Theme based speech therapy is all the rage. I was a big proponent of theme based speech therapy for YEARS! That was my jam! But eventually, I grew tired of planning every week a new theme. I was tired of having buckets (and buckets and buckets) of materials in the back of my car, rolling around. There were not enough bags to tote all of my theme based toys and materials in and out of daycares and preschools. Then I had the idea to use one book ALL MONTH and plan all of my sessions around it. MIND BLOWN y’all!
Decreases Overwhelm
Any time I EVER talked to another SLP about planning themed therapy, I would hear “I not creative enough for that” or “I have so much stuff I don’t what to do!” And that last part is true…ESPECIALLY for the SLP WHO TRAVELS! Book based speech therapy could be viewed as a type of theme based therapy. For instance at the time of this blog posting, it’s close to Christmas time. I have centered my general idea around Christmas but all of our activities are pulled from a handful of books. I work with a variety of ages. In my case, I choose 1-2 books to use with the different age and ability ranges. Everything we do for the next 3 weeks comes from either “Little Blue Truck’s Christmas” or “Tough Cookie.” It honestly took me about an hour to plan an entire month of therapy. That’s 30ish individual therapy sessions PLANNED! Goodbye overwhelm!
No matter how much an SLP identifies as “not creative,” if you work with kids YOU HAVE THE CREATIVE JUICES! You just need a way to tap in to it. Themes can be overwhelming, making many “non-creative” SLPs mash the brakes on planning. Book based therapy gives you a starting point…a book! We all have our favorites. So grab it off your shelf and get inspired! The less dollar spot finds, mini erasers, and fancy sensory bins you need, THE BETTER! If it just you, the book and your students…AWESOMESAUCE!
I create many of my own activities so I realize that part might seem easy to me but not others. There are a lot of SLP TpT sellers that have book companions for just about any book. If you are not interested in creating your own worksheets (I love simple cut and glue or dot paint ones), TpT is a great place to start. For articulation, I like open ended pages. I can plug in any words I need for any particular child. I also like crafts that I can stretch between language and articulation, making planning that much easier!
I don’t play a lot of games anymore in sessions. Being on the road between clients, it’s too hard to clean pieces all day. BUT, we make our own games which is a WIN WIN! Here’s why: we create the game in therapy while working on our targets (language or artic). Then, we play the game. Finally, I slap a “how to use this at home” set of directions on it and send it home for extra practice.
Does this way of therapy intrigue you?
You are in luck! I have a new course launching in February 2023 to help the struggling to stay afloat SLP plan sessions in a snap! At the time of this blog post going live (Dec 2022), I have 10 spots open for members to join at 50% off.
PS- those 10 SLPs get lifetime access! If the course gets an update, they get full access to it!
Be sure to jump in! You don’t want to miss out! Once those 10 spots are filled, the price goes to $99!
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