Real Talk SLP Archives - thedabblingspeechie

Speech Therapy Schedule Template & Tips for How to Make EP 104

by thedabblingspeechie | Sep 5, 2023 | Real Talk SLP, Uncategorized

When it comes to making your speech therapy schedule in the school setting, the process can be overwhelming and ever changing. There is no PERFECT way to make your speech therapy schedule, but after making a schedule for many years, I do have some tips and tricks for you. In this Real Talk SLP podcast episode, I share my biggest piece of advice for how to approach the speech therapy schedule as well as tools, tips, and tricks for streamlining the process.

Tools and Software to Help You Create Your Speech Schedule

Using paper and pencil can work really well for creating your speech schedule, but there are some digital tools that have speech therapy schedule templates to help with updating your schedule throughout the school year. Here are some of the tools mentioned in this episode:

Swivel Scheduler by Maureen Wilson

SLP Scheduler

Google Forms for getting teacher requests (free Google Form for getting classroom teacher requests)

Free Speech Therapy Schedule Template

Put your speech therapy schedule on a Google Doc (there is a free one on this podcast episode) and make a copy each week to make any group changes, add in meetings, when you will assess students and other tasks you need to do.

Steps for Creating Your Speech Therapy Schedule

Get the master schedule from the school secretary for recesses
- Find out the teacher’s schedules either by asking for a copy if they have that or send them a Google Form to fill out times to avoid pulling their kids.
- You can tell them to give 1st, 2nd, 3rd choices, but explain in your email that you have X amount of students on your caseload and cannot fit in 50 kids from 8-8:30 or 2:30.
- If you are considering doing co-teaching, take the time to meeting with those teachers to find the best times, discuss roles and expectations. Schedule those first.
- Your self contained classrooms tend to have a little more flexibility so if you run into scheduling shifts, maybe approach them.
- Get PE, RSP services and RTI schedules
Block off your assessment and paperwork time. We had a day to switch between our sites to do paperwork, testing, etc. Do not put students during that blocked off time.
Get RSP schedules, RTI to reference and check in with those specials to see if there is anything they are doing with scheduling
Use post its or some sort of system for documenting the students age, teacher and service minutes. Know when you CAN’T see students.
Create your first draft of the schedule and either do a run through making notes of what worked/didn’t work, or send it out to teachers via Google Doc for them to see if there are any issues with their student’s speech time.
Make changes as needed throughout the school year.

Tips and Ideas for Streamlining Your Speech Schedule

Speech is beautiful recommends color coding students by feature in your schedule

Try to group by classroom or age group. If you can group by similar goals that is a benefit or try to look at language goals to see which ones are easier to do with other articulation and phonology sounds

Consider having a scheduling party in the lunch room, bring donuts have them find times for their students.

Whatever you do, send out the schedule to each teacher and let them check it out. They usually can help spot errors or issues that you may have not seen.

If you have any tips for creating your speech therapy schedule share in the comments!

Ep 104 Speech Therapy Schedule Template & Tips for How to Make

by The Dabbling Speechie

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If You Take a Mouse to School Speech Therapy Lesson Plan – Ep 103

by thedabblingspeechie | Aug 15, 2023 | Real Talk SLP, Uncategorized

When it comes to speech therapy lesson planning, it can get a big overwhelming because we don’t just serve one specific treatment area. We serve articulation, phonology, language, social pragmatics, fluency, narrative language, etc. So, today I wanted to share how you can use the book If You Take a Mouse to School by Laura Numeroff to cover a LOT of speech and language goals.

Updates and Resources Mentioned in the Real Talk SLP Podcast:

Join the Themed Therapy SLP membership (doors are opening for the year next week of August 21st)

New sets of the Simon’s Cat Speech Therapy Cheat Sheets Growing Bundle will be added at the end of August or sooner!

Where to Find the Book for Your Literacy-Based Speech Therapy Sessions

Read the book at the carpet and then split up your groups into three stations. You can see this REEL with the group activities in action. While reading the book, make sure to include iconic gestures and shared book reading strategies. </p>
<p>Station #1: </p>
<p>Mystery Lunch Game where you put in school related items into a lunchbox or backpack. You can pair with themed mini trinkets, printables (we have school printables in the Themed Therapy SLP membership), or school items around your room and house. </p>
<p>Station #2: </p>
<p>Sorting School Items into Categories with the printables from the back-to-school push-in language lesson plan guide. You can work on sorting playground, lunch food, toys, etc. </p>
<p>Station #3:</p>
<p>Pretend play packing your lunch activity using your play food and a lunch box to work on following directions, sharing opinion, targeting AAC CORE words like/don’t like, modeling spatial concepts, sequencing the steps for packing a lunch, or play “What’s missing?” by giving inference clues for what they need to pack next in their school lunch.<br />

Grab the book on Amazon, use the YouTube read aloud, get it on Scholastic, or hunt for a copy at a thrift store! You can also snag a If You Take a Mouse to School story retell prop kit on Amazon as well.

Amazon affiliate links are provided for your convenience. I receive a small commission at no additional cost to you.

Check out more details for how to set up your push-in lesson for If You Take a Mouse to School:

Read the book on the carpet and split your groups into three stations. You can see this REEL with the group activities in action. While reading the book, include iconic gestures and shared book reading strategies.

Station #1:

Mystery Lunch Game, where you put school-related items into a lunchbox or backpack. You can pair with themed mini trinkets, printables (we have school printables in the Themed Therapy SLP membership), or school items around your room and house.

Station #2:

Sorting School Items into Categories with the printables from the back-to-school push-in language lesson plan guide. You can work on sorting playground, lunch food, toys, etc.

Station #3:

Pretend play packing your lunch activity using your play food and a lunch box to work on following directions, sharing opinion, targeting AAC CORE words like/don’t like, modeling spatial concepts, sequencing the steps for packing a lunch, or play “What’s missing?” by giving inference clues for what they need to pack next in their school lunch.

Click here to get your Roll a Word Vocabulary Game

Some more extension speech therapy activities for the book, If You Take a Mouse to School:

If-you-take-a-mouse-to-school-speech-therapy-lesson-plan-pin-1

Click here to get your Roll a Word Vocabulary Game

Make a story prop kit with items from the story to help with story retell and sequencing. You can also buy this set on Amazon.

Rock Chalk Speech Talk has some really fun ideas to go with this book like some Yoga poses, science experiment, and a DIY story prop kit for this story!

Pair a craft with the story, such as this mouse writing craft, shape mouse craft, or paper bag mouse craft. You can also use a pencil or bus craft in the Themed Therapy SLP membership.

Make up another version if you take a mouse to school and substitute it for a different animal, the child’s pet, or something wild like a lion or dinosaur.

With a plush mouse or the mouse puppet in the prop kit for this book, have the mouse visit different places and workers around the school. Work on where questions, who questions, and explain the jobs of the different school workers.

For students working on syntax and conjunction goals, work on cause and effect with this story. You can teach connecting words such as “then,” “because,” “since,” etc.

Look through your book and write down any key vocabulary or verbs from the book. Grab a die and have students roll to see what number they get. Use the roll-a-word game to have students practice depth of knowledge with vocabulary words from the book.

What Activities Do You Plan with the Book?

If you have any great activities or ways you incorporate speech and language goals using this book, share them in the comments or tag me on social media! Felice Clark (thedabblingspeechie)

Ep 103 If You Take a Mouse to School Speech Therapy Lesson Plan

by The Dabbling Speechie

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4th of July Speech Therapy Activities Ep 102

by thedabblingspeechie | Jul 4, 2023 | Real Talk SLP, Themed Speech Therapy, Uncategorized

If you are working during the summer months planning a 4th of July themed unit for your speech therapy groups can be easy with all the ideas in this podcast episode! Your students probably celebrated so it’s fresh on their minds. Today, you will get some great 4th of July speech therapy activities that you can use with preschool to middle school students.

Amazon affiliate links are included in this blog post. I receive a small commission when you use my affiliate link at no additional cost.

Take the Free Themed Therapy SLP Quiz

Before I jump into lesson plan ideas for a 4th of July theme, I wanted to let you know about a free Themed Therapy SLP quiz I created to help you get information about using a theme-based approach. Whether you are a new to themes, trying to get more organized or need fresh ideas for planning by themes, you will want to take the quiz to get an email with links to podcast episodes, blog posts, and resources to help you with your themed therapy planning.

Fourth of July Speech Therapy Activities

Check out the 4th of July speech therapy activities for younger and older students

You can read some books that talk about the 4th of July such as The Night Before the Fourth of July by Natasha Wing or Hats Off for the Fourth of July by Harriet Ziefert

Here are some more patriotic picture books you can use with your caseload.

Fourth of July videos for Speech Therapy

To explain about the holiday, use YouTube videos with your students. These work really well to keep students motivated especially with your 4th-8th graders. You can upload these videos into EdPuzzle and add in stimulus items for wh-questions, vocabulary, etc. to pause the video and discuss portions of the activity.

Here are some great YouTube videos for speech therapy about the 4th of July holiday:

4th of July Facts Video for Kids by Hey! Guess What
How it’s made: Fireworks by Science Channel
How Do Fireworks Work? By Concerning Reality

For your mixed groups, you need to use the Simon’s Cat fireworks YouTube video because you can cover syntax, retelling, figurative language, wh-questions, and more. It’s a lot easier using this wordless short video with my Summer Simon’s Cat cheat sheets.

Show your students a clip of real-life fireworks show to demonstrate tier II vocabulary such as gleaming, fascinating, crowd, shimmering, dazzling, flashy, burst, blast, blaring, or deafening

Plan an engaging 4th of July speech therapy activities unit for your preschool through middle school speech therapy caseload.

4th of July Crafts for Speech Therapy

Learn about some fun 4th of July speech therapy crafts and other activities you can pair with them!

Using crafts in speech therapy can help keep your students engaged while working on speech and language goals. Plus, with certain goals, you can naturally target skills without your student knowing they are even working! Here are some crafts you can do:

Fireworks or watermelon print n’ paint or print n’ glue tissue paper crafts in my summer themed push-in lesson plan.
Fireworks popsicle craft
Thumbprint craft that you can also do with dot markers

Additional Speech and Language Activities for 4th of July

Use the song Fireworks by Katy Perry to discuss synonyms, antonyms, etc.

Brainstorm a word association map about the Fourth of July holiday. You can talk about the foods people eat, the activities we participate in, the clothes we wear, when the holiday happens, etc.

Need some funny jokes? These jokes from Simply Speech are great for articulation sounds, answering questions, icebreakers, and explaining why it’s funny!

Use some of your leftover 4th of July-themed props from the day’s festivities to work on spatial concepts in speech therapy.

For pretend play, you could use your Little People and have students plan out a parade, BBQ 4th of July party, or going to watch fireworks.

Check Bamboozle or Quizizz for games that work on answering wh-questions, vocabulary, and grammar with a 4th of July theme.

Plan your next summer-themed speech therapy unit for your preschool to middle school caseload using a 4th of July theme!

Ep 102 4th of July Speech therapy Activityies

by The Dabbling Speechie

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100 Trials for Speech Therapy – Tools You Need Ep 100

by thedabblingspeechie | Jun 6, 2023 | Real Talk SLP, Uncategorized

Whether you work in the school or private practice setting, many SLPs serve students with a speech sound disorder diagnosis. For many approaches for apraxia, articulation, and phonology, you need to get a high dose of trials in your sessions to see improvements in producing the correct sound in spontaneous speech. But let’s face it. Keeping students motivated to practice 100 trials for speech therapy sessions can be hard. Kids can get easily bored or frustrated with getting 100 trials or more in a session. So, this episode is here to help you learn about some new articulation therapy tools and materials to ensure you get 100 trials for your speech sessions every time!

Amazon affiliate links are provided for your convenience. When you purchase an item with my affiliate link, I receive a small commission.

100 Trials Speech Therapy Materials Mentioned in the Episode:

Abacus or DIY version to get 100 trials for speech sound goals
Magnetic wand
High number die – play the points game and set certain numbers as bonus points, or amounts the child loses, multiples, etc. Whoever has the most points at the end of the session wins.
Challenge sheets and timer – use a piece of paper with a timer and count how many trials the child gets in a minute. Then, do it for another minute to see if they can beat their score. If you need articulation worksheets, check out the sentence challenge worksheets.
Tally clickers – if you don’t want to hear clicking noises, get the digital set.
Race to 100 game (free printable) or use the Race to 100 trials for speech games in the digital speech folders.
Ultra fine dry-erase markers with any of your articulation therapy worksheets. Just place the page in a page protector and use it with the dry-erase markers. Students love using these articulation flipbooks. You can try the L articulation flipbook for free.

Easy to Implement Articulation Therapy Activities for 100 Trials

1. Picture scenes – Do I spy hunts for their sound and then have your students practice their sound in words or sentences.
2. Jar and pom pom balls
3. Popsicle sticks – Zap it game, stickers, dots that’s how many you productions you do
4. Dixie paper cups – build towers while you have students practice their speech sounds.
5. Tiny decisions App – you can add your students speech sounds in words, and the spinner tells them which word they will practice next.
6. Dot markers – use with crafts or on paper – draw their sound as a bubble letter, and then they dot mark it.
7. Legos or blocks
8. Cars and cardboard

What Articulation Therapy Activities Do You Plan?

Do you have any articulation therapy activities or tools that you use to help keep your students motivated to practice their speech sounds? Share your favorite tools and activities for 100 trials speech therapy sessions to help out other SLPs. Check out this system for how to keep your manipulatives and tools together in one spot with a speech sound container.

EP.100 One Hundred Trials for Speech Therapy - Tools You Need

by The Dabbling Speechie

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EP 99 Easy Water Play Speech Therapy Activities

by thedabblingspeechie | May 30, 2023 | Real Talk SLP, Uncategorized

During the summer, you can have your speech therapy sessions outside to get some vitamin D. Plus, there are lots of great, easy water play speech therapy activities that keep kids engaged and cooled off from the hot sun. And if you are implementing a coaching model with parents or educators on the IEP team, doing water-themed speech therapy activities can be a great way to teach communication strategies. Kids are always entertained with water; in the summer, they are around water activities often! In this Real Talk SLP podcast episode, you will learn 3 Easy Water play speech therapy activities that will inspire your students to communicate!

Join the Themed Therapy SLP Membership for Your Summer Speech Therapy Units

summer-speech-therapy-activities-preschool

So many kids LOVE anything with water. And I have that on my brain because the July themes for the Themed Therapy SLP membership are ice cream and water activities.

If you are interested in having someone take lesson planning off your plate, check out the Themed Therapy SLP membership. You get access to a variety of digital and printable themed therapy materials to cover your Prek-5th grade caseload. Between book cheat sheets, speech sound word lists, task cards, themed vocabulary, and verb flashcards, along with a lot of great digital materials, you won’t run out of fresh ideas for your themes.

Join the Themed Therapy SLP Membership for Your Summer Speech Therapy Units

Here are the 3 water play activities you can use with your preschool through 3rd-grade caseload:

Water squirters can knock things down, such as plastic cups, bowling pins, or inflatables. Or, you can try to hit a target, or play tag and cooperative games.
Grab different-sized cars and vehicles, add soapy water, and throw in some sponges to have carwash. You can adapt this for a pet and farm-themed unit by having the animals get dirty and need a wash!
Teach the science about why some items sink and other items float using this YouTube video as an example. Then, let your students do the sink or float experiment with a tub, water, and items around your home.

Blog Post and Resource Mentions for Water Play Speech Therapy Activities

Water squirter activity

Carwash Sensory Bin

Pool Party Sink or Float activity

EP 99 Easy Water Play Speech Therapy Activities

by The Dabbling Speechie

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EP 98 Easy Outdoor Speech Therapy Activities for Elementary

by thedabblingspeechie | May 23, 2023 | Real Talk SLP

If the weather is nice in the spring and summer months, taking speech therapy outside can be just what you need to re-engage your students! In today’s Real Talk SLP podcast, I am sharing LOTS of easy outdoor speech therapy activities you can do that don’t scrimp on targeting speech and language goals. It’s okay to ditch the worksheets and target goals outside in a naturalistic setting. I hope you find some new outdoor speech therapy activities you can use with your Prek-5th grade caseload!

Amazon affiliate links are provided for your convenience. I receive a small commission for purchases made with my link.

Summer Speech Therapy Activities for Prek-5th

For SLPs working this summer with private clients or during ESY services (summer school) make therapy planning easier with ready-to-go summer speech therapy activities you can use with Prek-5th grade.

If you need push-in lessons to rock ESY services, this language lesson plan bundle has everything you need to love working summer school without stress!

The Themed Therapy SLP Membership has themes for pets, beach, food, water activities, sports, and ice cream for June and July!

Outdoor Speech Therapy Activities Shared in the Episode:

Go on an I spy nature walk or a bug hunt (look for real bugs or toss some fake ones in the grass). Get some I Spy speech and language activities that you can do outside on the playground or yard. Get your free I Spy language games to use in therapy and to coach parents.
Play Red light, Green light outside and work on fast/slow, AAC CORE words go/stop, teach colors, or pick words that have your student’s speech sounds. For more variations, Empowered Parents has some good suggestions.
Do art projects you can take outdoors to work on speech and language goals like this –windsock craft
Use sidewalk chalk to do hopscotch, play chalk Boggle, write answer choices to hop to when asked, and more!
Head to the school’s playground to do beach ball prepositions, make an obstacle course and target basic and spatial concepts with the playground equipment.
Who doesn’t LOVE bubbles? There are many ways to adapt bubbles, and it’s a lot more fun under the sun. Relay races or challenges to target basic concepts, wh-questions, spatial concepts
Bring your toys outside. Do therapy at a picnic table or on the grass. You can do the same toy activities but just change up the scenery.
Plan a pretend or real picnic for a whole class lesson.
Go visit the school’s garden or plant flowers outside. For more info on how to teach the plant life cycle, check out this blog post.
Do pool noodle tag to work on social communication, “who questions” such as “Who is it?” or every time someone tags a person, they have to say their challenge word that has their speech sound.

<br />
Go on an I spy nature walk or a bug hunt (look for real bugs or toss some fake ones in the grass). Get some I Spy speech and language activities that you can do outside on the playground or yard. Get your free I Spy language games to use in therapy and to coach parents.<br />
Play Red light, Green light outside and work on fast/slow, AAC CORE words go/stop, teach colors, or pick words that have your student’s speech sounds. For more variations, Empowered Parents has some good suggestions.<br />
Do art projects you can take outdoors to work on speech and language goals like this -windsock craft<br />
Use sidewalk chalk to do hopscotch, play chalk Boggle, write answer choices to hop to when asked, and more!<br />
Head to the school’s playground to do beach ball prepositions, make an obstacle course and target basic and spatial concepts with the playground equipment.<br />
Who doesn’t LOVE bubbles? There are many ways to adapt bubbles, and it’s a lot more fun under the sun. Relay races or challenges to target basic concepts, wh-questions, spatial concepts<br />
Bring your toys outside. Do therapy at a picnic table or on the grass. You can do the same toy activities but just change up the scenery.<br />
Plan a pretend or real picnic for a whole class lesson.<br />
Go visit the school’s garden or plant flowers outside. For more info on how to teach the plant life cycle, check out this blog post.<br />
Do pool noodle tag to work on social communication, “who questions” such as “Who is it?” or every time someone tags a person, they have to say their challenge word that has their speech sound.<br />

Go on an I spy nature walk or a bug hunt (look for real bugs or toss some fake ones in the grass). Get some I Spy speech and language activities that you can do outside on the playground or yard. Get your free I Spy language games to use in therapy and to coach parents. Play Red light, Green light outside and work on fast/slow, AAC CORE words go/stop, teach colors, or pick words that have your student’s speech sounds. For more variations, Empowered Parents has some good suggestions. Do art projects you can take outdoors to work on speech and language goals like this -windsock craft Use sidewalk chalk to do hopscotch, play chalk Boggle, write answer choices to hop to when asked, and more! Head to the school’s playground to do beach ball prepositions, make an obstacle course and target basic and spatial concepts with the playground equipment. Who doesn’t LOVE bubbles? There are many ways to adapt bubbles, and it’s a lot more fun under the sun. Relay races or challenges to target basic concepts, wh-questions, spatial concepts Bring your toys outside. Do therapy at a picnic table or on the grass. You can do the same toy activities but just change up the scenery. Plan a pretend or real picnic for a whole class lesson. Go visit the school’s garden or plant flowers outside. For more info on how to teach the plant life cycle, check out this blog post. Do pool noodle tag to work on social communication, “who questions” such as “Who is it?” or every time someone tags a person, they have to say their challenge word that has their speech sound.

What Outside Speech Therapy Activities Could You Plan?

If you have any fun games or activity ideas for doing speech therapy outside, share them in the comments. It’s always great to get more ideas for increasing engagement with your students. There is something about going outside that is motivating for kids. Plus, you can’t beat the vitamin D, either!