Theme Therapy

In my last post I mentioned that I was working from weekly themes in order to establish greater consistency for my students between sessions and also to ease up the planning process a bit. In my previous years, I used "seasonal" materials often, but found that I often needed some extra things to fill the space and time between the holiday and seasonal activities. My original inspiration for doing themes came from a post I saw here on Simply Speech. The post was written by Jenn Alcorn, the author of Crazy Speech World. Jenn also posted about her themes on her own blog here. I even used the free template Jenn offered to get my own theme plans going. Here's what mine looks like:

             
So far I am LOVING this! I keep my themed activities/books in a tub right next to my therapy table and I can not tell you how much stress and time it has saved me already! Plus, another bonus is that my students are really getting excited about things we are talking about. I am also finding that I am able to read to them so much more when I have related books right at my fingertips.

As you can see, so far in September we've been talking about Apples, If You Give A....books, and now Pets. To get myself started with finding activities, I created a Pinterest Board for each theme. You can follow me on Pinterest here. Below I've listed to some theme activities I've printed/purchased and also some books for each theme:

Apples:
Apples, Apples by Gail Gibbons
The Apple Pit Tree by Shari Halpern
Ten Apples Up On Top by Dr. Suess
http://letstalkslp.blogspot.com/2012/09/materials-monday-apple-articulation.html
http://letstalkslp.blogspot.com/2012/08/apple-theme-roll-and-cover.html
http://carriesspeechcorner.blogspot.com/2012/08/back-to-school-week-open-ended-wormy.html
http://crazyspeechworld.blogspot.com/2012/10/bananas-for-apples.html
http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Antonym-Apples-A-Common-Core-Aligned-Activity-436628
http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Auditory-Apples-310113
http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Apple-Tree-ThanksgivingFall-Categories-for-Speech-Therapy-390382

If You Give A...:
Any of the books in the series by Laura Numeroff
http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/If-You-Give-A-Dog-A-Donut-Speech-Language-Companion-Pack-654998
http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/If-you-Give-A-Cat-A-Cupcake-Storybook-Companion-Pack-642706
http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/If-You-Give-a-Moose-a-Muffin-Speech-and-Language-Companion-628290
http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/If-You-Give-A-Mouse-A-Cookie-Preschool-Speech-Language-Book-Companion-593581
http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/If-You-Give-a-Mouse-a-Cookie-Language-Activities-for-Preschool-498830
http://www.mousecookiebooks.com/mouseCookieBooks.html

Pets:
Top Cat by Lois Ehlert
Move Over, Rover! by Karen Beaumont
Pet Show by Ezra Jack Keats
http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Fun-with-Pets-Expressive-and-Receptive-Language-Activities-671000
http://letstalkspeechtherapy.blogspot.com/2012/09/dog-gone-cute-categroies.html
http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Move-Over-ROVER-Speech-Language-Book-Companion-Pack-639489
http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Puppy-Dog-Receptive-Language-Packet-for-Speech-Therapy-445136

I realize that using themes is going to dip in to my personal budget a bit, so I am really trying to find free activities whenever possible. I also gave my theme list to my librarian so she can not only help me find books I'm wanting, but also suggest some other great thematic books I may not have known about. Do you do themes in your speech rooms? How do you use and implement them if so?