A Guest Post on themed therapy sessions (our favorite) from Jenn at Crazy Speech World!

Hello and welcome to our first blog anniversary celebration!  

We are kicking off a super fun week of giveaways and guest posts today with a guest post from Jenn at Crazy Speech World.  We have asked her and the other guest posters coming later in the week to stay close to the topic of applying themes in therapy.   Providing an educational and interesting theme each week at our clinic has become The Twin Sisters Speech and Language Therapy "thing". :)  This is because we have found that themes make each week educational, different and fun. Most importantly, we have found that the students learn and apply what they have learned into conversations that they offer in later sessions, and in life (we hear feedback from the parents). We think that the carryover comes from the fact that we are exposing the students to all of the angles of learning.  For example, the students often get the chance to touch, taste, read, write, move, and talk about the theme of the week.  This all encompassing way of approaching therapy really seems to make learning more real for our students.  Most importantly, they seem to love the themes and want to come back every week to experience the next one! We love themes so much and that is why we have made several themed documents and have put them up for sale in our TpT and TN stores and have given many of the units away free to others to spread the love!

Speaking of giving things away...

We are giving away an app and a ton of free themed documents by a great number of talented speech therapists to help celebrate our one year blogging birthday.  We hope that you remember to enter the giveaways that are all located below Jenn's wonderful post.  Good luck and remember to come back every day this week to read fun guest posts about themed speech therapy sessions and to re-enter the giveaways to improve your chances of winning!  You can enter every day until Friday, October 4th! 

Lets get on with the first awesome guest post!

We are honored that Jenn from Crazy Speech World has decided to join us for our big blog anniversary party by putting together this fantastic post on what she does for her themed speech therapy sessions. Enjoy the post everyone and don't forget to visit Jenn at her wonderful blog called Crazy Speech World, or to check out her fantastic products on TpT under SLP Gone Wild! She is an amazingly talented creator of clip art, as well as, EXCELLENT Speech-Language Pathologist who develops valuable therapy documents!
Best wishes,
Manda & Shanda, SLP's
Twin Sisters Speech & Language Therapy

I'm so happy to be a part of Twin Sisters Speech and Language Therapy blogiversary celebration!  I am going to show you exactly how I plan for themes in my room, step by step!  Ready?  Go!

My very first stop?  Pinterest.  Not kidding.  Pinterest is my go-to resource for finding new ideas, resources, and materials.  I know as a blogger, I pin everything I do, so I know that I am gonna find all the other blogger's posts out there...as well as everything else!  I type my theme in the search box and check out what's happening!  Sure, I get things that aren't relevant, but that's ok!  I find what I like, re-pin, and take a closer look after I'm done browsing.  I have my own Pinterest boards organized by season, so I pin to the appropriate board to keep track.  It helps keep me organized!

Then I check out my book collection...I have an excel spreadsheet of all my books, so I look though what I have and what goes with my theme.  I always have a book each week!  Even if it only remotely ties in, that works...you can always use that as a discussion, how does this go with our theme this week?

I use the theme page in my SLP planner each week to organize all of my finds...I have a spot to write down books, crafts, materials, and other tidbits I might use.  This helps me have a picture in my head of what I am going to be doing.

That's about it!  It is really easy to get going, and actually a lot of fun...and once you start to build a collection, each year after gets a little easier!  

How do you plan your themes?  Have any other great ideas to share?

Jenn is a school SLP in Florida, working with children PK to 8th grade, and the author of the blog Crazy Speech World.  You can also follow her on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and TPT.


Now its time to enter our AWESOME GIVEAWAYS!!! The winners will be chosen this coming Friday! Best of luck,
Manda & Shanda, SLP's
Twin Sisters Speech & Language Therapy


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