Now that school speech therapy includes both in person and virtual therapy scenarios, I have to plan a LOT more and move quickly between groups to set up a web cam or sanitize a table and chairs. What I found helpful in the Spring turned into a full blown must-have this Fall. I started linking my activities in a Google Doc so that they are easy to access in a pinch. After starting a FaceBook group for SLPs who use Canvas, I saw that other SLPs are in the same situation: planning, providing a hybrid of therapy, sanitizing, etc.
That’s when I decided to share my lesson plans on my Instagram stories each week to *try* and provide a little light at the end of your tunnel. I like using the Google Doc because once you make a copy, you can edit it to add your own links into it. I have set up the outline for you. You can delete/add anything you aren’t using. I share mostly free activities, some paid.
What’s included? Well my speech routine is…and has been…the same for a few years now. We start with a song, read a story/do an interactive book, “play” and clean up. My students are typically with me for 2-3 years and they know early on what is expected. If you keep a routine predictable, negative behaviors will extinguish faster and stay suppressed better. That’s important in a preschool speech room!
For Fall, we try to pre-teach vocabulary ahead of our general education classrooms. We did apples two weeks before Johnny Appleseed Day and Hispanic Heritage the first of the month. This week we are going to go ahead and do scarecrows so we can do pumpkins and spiders a little closer to Halloween. With scarecrows we talk about the seasons changing, leaves and hay drying out. We also can target the basic vocabulary of body parts and clothing with our youngest students and then get back around to that with jack-o-lanterns and Halloween costumes in a few weeks.
These lesson plans include video links to book read alouds and songs, worksheets to download, a FREE Boom Card deck and more! I’m saving them in my Instagram story highlights for now if you want to go back and check out earlier themes. Click on the image below to get your copy.
I would love it if you could comment below any additional activities you found that work with either virtual or in person therapy related to this theme.
I use Genki for my Pre-K little ones. Genki is an ESL program created by a British man, Richard Graham, who I think is amazing. The program itself is expensive, but I am telling you it is the BEST money I have ever spent. Each lesson has a vocabulary list with pictures, a song, and interactive games that I use on my smart board. I have been an SLP for 20 years and been using Genki for 15 of those. Genki has been researched by Harvard for its efficacy in teaching children with a different first language to speak English, but I use it to teach children who don’t have a first language to speak their Heritage language, English- and it works. The children LOVE it. They can’t wait to work with me! The program has a ton of pictures that go with all the songs that you can download to use in therapy (I use it for nonverbal children to point) or send home for practice. Richard is an amazing teacher and his program just makes me happy. I have used it to consistently teach non-verbal or low verbal 3 and 4 year old children to speak in sentences and conversation. I am not affiliated with Genki at all.