideas to use with the Autumn Leaves are Falling Down.

During carpet time, you can also play Simon Says fall-themed verb charades.

Station Activities for Your Leaves Preschool Lesson Plan

When co-teaching, you want to utilize all the adults in the room to maximize small group instruction.

If you have instructional aides, you can break students into three groups and have one to two teachers as floater teachers.

Otherwise, you can do one tabletop activity and have students at tables with similar goals, students who get along or based on levels of scaffolding.

Here are three leaf-themed language activities you can plan:

Make a leaf sensory bin and throw in your favorite mini trinkets for students to find under the leaves. You can add a mini rake to make it feel like you are raking leaves. I tend to put mini trinkets with my students’ speech sounds related to their language goals. You can read more about dinkydoodads on the blog HERE.

Another variation to this bin is putting fall-themed vocabulary words hidden in the leaves and going on an “I spy” hunt. The fall vocabulary printables are included in the fall-themed push-in language lesson plan guides.

At another station, students can make a falling leaves craft. It’s super easy to prep, and you can do it with any craft supplies you have on hand. You can do it with pieces of construction paper, tissue paper, or paint with Q-tip. If you love easy prep crafts, I have a blog post specifically with fall ideas!

Gather some leaves outside at your home or school and use them to make a leaf rub with crayons. You can also use the leaves to discuss attributes such as color, size, texture, shape, function, etc. With a ruler, you can talk about length, work on quantity of more, less, or equal, and explain why leaves fall off trees during the fall season. 

Want more themed co-teaching lesson plan ideas?

I often share co-teaching lesson plans on my Instagram @thedabblingspeechie

You can look at the highlight reel to find the most seasonal ones!
And if you need some more themed lesson plan ideas, here are a few that you can check out:

Apple Theme Preschool Co-Teaching Lesson Plan

All About Me – Likes and Dislikes

Sound Push-In Lesson Plan

10 Fall-Themed Sensory Bin Fillers

10 Fall-Themed Sensory Bin Fillers

by | Sep 28, 2022 | sensory bins, Themed Speech Therapy, Uncategorized

Raise your hand if fall is your season!

The fall weather, food, and accessories are what I love most about fall.

And the other thing I love about fall is making fall-themed sensory bins to go with my fave books.

In this blog post, I will share my top ten best fall-themed sensory bin fillers to help you figure out what to put in your themed bins.

What Makes a Sensory Bin Filler?

If you are new to using sensory bins, check out my page with all the details HERE.

Your sensory bin filler is the part of the bin that provides the tactile experience for your students. When your students touch the fillers in the container, it will alert the senses to the different textures. The filler portion of the sensory bin is the foundation for the experience!

Get your free ultimate sensory bin guide- click here!
Check out this blog post with 10 fall-themed sensory bin fillers for your speech therapy bins!

Top Five FAVE Fall-Themed Sensory Bin Fillers

  1. Popcorn – this filler is excellent for farm-themed bins or if you want to stick flashcards or printables in the container because they will stay in place!
  2. Fake leaves- you can often find these at Dollar Tree during fall, but they are also on Amazon. You can read more about how to use these in a sensory bin HERE.
  3. Orange and yellow shredded paper – I found mine on Amazon, but any craft store will have it. Shredded paper creates a texture that makes it easy to lay props on top of the paper.
  4. Orange, red, yellow, and green pom pom balls can be your bin’s leaves. Check out this blog post for how you can create this engaging leaf bin! You can reuse the red and green pom poms to make an apple sensory bin. Check out the details HERE. 
  5. Acorns – if you live near an open space where acorn trees grow, you can collect some and use them in your bins. And, there are always fake ones you can buy! This set on Amazon has a variety of mini pine cones, acorns and leaves. 

Themed Therapy Fall Sensory Bin Companion

If you need fall-themed sensory bin materials to use with your fillers, check out this fall-themed sensory bin companion. It comes with a variety of printables related to fall vocabulary that also comes with cheat sheets so you can use them in mixed groups with ease!

More Fall-Themed Sensory Bin Fillers

6. Plastic Mini leaves – these can be great for adding some texture and color to your bin.

7. Green dried lentils – use the lentils as a grass filler or just to create some texture at the bottom of the bin. Then, layer with some fake leaves or other filler elements.

8. Oatmeal – is a taste-safe option for your students who put things in their mouths. This can be a great filler for an apple pie sensory bin.

9. Hay or raffia – if you are doing a pumpkin, farm, or fall festival type of bin, this filler works perfectly! To add to the bin, you can usually find mini fake hay bales at craft stores during the fall season.

10. Dye dry pasta – when you aren’t sure what filler to buy, use some leftover pasta and dye it orange, yellow, brown, green, or red to add to your bin!

Get your free ultimate sensory bin guide- click here!

Need More Fall-Themed Ideas for Your Speech Therapy Caseload?

If you need some more ideas for sensory bins, check out this post for an apple theme.

This blog post will also find more great fall sensory bin examples. 

For your language groups working on receptive and expressive noun functions, you can make a fall bin specifically for that goal!

Best S-blends Games for Speech Therapy

Best S-blends Games for Speech Therapy

by | Sep 24, 2022 | Games For Speech Therapy, Uncategorized

Sometimes our students with speech sound disorders are NOT digging our drill and kill activities.

And, if our students aren’t motivated to practice their speech sound goals, progress suffers.

What if I told you that there are games that are sound loaded to help you embed a LOT of practice with your student’s goals?

In this blog post, I will share the BEST s-blends games to get high trials in your speech sessions.

Tips for Targeting S-blends With Games

When you pull out a therapy game, you want to find ways to use the game pieces to target s-blends before playing, during, and after the game is over.

One of the easiest ways is to have your students practice a set of words or phrases before taking each turn.

Or, you can have a list of s-blends related to the game to have your students say while playing.

I pull out my toy and game cheat sheet to help me remember s-blend targets to use with a game. It helps save so much brain energy and keeps therapy moving along.

Here are the best games to use in speech therapy to target s-blends!

S-blends Game #1 – Yeti in My Spaghetti

Get high trials in your speech therapy sessions with s-blends games listed in this blog post!
The title alone of this game makes it great to use in therapy! You can use several sound-loaded carrier phrases listed as follows:

  • Grab a spaghetti
  • Stay on top!
  • Slippery spaghetti
  • Keep steady!

You can also name your yeti a name with an s-blend consonant cluster you are trying to target with students.

Using Greedy Granny to Sneak in Some Practice

Because you have a spinner with this game, you can have students say, “I need to spin” or “Time to spin” before each turn.

Some other s-blend words that you can infuse into the gameplay are listed as follows:

swipe
spring
snooze
slide
sweets
swipe
spinner
scream
snore
startle
sneaky

The s-blends game you probably play often!

Candyland has a lot of s-blend words that occur on the game board. You can target stuck, spaces, sweet, swamp, step, stone, snowflake, and swirl while your students move along the board.

Each turn, you can have students practice their s-blend words for the number of spaces they moved. For example, if they picked an orange card and moved up five spaces, they could practice five words. For every turn, you can have them say, “I stepped on the orange square.” or whatever color they landed on the board game.

S-blends Game #4 to Use in Speech Therapy

The chutes and ladders game has lots of s-blend opportunities. If they land at the top of a chute or bottom of a ladder, you can have them practice their s-blends 10 or 20 times, depending on your rule. But if you need to embed s-blend words into your student’s turns, here is a list I came up with that would work well:

slide
square
still
spot
slip
space
start
snake
stop
scramble
stay
spin
spinner
scan

This game makes it so easy to target s-blends

To get more trials with Sneaky Snacky Squirrel, you can have students earn an acorn for every production. Once they have all their acorns, you can play the game.

Then, during the game, you can have them use phrases such as “Spin me something good!” or “Stay away, sneaky squirrel.”

If you have a plush squirrel, or a squirrel mouth printable, you can have your students practice their s-blends while feeding the squirrel the acorns. You can have your students say, “Here’s a tasty snack.” or “I snatched an acorn for you.” as they feed the squirrel.

All of these s-blends games have a cheat sheet to help jog your memory when you are in therapy with your students. The entire resource has pre-selected targets for speech and language goals! Check it out here.

What games do you love to use to target s-blends?

If you can’t tell, I love using games to adapt in therapy for speech sound disorders. That’s why if you have a game that you love to use to target s-blends, let me know in the comments.

Keeping our students motivated to practice their speech sounds can be much easier when we find something they love! Get more therapy ideas for getting high trials in this blog post.

Apple Sensory Bin Ideas for Early Elementary

Apple Sensory Bin Ideas for Early Elementary

by | Sep 23, 2022 | sensory bins, Uncategorized

During the fall season, a great theme to plan for your speech therapy caseload is an apple theme!

Your students can relate to apples because they are snacking on them, baking with them, and enjoying sweet drinks like apple cider!

Today, I will share all my best tips and ideas for making an apple sensory bin. Using a sensory bin after reading an apple-themed book can be a great way to keep your students engaged while also working on vocabulary from the theme.

Apple Sensory Bin Filler Ideas

Apple sensory bin ideas for your speech therapy caseload!

Here are some of my favorite apple sensory bin fillers (Amazon affiliate links):

Shredded red or green paper
Red or green pom poms
Dyed dry pasta red or green

Must-Have Apple Materials for Your Bin

One of my favorite finds is these plastic apples. You can add them to a sensory bin, set them up as a dramatic play apple stand, or hide them around your speech room. I love that I can use my apple-themed verb and vocabulary set from the Themed Therapy SLP membership by printing four to a page. Check out a demo on my Instagram.

Need some apples to throw in your bin? Use these fake apples from Michaels. They are just the right size to be thrown into a sensory bin!

To make an apple orchard, you need toilet paper rolls or dixie cups. You can see more on Instagram. Cut slits on both sides, print out some apple trees and slide the trees onto the toilet paper roll. You can then add those to your bins. If you need printables for apple trees, the ones in the picture are from the Themed Therapy SLP membership.

Get inspired with apple sensory bin ideas for speech therapy!

Apple-Themed Speech Therapy Activities for Prek-5th Grade

If you don’t want to stress about planning themed therapy, join the Themed Therapy SLP membership. It’s designed to take lesson planning off your plate so you can enjoy your speech therapy sessions. Join here!

How To Use These Apple Sensory Bins in Speech Therapy

Easy apple sensory bin ideas for speech therapy!

One of the BEST ways to use themed sensory bins is to pair them with a book. You can reinforce all the vocabulary or use the bin as a story retell prop kit. If you want to see an example of a story prop kit, check out the one I shared about Apple Trouble.

For the apple orchard sensory bin, you can drop the pom poms in the dixie cups or the toilet paper rolls. You can work on in/out, up/down, fall, pick, gather, eat, bite, etc.

Furthermore, you can turn it into a game where the student rolls the die and sees how many apples they can pick.

For the bins with the plastic apples, put mini trinkets with your student’s sounds, and work on inferencing by putting small picture cards inside and having students guess. Before putting the apples in a bin, have students find all the apples that fell from the tree. Put them around your room and give receptive language commands to reinforce spatial concepts.

When students select a plastic apple in the bin, you can target open/close, in/out, look, what, find, etc. Have your student work on placing the apples in and out of a basket and other basic concepts.

When using the apple sensory bin with the fake apples from Michael’s, put your favorite speech or language flashcards in the bin with paper clips attached! Then, your students can select the cards with a magnetic wand. Have your students put their flashcards on the table. Give your students clues for items; they can cover them up with a fake apple when they find them.

How Would You Use These Apple-Themed Sensory Bins in Your Sessions?

SLPs have the best tips and ideas for maximizing the use of material with students. Considering your speech therapy caseload, how would you use these bins to work on goals? Share in the comments to help give SLPs more ideas for re-purposing these themed bins.

Need more apple-themed ideas? Check out these blog posts:

Apple Co-Teaching Blog Post

Apple Activities for Middle School

All About Me – Likes and Dislikes

All About Me – Likes and Dislikes

by | Sep 12, 2022 | sensory bins, Themed Speech Therapy, Uncategorized

All About Me is a versatile theme for preschool and early elementary students.

You can use an All About Me theme any time of the year, but it is an ideal theme to use at the start of the school year.

By having students talk about their likes and dislikes, you can build rapport and learn more about what they love.

In this blog post, you will learn some ideas to build an All About Me Likes and Dislikes lesson plan that you can use for small groups and co-teaching.

All About Me Book Recommendations

Have an easy all-about-me-themed therapy lesson plan for your speech therapy groups. Kids love talking about their likes and dislikes, and you can cover a lot of goals!

Start your session by reading a themed book such as What I Like About Me by Allia Zobel-Nola, or I Like Myself by Karen Beaumont. (Amazon affiliate links included.)

You can use either of these books to discuss what your students like about themselves.

As you discuss what kids like about themselves based on their physical features, you can also target hobbies, values, food, colors, activities, and more!

 

What are some of your favorites all about me likes and dislikes books? Share in the comments of this blog post.

All About Me Likes and Dislikes YouTube Songs

Using YouTube songs that tie into your theme is a great way to incorporate movement into your sessions. It’s even better when the music aligns with the concepts you are working on in your session.

You can use these Super Simple songs to work on the following speech and language goals:

CORE words: like/don’t like, yes/no
Adjectives: yum, gross
Making comments: No way! I would eat that!

After you read one of the recommended books, turn on this song. You can incorporate hand movements, yes/no visual icons, or iconic gestures for yum or gross to increase engagement.

Have an easy all about me themed therapy lesson plan for your speech therapy groups. Kids love talking about their likes and dislikes and you can cover a lot of goals!

YouTube Videos to Share Like/Don’t Like Opinions About Food

Did you know there are likes and dislikes on YouTube you can use on a SMARTboard or your laptop to discuss what your students enjoy or don’t enjoy?

It’s a great way to keep your students engaged while you work on answering yes/no questions, making comments (i.e., yummy, yucky), naming other items in the category group of the thing, and working on MLU.

If you want the videos to pause at specific points of the video with a question, you can add these videos to EdPuzzle and create stimulus items with the videos that are related to your student’s goals. Here is a YouTube tutorial on creating lessons with EdPuzzl on my channel. 

Here is some All About Me Likes and Dislikes videos you can use in therapy:

Likes and Dislikes ESL by ABC Educational Channel

English for Beginners Likes and Dislikes

I Like and I Don’t Like Animated Book

Like Don’t Like – English Grammar for Kids with Novakid

I Like- I Don’t Like by Giulia Filosi 

What I Like Sensory Bin for Speech

Have an easy all-about-me-themed therapy lesson plan for your speech therapy groups. Kids love talking about their likes and dislikes, and you can cover a lot of goals!

You can make a “What I Like” sensory bin that you can use as an extension activity over several speech therapy sessions.

To make this sensory bin, put in whatever filler you want! Some of my fave fillers on my website can be found on this page.

Then, add pictures of different food or items from other categories. Your students can select an item and then share if they like or don’t like it. If you need ready-to-go pictures and visual supports for this bin, you can get these printables in the All About Me themed unit for August in the Themed Therapy SLP membership.

With the printable pictures, you can work on yes/no questions, receptive and expressive noun-functions, inferencing, describing, using sentences with I like/I don’t like, and syntax/morphology.

For more getting-to-know-you type of activities, check out this blog post.

All About Me Likes and Dislikes Toy Activity

If you own these All About Me houses (Amazon affiliate link included), these are perfect for talking about likes and dislikes. You can put mini trinkets of items inside the homes and have students open them up. They can pull out the thing and share if they like or don’t like it. To learn more about mini trinkets, check out this blog post.

While doing this activity, you can also work on word opposites in/out, full/empty, and open/close.

Have an easy all-about-me-themed therapy lesson plan for your speech therapy groups. Kids love talking about their likes and dislikes, and you can cover a lot of goals!

What Are Your Favorite All About Me Therapy Ideas?

Have an easy all-about-me-themed therapy lesson plan for your speech therapy groups. Kids love talking about their likes and dislikes, and you can cover a lot of goals!

Do you have some all-about-me activities to target likes and dislikes? Share your favorite activities and resources in the comments of this blog post to add to this lesson plan! You can extend this theme for at least two weeks with various similar activities. If you need more information about why it is beneficial for you and your students to do a theme for longer than a week, check out this Real Talk SLP podcast episode. 

Pirate Treasure Sensory Bin for Speech Therapy

Pirate Treasure Sensory Bin for Speech Therapy

by | Sep 6, 2022 | sensory bins, Uncategorized

What kid wouldn’t want to hunt a pirate treasure sensory bin for mystery jewels and trinkets?

A pirate theme is ONE of those themes that NEED a sensory bin to pair with your books and themed props.

You can use many lovely fillers and materials to make a pirate treasure sensory bin. I will show you all the options today in this blog post!

Sensory Bin Fillers You Can Use

Need help making a pirate treasure sensory bin for your speech therapy sessions? This blog post has everything laid out for you so that you can make it in an instant!

You can fill up the entire sensory bin with kinetic sand, or you can do a mixture of sand and water elements. For my bin, I took fillers I already had from my beach bin that you can see how to make HERE. Amazon affiliate links are provided for your convenience.

Here are some ideas for water:

Pirate Materials for Your Bin

You definitely can use pirate props from toys and games you already own. But, if you don’t have any in your speech therapy stash, check out this blog post for a round-up of pirate sets you can use in your bin.

I have toys from the iPlay pirate toy set and this dramatic play set in the bin pictured.

Here is a list of other pirate-themed props you can purchase to add to your bin:

 Pirate ship prop (4 inches in length)

Mini Golden Pirate Treasure Chest

Pirate figurines

Gold Coins and Jewels

Mini trinkets – Dinkydoodads, SpeechTreeCo, PlumTreeProducts 

 

When in doubt, use what you already have or head to Dollar Tree during St. Patrick’s Day holiday and get some of those golden coins. Save them for a pirate sensory bin. See more about the gold sensory bin in this blog post.

Need Pirate-Themed Materials for your Prek-5th Grade Caseload?

If you love doing a theme-based approach with your elementary caseload, but don’t have the TIME or the energy to come up with engaging activities, join the Themed Therapy SLP membership. We have monthly themed units ready to go that you can adapt across your caseload’s ages and goals. Sign up today!

How to Use Your Pirate Sensory Bin for Play-Based Speech Therapy

Your students will LOVE working on their goals while they play with this bin. For targeting CORE words, you can model “look, more, mine, yes, no, here, there, find, and open.”

Easily target verbs while playing, such as dig, hunt, look, find, bury, hide, open, discover, and steal.

For your speech sound disorder goals, pick a target word or sound-loaded carrier phrase to use throughout the activity, such as “Show me the ______.” or “Yo ho go.” If you bury sound-specific mini trinkets, you will get LOTS of target practice. Read more about mini trinkets HERE. 

Teach basic concepts, answering wh-questions, story retell, and syntax/morphology are some of the other goals you can target with this bin. 

More Ways to Use This Pirate Treasure Sensory Bin

Whenever you make a themed sensory bin, you gotta pair it with a themed book! After you read the book, you can reinforce vocabulary and concepts from the story in an engaging way for your students.

If you have some fun pirate dress-up props, you can assign a student to be the ship’s captain! The captain can give orders on where to dig and look for treasure. 

Your students can also take turns hiding treasure in the kinetic sand. While one student is hiding the treasures, the other student is doing a quick drill for a minute. Then, each student can switch roles. 

Review tier II vocabulary words and then use the sensory bin to demonstrate the words in action such as with the words discover, bury, bounty, anchor, crew, escape or greedy.

What Would You Put in Your Pirate Treasure Sensory Bin?

Do you have a favorite pirate-theme material or filler you love to use in your sensory bins? Let me know what you would put in your sensory bin in the comments. Better yet, tell me how you would target speech and language goals using this bin too!

Pirate Themed Toys for Play-Based Speech Therapy

Pirate Themed Toys for Play-Based Speech Therapy

by | Sep 2, 2022 | Themed Speech Therapy, Toys for Speech, Uncategorized

If you love doing a pirate theme with your caseload, this blog post is about the best pirate-themed toys to use with play-based speech therapy.

Owning pirate props and toy sets can be just what you need to bring the pirate theme to life. You will find Amazon affiliate links in this blog post for your convenience. 

Pirate-Themed Games To Play With Mixed Groups

Use these pirate-themed toys to enhance your play-based speech therapy sessions

Pop Up Pirate is a fun game you can play with your mixed groups. Using this resource’s toy companion cheat sheet can help you adapt the game on the spot in your sessions.

Mystery Island Pirates is a board game where your students will be racing to get their ship to the island! You can use the game to work on handling unexpected situations, like when you land on an island with enemies and have to go back spaces.

Don’t Rock the Boat Skill and Action Game is an excellent game choice if you have a lot of goals on your caseload around social communication and vocabulary. You can use this game for turn-taking, commenting, and problem-solving. Or, you can demonstrate tier II vocabulary for balance and overboard. Because this game has penguins, you can theme smash penguins and pirates! 

Treasure Props and Dramatic Play Sets

When you have themed props with your pirate unit, you can ditch the worksheets and bring vocabulary and concepts to life.

You can use this Pirate pretend play set to work on basic concepts, acting out pirate scenes, work on noun functions, and wh-questions.

Learning Resources has a set of treasure chests that you can use to target the following goals:

Basic Concepts: open/close, quantity, colors
Verbs: look, find, hunt, lock
Tier II vocabulary: reveal, discover, treasure

Need themed therapy pirate materials for your Prek-5th Caseload?

Do you love using themes with your Prek-5th grade caseload but don’t have time to find all the needed materials? Come join the Themed Therapy SLP membership (there are monthly and annual options). You won’t have to stress about planning themed units because all the work has been done for you. The membership gives you access to 2-3 monthly themed materials, including word lists, Google Slides, No Print resources, visual supports for crafts, book cheat sheets, and printables. Check out how to become an SLP Themester HERE. 

Pirate-Themed Toy Sets

If you need some pirate-themed toy recommendations for your play-based speech therapy this blog post has lots of great ideas to add to your stash!

Your students will dig this kinetic sand pirate set because it is like a treasure chest sensory bin! It comes with gold sand and some jewels. Make sure you grab a tray to control the overflow of kinetic sand. If you want to add in extra gems, here is a set. You can add mini trinkets that are sound loaded for motivating practice fun! Read this blog post for more information about how to use mini items. The Themed Therapy SLP membership has a pirate unit for Prek-5th grade and has a toy companion cheat sheet for this toy! Sign up HERE.

iPlay, iLearn pirate toy set is a bit pricey, but it is a comprehensive toy set that you could use all year. You have many options for targeting speech and language goals. 

What Pirate-Themed Toy Will You Use With Your Caseload?

If you love doing a pirate theme, what toys or props do you love to use in your play-based speech therapy sessions? Share any fun pirate-theme toys or materials you have found to be a success for your therapy sessions in the comments. For more pirate-themed speech therapy ideas, check out this blog post. 

Plan your pirate-themed unit with hands-on therapy props and toys! Your next speech therapy session will be filled with engagement using these themed toys.
First Week of Speech Therapy Ideas

First Week of Speech Therapy Ideas

by | Aug 29, 2022 | Therapy Materials, Uncategorized

When you start back at school running speech therapy groups, it’s kinda hard to know where to “begin” with your sessions.

You know some students from previous years while others on your caseload are brand new to you!

The ultimate goal of the first week of speech is to build rapport with your students and help them understand why they come to see you!

And this is the time when you can begin to set up processes with them for therapy. For example, if you want them to have a speech folder, you can create those together during that first week of treatment.

There is also the situation where you are not sure “where” to start in therapy because you don’t have current baseline information on goal progress since the end of the school year.

Navigating all the components of your therapy groups at the start of the year is increasingly overwhelming because your speech schedule has changed what feels like a hundred times.

Planning therapy for the first week of sessions can be stressful. So, I am here to help you with some ideas to help you have a successful first week of speech!

If you need more tips on setting up your caseload at the start of the school year, check out this blog post. 

Low Prep Activities for The First Sessions

Grab a set of index cards or these free speech time reminders from Miss V’s Speech World, and have your students write in the day and time they are coming. You can tell teachers to tape them to the student’s desks to help them remember.

Spend the sessions reviewing routines and expectations. Check out this blog post to get more tips on setting up speech routines.

You can also play games and have a list of questions to discuss while playing to learn about their interests and family. For younger students, have a station rotation where they get to play with one of your toy sets while you collect baseline data on the other students.

Low All About Me Themed Mixed Group Games

You can play mystery square games from the August Themed Unit in the Themed Therapy SLP membership. First, you print the game mat and cut out post-it notes (affiliate link) to cover the squares. Pick one mystery winner number. Your students pick squares to see if it is the mystery number. Whoever gets the mystery number wins!

This game helps you get to know your students while targeting category groups and verbs, answering wh-questions, building sentence structures, and working on articulation carryover. You can see a demo on Instagram.

First Week of Speech Therapy Ideas with Crafts

At the start of therapy, we want to focus on increasing our student’s awareness of “why” they come to speech. That’s why doing a craft that can reference their goals can be worthwhile. Try out this FREE backpack craft that allows them to write the goals they are working on the craft.

You can also have students make a speech or language wallet. These speech wallets can help keep hands busy while you are collecting baseline data. Once your students finish making the wallets, they become warm-up or quick drill material for future sessions.

Try the kindness wallets or the final /l/ and /s/-blend templates for free.

Have the first week of speech activities that are easy to prep and help you get valuable information about your student's interests and get the ball rolling with practicing their speech and language goals.

Digital Getting To Know You Activities

Looking for digital first week of speech therapy ideas for your speech therapy sessions? Check out this blog post for some digital options!

If you are tight on prep time and need engaging first week of speech therapy ideas to use ASAP, here are some great digital getting-to-know-you activity options:

All About Me Getting to Know You Boom Cards
Sound Loaded “Would You Rather?” Boom Cards – All About Me Theme
Would You Ever? Boom Cards
All About Me from ABCYA
All About Me Games on Baamboozle

What is your favorite first week of speech therapy ideas?

Do you have first week of speech therapy ideas that you use with your caseload? Share what activities you have planned in the comments to help inspire other SLPs with engaging speech therapy materials.

Pencil Box Speech Therapy Material Ideas

Pencil Box Speech Therapy Material Ideas

by | Aug 20, 2022 | DIY materials, Uncategorized

Most SLPs cover at least two schools and often carry our speech therapy materials from site to site. If you are one of the lucky SLPs with only one location, you may go into classrooms or pull kids out in the hallways to do quick artic sessions.

Either way, having easy-to-travel therapy materials is nice to have on hand! Today I will share pencil box speech therapy material ideas that fit compactly in your work bag and help you have engaging therapy!

Four Pencil Box Speech Therapy Material Ideas for Your Caseload

Use your pencil box to make fun stamp-it-out activities with either kinetic sand or play dough. You need a set of stamp letters and any picture-word task cards. The picture task cards in this photo are from the Letter Stamp Articulation Sets. Your students can stamp out words that have their speech sound or are related to their language goals.

Lakeshore learning is the set that I have for these activities. You can get lowercase and uppercase. If you are looking for letter stamps on Amazon, this one looks great (Amazon affiliate link)!

Use these pencil box speech therapy material ideas to help you have activities that fit in your work bag!

Quick Artic Speech Sound Pencil Box Speech Therapy

Use these pencil box speech therapy material ideas to help you have activities that fit in your work bag!

If you do quick artic groups in hallways at your school, having materials you can carry in one hand is nice!

Or, when running mixed groups, you can create individual speech sound station activities that your students can do while working with other kids in the group. Making a quick drill kit is one way to have everything ready to go. You can put your flashcards, visual cues, clickers, and anything else you can fit in the pencil box!

Here are some of the items that I fit in mine:

Articulation flipbooks – just print 4 to a page. See this demo on Instagram. Try the /l/ flipbook for free.

Magnetic wand and chips (Amazon affiliate links)

Speech word list flashcards – try this set for free

Finger Hand Tally Counters (Amazon affiliate)

Plus Plus Blocks (Amazon affiliate)

Mini trinkets – check out this blog post for how to use dinky doodads

Use these pencil box speech therapy material ideas to help you have activities that fit in your work bag!

What else could you fit in the pencil box for quick artic sessions? Share in the comments.

If you want a larger box, I have a blog post about staying organized with your speech sound goals using Michael’s container HERE.

Check out this blog post on more articulation station activities.

Make Pencil Box Sensory Bins for Speech Therapy

Use these pencil box speech therapy material ideas to help you have activities that fit in your work bag!

Another pencil box speech therapy material idea is to make pencil box sensory bins! You can check out my Instagram replay LIVE video, where I share the pros and cons of this type of container.

Use any sensory bin filler and materials on hand to make travel-sized sensory bins. Some of my favorite materials for these sized bins are from TOOBS or wild republic. And, you can find some entertaining accessories with cake decoration kits. Check out this beach sensory bin idea. It would work perfectly for a pencil box sensory bin!

One way to use your sensory bin companions in a pencil box is to print your images four to a page. It will save some paper and make the printables smaller, so they fit in the pencil box!

Use the themed verbs and vocabulary flashcard resources in the Themed Therapy SLP membership to make pencil box sensory bins. 

Create Pencil Box Play-Based Toy Sets for Speech Therapy

Kids love using toys in therapy and doing pretend play activities. So, why not make some pencil box play-based toy sets to use in your speech and language sessions? You can create a fun dog play set using a mini dog set from Dollar Tree or figurines from this pretend play dog set (Amazon affiliate link.)

Some other mini toy sets you can put in a pencil box are from the Calico Critters toy line. You can store your toy dollhouse furniture in your therapy room and take the necessary pieces!

You can find other dollhouse furniture sets like this one that could fit in the pencil box. What other play-based pretend play sets could you make? I would love to hear your ideas!

Use these pencil box speech therapy material ideas to help you have activities that fit in your work bag!

What pencil box speech therapy material ideas do you have for SLPs?

Use these pencil box speech therapy material ideas to help you have activities that fit in your work bag!

It’s fun to collaborate with other SLPs to get more ideas for how to use an item. So, I want to know, “What pencil box speech therapy material ideas do you have to share?” Let me know if you use pencil boxes to store materials or create activities for your students in the comments.

5 Ways to Use Google Forms for Speech Therapy

5 Ways to Use Google Forms for Speech Therapy

by | Aug 13, 2022 | Caseload Management, organizational tips

Many school-based SLPs cover two or more different sites with their caseload. Managing all the paperwork, documenting progress, and communicating with the IEP team is a LOT!

It can take a lot of papers and forms to document all the caseload duties, so why not use Google Forms to help manage your speech therapy caseload?

Nothing is worse than going to a new site and realizing you forgot that one paper that contained all the info you needed to write an IEP or get started with progress reports.

In this blog post, you will learn five ways that Google Forms can help streamline your speech therapy caseload paperwork!

Use Google Forms for Speech Referrals

Managing a couple of school sites and want all your speech referrals in ONE spot? Use Google Forms for speech therapy referrals to collect information from teachers digitally.

We know how many speech referrals we receive throughout the school year, and managing them can quickly get out of control. I used to put a few copies in each of the teacher’s mailboxes, and often the following would happen:

-The teacher would lose the form and ask for a new one when they had a speech referral
-I would forget to check my mailbox to get referrals, so I was not getting back to teachers promptly

This is why I started using a Google Form to collect speech therapy referrals. I could email teachers directly with the link by digitally storing my speech referrals. Furthermore, I could access my speech referrals no matter what site I was at. If you didn’t know, when a Google Form is filled out, you can generate a Google Sheet of your referrals. With the Google Sheet, you can add additional columns to help you manage what steps you have taken with each referral. Head to this blog post to read more about the importance of speech referrals. 

Click the pink button to grab your set of Google Forms for speech therapy to help you confidently manage your caseload.

Click Here for your free Google Form Templates for Speech Therapy

Progress Monitor with Google Forms for Speech Therapy Goals

If you make a progress monitoring approach to assessing your student’s speech and language progress on goals, you can use Google Forms to keep track digitally.

Once you fill out the Google Form, you can create a spreadsheet with the inputted information. The Google Sheet will list the dates and times you took data and individual responses.

If you want ready-to-go Google Form progress monitoring tools for articulation and phonology, check out the Digital Speech Folder Resources. You can click the pictures below to check them out.

Instead of doing your speech and language screeners with paper forms, use a Google Form to input responses. The beauty of Google Forms is that you can create a Google Sheet with the information to track and manage your speech screening results.

Keep track of your data collection for your speech therapy caseload using Google Forms for speech therapy progress monitoring. Y

Administer Speech and Language Screeners Digitally with Google Forms

Instead of doing your speech and language screeners with paper forms, use a Google Form to input responses. The beauty of Google Forms is that you can create a Google Sheet with the information to track and manage your speech screening results.

If you need an elementary speech and language screener with printable forms and Google Forms for easy response input, check out the screeners in my TPT store.

You can print the screening stimulus items, but have the Google Form on your laptop or iPad to take data while administering.

With the screener bundle, you get screeners for articulation and language. The language screener is broken down by Prek-2nd and 3rd-5th grades. Click the image to check out all the details about the screener. 

Have Google Forms for speech therapy that can help you manage your caseload with confidence.

Use Google Forms to Get Input About IEPs and the Speech Schedule

Automate how you collect information about student IEPs and speech schedule requests with Google Forms. As we prepare for IEP meetings, we need teacher input for the present levels page. Instead of hunting them down with a printable form, send them a Google Form for the different areas you need their input. Having the information stored digitally allows it to access IEP information from any computer.

Make sure to download your Google Form templates to have an IEP form ready for the school year!

Click Here for your free Google Form Templates for Speech Therapy

Improve Parent Communication with Google Forms

We are super busy managing the 50+ students on our caseloads, so keeping in contact with parents can be difficult.

At the start of the school year or even at the initial or annual IEP meeting, you can have parents fill out a Google Form questionnaire to share how to be contacted (i.e., email, text, phone) and information they would like for the home environment. For example, you can find out what toys they have at home, skills they would like strategies for, or how much homework to send.

How do You Use Google Forms for Speech Therapy?

Digital tools can help you when traveling between sites, and Google Forms has been one of those tools! Nothing is worse than wanting to follow up on a task and leaving the form at your other site.

If you are new to using Google Forms and have questions, drop them below. And, if you love using Google Forms for speech therapy caseload management, let me know how you use them in the comments!