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I literally CAN’T WAIT!!! Wednesday is Talk Like a Pirate Day buuuuuuut one day isn’t really enough to celebrate the awesomeness of pirates so we’ll be talking about them all week.  Tell me in the comments if you’re planning on using the pirate theme in therapy this week! Share what activities you’ll be doing so I can add to my list!  Here’s my list of planned activities: Teaching “pirate” themed idioms, like “test the water”, “off the hook”, “make waves”, “in the same boat”, “a fish out of water”, and “the coast is clear” Working on pirate-y sentences. Many of my upper elementary students are working on forming sentences with conjunctions, so I’m going to ask them pirate-y “why” questions and given them target conjunctions they must use in their answer choices. I’ll write “because”, “since”, “so”, or “so that” in circles on construction paper, and they can smash yellow dough to make “gold coins” as they create sentences. Here are some “why” questions I’ll ask: “Why do pirates lik

Speech therapy is a rewarding job. I have to admit it, though: speech-language pathology can be super, super stressful at times. I remember a few years back, during a particularly difficult time in my career. I was working in an outpatient setting at the time. I have always been a lifelong learner, and I sometimes go a little crazy in my search for answers. I was reading everything I could find. I was taking ceu courses non-stop. If I couldn't attend in-person, I was watching online ceu videos non-stop at home. I want to give my students (or patients) my all. This is a wonderful thing, but I was putting work life so, so far ahead of my own needs that I wasn't sleeping. When I did, I started dreaming about work. I would wake up in a panic, remembering things I needed to do that day. Unfinished reports, visual schedules that needed to be created, materials that needed to be laminated and prepped. I was running on fumes. I had zero energy. No amount of coffee was fixing that.   I

The other day, I came back from an errand to find my toddler son outside with his babysitter. His clothes were soaked, and he wore the hugest grin on his sweet face. He was squealing with laugher.                                                            What had made him so happy? His red car, a watering can, and a bucket. You see, I'm a big fan of modeling language through play. We've played with these exact same toys before.  I've pushed him in his car multiple times. I've modeled words like "go", "stop", and "turn". We've gotten out Daddy's large blue bucket, and bounced his ball inside, while I modeled sentences such as, "Ball in. We bounced the round ball in the bucket." We've pretended to water the flowers (okay, the grass- I'm not much of a gardener) and talked about it as we did it. My son's creative babysitter, however, thought of a new use for all of these toys. When I came home, they had just finis

No print Speech therapy visual schedules for Google Slides ™! This no prep, digital activity is PERFECT for the busy Speech-Language Pathologist who needs to access a visual schedule FAST! Visual schedules provide a way to structure your speech and language sessions. Visual schedules assist with transitioning to a new activity, and in my experience, can help reduce challenging behaviors. I wanted to create a resource that would quickly allow me to go from session to session in a jam-packed day while providing my speech therapy students with access to the structure they need. With this digital resource, you won't need to print out or laminate anything . Seriously! This is huge, and I'm so excited about it! All you need to do is tap ! (Of course, if you're using your computer, you'll need to click ;-)!) With EVERY visual schedule included, you can choose to "repeat the activity" OR go back to the "home" slide again. This is a MEGA visual sched

St. Patrick's Day is ALMOST here, and I am SO excited to announce that FRANKIE IS BACK! I've teamed up (again) with some of my fav SLPs on TpT to bring you FREE St. Patrick's Day Speech Therapy materials! Seriously, we have your entire week planned out! I'm not sure if you joined us for our #slphalloween hop, #slpchristmashop, or #slpvalentinehop (just search those terms on TpT if not), but it's the PERFECT time to join in on the fun if you haven't already! Here's how it works. I created a super nerdy, kind of catchy story-song about a frog that adores St. Patty's Day (because, let's be honest... who doesn't?). You can sing this one to the tune of "The Ants Go Marching". Your students won't even mind if you don't have a great singing voice, I promise. Mine don't! You'll download and print your copy of the story/ song here ( and I'd be super, super excited if you left me feedback!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ),

Hey guys! St. Patrick's Day is almost here, and you can BET that I'll be celebrating this fun holiday in my speech therapy room! Here are few activities you can try with your students... 1) If you're working on basic concepts, try this activity out to teach "more" vs "less". We just used construction paper and glue! 2. I've been on a roll with creating following directions sets, and my students are LOVING this St. Patrick's Day packet . You can grab it here . (This packet is also available in the holiday bundle . For seasonal themes, check this out ).  3. Leprechaun tic-tac-toe is so legit. This is easy to make. Laminate the board so you can write in any target you wish! We worked on vocalic /r/, but you could just as easily target idioms, categories, or anything else your heart desires! ...oh, and P.S. ... CHECK BACK SOON. I've been working hard with some SLP blogging buddies to bring you something special for St. Patty's Day.