August 2022: "School Days" Back-to-School Theme

by Amy Curley December 3, 2022

TPT Seller of the Month

Our "School Days" TPT Seller of the Month was Natalie @daily.cup.of.speech! We loved the sensory bin she created with school themed vocabulary & a focus on basic concepts - check it out by clicking below in case you missed it in August!

School Communication Board + Open Ended Scene

Back to School! It's a combination of excitement and overwhelm. The materials in this month's Cube are sure to help you overcome and lean into the excitement!! This month, try pairing the open-ended picture scene with the puzzle. The puzzle includes four different people and you can build a bus full of children! It's too cute. I have a feeling our students are going to be requesting this puzzle again and again!

I particularly like to use these open-ended scenes with mixed groups because you can focus on vocabulary building in context, sentence formulation, asking/answering questions, problem solving, inferencing, articulation, and more! Picture scenes are also a great material to use during assessments to gather a language sample!

School Bus Play Puzzle

Speaking of the awesome puzzle to pair with open-ended picture scene -- your students are going to love this one! On the surface it looks like a typical puzzle, but the pieces also fit together to make a 3D bus. Each side of the puzzle pieces shows the inside and outside of the bus -- which is perfect for incorporating core vocabulary like in and out. The puzzle also has people, who can go in and out of the bus, too! The back side of the puzzle board is also a road for driving the bus. It's truly an all-in-one activity. Perfect for those SLPs on the move!

Miss Bernard is a Wild Card Game

I am SO excited to introduce my older students to this activity! I know my middle schoolers will get a kick out of trying to get the most points by building a long sentence (hello, syntax goals!). The purpose of this game is to build a 5-word sentence that includes multiple parts of speech. I plan to also incorporate conjunctions and synonyms/antonyms as a way to expand this activity to meet syntax and vocabulary goals for my students.

Conversation Cubes

No need to plan a getting to know you activity for your groups with older students this month -- we've got you! These dice are perfect conversation starters during that first session when our students tend to be more reserved. I love to use these question/conversation starter cubes to gage how students are able to answer personal questions, as well as ask and respond to follow up questions. To continuously use these questions as a warm-up in your sessions, simply put a sticker on top and write in your own questions. The best part is that they are totally silent! No more loud dice rolling all over the floor.

Going to the Library Sequencing Set

This month's @thesparkinnovations Sequencing Cards set is focused on "Going to the Library." My students LOVE going to the library. There are different rules in the library, and they always have so many questions to ask the librarian. In my school, this is the place to go for all your tech support. Last year I noticed how many students could not formulate their questions or what they needed help with.

This month, I'm planning to incorporate an in-school "field trip" to the library as a way to work on asking/answering questions and problem solving. I will use this set of sequencing cards as warm up to that activity. It will be a great way to showcase the similarities and differences between our school and community libraries, too!

Requesting Visual Support

This month's visual strip is one you will use all the time! It's dry erase compatible and can be used over and over again. Scan the QR code included in the package to download a digital version. Grab a set for yourself by clicking the image above!