Are you looking for back to school speech therapy activities?! Well, you’re in the right place! I’ve curated an entire bank of meaningful, memorable, and fun school-themed activities that will make your lesson plans a sure-fire hit!
Tips for Planning Back to School Speech Therapy Activities
The beginning of a new school year is always filled with excitement, nervousness, and well let’s be honest… chaos! Between juggling schedule tetris, an onslaught of screening requests, reviewing IEPs and goals, and spur of the moment IEP meetings, the last thing you want to do is spend hours searching for speech therapy materials, prepping sessions, and planning. I’ve compiled a few tips to help you survive this busy, but exciting time:
- Join The Speech is Sweet Club – This isn’t just a shameless plug, I truly believe my membership for pediatric SLPs is a life-saver, especially during hectic times like the first week of school! It provides ALL ACCESS to my speech therapy resources and I’ve already planned out an entire year’s worth of materials for you!
- Use no prep materials – Select resources that are just print n’ go! There are too many things to juggle, so don’t take the laminator out of the closet just yet! haha
- Utilize parent volunteers if available – If your school has a parent volunteer room, take advantage! They can prep any materials that require cutting and lamination.
- Prioritize relationships over perfection! While the days are long, the school year is short. You’ll have time to plan Pinterest-worthy speech therapy sessions later if you want, for now just focus on building relationships with your students. If all you bring to the speech therapy table is a paperclip haha, that’s totally fine! You are your best speech therapy tool!
Back to School Speech Therapy Activities
The first few weeks of the school year truly set the tone for the rest of the year. It’s important to set clear expectations and boundaries, as you get to know your students and have fun! One of my favorite resources for the beginning of the school year is my Back to Speech packet!
Back to Speech Worksheets
These activities cover articulation, language, and stuttering! They also contain pages to reacquaint students with their goals and speech room! This resource is also a great way for new students to ease into the school year!
This is my signature back to school resource and it can be found in my membership, TPT store, and in a money-saving bundle! You can read more about it in my first week of speech blog post!
Easy Crafts for Back to School Speech Therapy Sessions
One great way to get students engaged right from the start is by incorporating some no prep crafts! They’re super easy and you can also use them to decorate your speech room! Your students will love seeing their crafts displayed on bulletin boards or used as door decor! It will give them a sense of pride and a feeling of coziness. It also has the added advantage of not having to spend too much time gathering decorations.
August Speech Therapy Crafts
These no prep crafts are absolutely perfect for the back to school season! They feature 16 different school-themed templates plus target words for all speech sounds, apraxia, fluency, and language!
No prep crafts are a great activity to introduce at the beginning of the year, because they’re fun and can double as speech room decor! Place these on bulletin boards, in hallways, or use as door decor to liven up your speech room! Students will love seeing their work on display! These crafts are also a great way to incorporate fine motor skills and keep little hands busy!
Back to School Articulation Ladders
My latest obsession is speech sound ladder crafts! They’re such a great way to scaffold students across multiple levels of speech and quickly assess where students are at after summer break!
I also have a blog post that spotlights this fun activity! Read more about them here: Back to School Articulation Ladder Craft! They can be downloaded from my membership or TPT shop!
Back to School WH Question Crafts
There is also a matching version for WH questions! If you have mixed groups, this is a great way for all your students to feel like they’re doing the same activity even though they have different speech goals! These crafts feature short stories that are loaded with answers to WH questions!
I mean, the cutest first day of speech therapy activities! I just love these schoolhouses!
Articulation Banner
Another great speech room decor idea is to have your students color pieces of an articulation banner! These can be strung together by hole punching the sides, stapled onto a bulletin board in a banner shape, or pinned to a clothesline!
These are super cute! You can also string them over the entry way to your door. Here’s a picture from my old speech room to show you what I mean! Unfortunately, I can’t find the original photo at the moment, but I will edit it in later if I can find it! The link is to my Instagram account! Snag this in my membership or TPT store!
Super Simple Crafts
I’m on a mission to make crafts easier and easier! Seriously! Last year, I created super simple crafts, which are basically crafts that don’t require any glue! You just color and cut! I’ve created 50+ of these types of fun craftivities last year for my membership! There are a variety of school activities, such as a school bus craft, backpack craft, pencil craft, and more! These are a fun way to incorporate craftivities without all the fuss!
I’m a sucker for a cute craft that also encourages 100+ trials!
School Speech Therapy Ideas
Need inspiration for your entire caseload? From AAC to Social Skills, I have you covered! All of these resources can be accessed in The Speech is Sweet Club! There is just something so exciting about a brand new year and busting out brand new materials!
AAC Activities for the Beginning of the Year
I have created 10 AAC and Literacy book companions with a back to school theme! These book companions feature story boards, retelling boards, retelling strips, y/n question cards, comprehension question cards, communication pictures, and file folder games! These are great for tackling literacy and language skills.
Here is a quick list of all of the back to school AAC book companions I have available:
- August First Edition (also in a year long bundle)
- There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed Some Books
- If You Take a Mouse to School
- The Kissing Hand
- First Day Jitters
- September First Edition
- Pout Pout Fish Goes to School
- August 2nd Edition (also in a year long bundle)
- Time for School, Little Blue Truck
- Mouse’s First Day
- Monsters Love School
- Jabari Tries
- September 2nd Edition
- Turkey Goes to School
- Summer Volume 3 (also in a year long bundle)
- Nugget and Fang Go to School
Apraxia Back to School Speech Therapy Activities
The Speech is Sweet Club features a wide variety of apraxia activities ranging from no prep printables to digital games! Here’s a quick list of the ones I recommend for August and September – although, the cool thing about a school theme is that it can truly be used year around!
- August Apraxia on the Go
- School Apraxia Printables
- School Snip and Stick Apraxia
- Superhero Snip and Stick Apraxia – a fun theme to start the year!
- Apraxia Notebooks Bundle – These are great to start implementing at the beginning of the year! Read about volume one and volume two!
*Shown Apraxia on the Go*
Articulation Back to School Speech Therapy Activities
Here is a quick list of all the school-themed articulation therapy materials I’ve created over the years!
- August Articulation Game Boards
- September Articulation Game Boards
- August Articulation Notebooks – blog post
- School Articulation Vocabulary Books
- School Themed Interactive Notebook – blog post
- School Spin-Go Games
- School Printables
- Schoolhouse Articulation Craft
- Snip and Stick School Articulation
*Shown August Game Boards*
Your students will love using these engaging activities while they work on their articulation goals!
Ideas for Mixed Groups
Truly, the only way to beat schedule tetris is by creating mixed groups. Mixed groups are when you have students with a variety of goals working alongside each other. For example, you may have a group of 4 with two articulation students, one language student, and one fluency student!
I created my A Dab of Speech and Language line specifically for mixed groups and it’s such a great resource! These packets address articulation, language, and fluency! They also contain some open-ended pages that you can use for whatever you want! The back to school packets include August and September! They both feature a school theme.
Older and younger students alike love bingo daubers! They add some novelty into everyday activities!
Language Back to School Speech Therapy Activities
I’ve created a variety of language resources that are must-haves for the beginning of a new school year! Including:
- August Language Notebook (also in a bundle)
- Describing Toolkit – blog post
- WH Questions Toolkit – blog post
- Story Grammar Toolkit – blog post
- WH Questions Stories
- School Story Grammar Crafts – currently exclusive to my membership!
*Shown Story Grammar Crafts*
Literacy-Based Back to School Speech Therapy Activities
Books are truly my passion and they’re my favorite therapy tools. I’ve created so many book companions over the years, they’re my favorite things! They can be used to tackle so many language goals from answering WH questions to sequencing! The Speech is Sweet Club is a treasure-trove for speech-language pathologists who love literacy-based therapy! Here is a quick list of the current ones available for school-themed books:
- There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed Some Books – blog post
- If you Take a Mouse to School
- August Literature Flip Books 1st Edition – blog post
- August Literature Flip Books 2nd Edition
- Literature Lap Book Companions
- Chester’s Way – blog post
- Spaghetti in a Hot Dog Bun – blog post
- Sheila Rae, The Brave
- The Art Lesson – blog post
- Officer Buckle and Gloria – one of my favorite children’s books!
*Shown August Flip Books 2nd Edition*
There are so many amazing school books! I’ve also rounded-up a few more back-to-school read alouds, if you want some more language therapy ideas!
Phonology Back to School Speech Therapy Activities
My Phonology on the Fly series was created so that SLPs could have a variety of different activities to tackle phonological processes using minimal pairs! Each packet has a variety of games, interactive notebook activities, and worksheets! Let’s peek inside the back to school edition:
These cute apple puzzles are also perfect for fall!
These hands-on activities are engaging and fun!
Stuttering Back to School Speech Therapy Activities
My Fluency in a Snap series features an entire year’s worth of stuttering activities! Every month includes games, worksheets, no prep pacing sticks, and more! These activities focus on easy onsets and light contacts. Every packet also comes with stuttering education activities! Let’s check out the August Edition:
Each month also features activities for a different nursery rhyme! These cute activities are great for your preschool or younger students!
Of course, August had to feature Mary Had a Little Lamb! I love using nursery rhymes with students who stutter, because their sing-songy nature promotes fluency!
Free Back to School Speech Therapy Activities
I have quite a few free activities available too! These engaging resources will definitely help you get off on the right track and save you time as you plan for the weeks ahead!
First Day Jitters Freebie
This blog post talks all about how you can use First Day Jitters by Julie Danneberg to enhance speech and language skills! This is a back to school classic!
Articulation Game Boards
This freebie features school-themed game boards! These can also double for fun homework activities any time of the year!
Find more freebies in this blog post – Five Back to School Freebies! It includes a data collection sheet and other school speech-language activities.
Conclusion
I hope this mega round-up of back to school materials can act as a hub you can visit time and time again! There are so many incredible resources available and I hope you were able to find exactly what you were looking for! I’ll be sure to update this post as I create more fun back to school materials!
Don’t forget, The Speech is Sweet Club contains all of the materials shared in this round-up! I designed my membership for SLPs just like you, SLPs who want to maximize fun and minimize planning time! Whether you’re planning the first day of school or the last, I’m here to help!
If you would like inspiration and ideas delivered straight to your inbox to help you throughout the school year, please join my email community! This will also provide you access to my exclusive freebie library! Inside you’ll find loads of great activities for school-based speech therapists!
Have a wonderful school year!
