Planning for Back to School!

It's starting…the time when I start missing the artic cards and Candyland and planning therapy.  Summer is coming to an end.  I am down to one week left, which is exciting and a little sad all at the same time.  I love being home all summer with my son…no schedules to keep, no alarms, and I can have my coffee on the couch while listening to Pandora and cruising Pinterest.  But…I also love a new school year and seeing my students and getting back to “pathologizing” 🙂

So as I start planning, I have been thinking about what new activities I can do for the first week of therapy.  I really don't like doing the same things year after year.  Maybe the kids wouldn't care…but it's boring for me and I don't do boring.  The first couple of weeks of therapy are always about getting things together…baselines, folders, procedures, and getting to know you games/activities.  I have done a previous post on my student folders (if you missed it, check it out HERE).

I usually do this one in our first session, and we also talk about procedures and rules.  Then I spend the next session doing baselines and completing the activities to get to know my students better.  Because I have been at the same school for so long, many of the students are familiar with me and I with them…but I love watching them grow and change!  I think it is so important for us to build strong relationships with our students and those first activities you do to learn about them are vital.  I never assume a child has the same interests as they did the year before!

I also created these conversation starter cards!  There are 36 cards, which you can use for the back-to-school getting to know you or for working at the conversation level on speech and language skills.  You can download this freebie in my TPT Store!

Other activities I have been pondering were inspired by things I have pinned on Pinterest…

This one is based on nouns, verbs, and adjectives.  Each letter is a different part of speech about themselves.  This would be fun to do with language groups who have grammar goals!

I just think this is cute!  Name webs with pictures of interests or hobbies, and you could have them do one line with what their speech goals are.  I was also thinking you could do a collage…the kids look through newspaper ads and cut out things they like.  Those ads are good for so many things!

What other activities have you planned for your students?