Organization Tips for the Traveling Speech Therapist

Travelling from clinic to clinic, home to home, or school to school can make planning and prepping more difficult! Here are some tips we have come to love through our experience in the traveling SLP world:

Tip #1: Use Only a few items - DECREASE your prep!

Learn how to use a single toy, resource or game for a variety of goals. In our course we teach you how to use any resource to target any goal. Learning this strategy decreases your prep and need for many resources significantly! 

Tip #2: Narrow it down to ONE BIG bag

We've all been there - carrying 3-4 bags into a client's house or a school we are servicing. Wouldn't it be nice to just need one bag for the whole day? Guess what? IT'S POSSIBLE!! We use ONE big bag for all of your resources - the key is BIG (e.g., 31-Bags, Felt Bags, Grocery Bags). Using one big bag that can fit your theme bins, binders and toys is so important. Save your back and limit the number of bags you use!

Tip #3: Organize Your Resources by THEME

Both Anna and I organize by theme! It's truly a game changer! Organizing by theme makes grab-and-go therapy possible and decreases prep time considerably! All we have to do is grab our theme bin and hit the road! Each bin has everything we need for the day and remains in its bin for easy prep. In our course we have an entire module on "Themes and Play Based Therapy". This module covers why we use themes in therapy, how themes work so well with a play-based approach, how to organize your own materials by theme (using a step-by-step process) and lots of demos!

Tip #4: Try Not to Clutter Up Your Car

Keeping totes and a variety of items in your trunk often leaves us taking too long to pick through the trunk before each session. Based on experience...avoid the chance of your items getting stolen in your car - that's too much money gone! 

Tip #5: Use Small Items 

Smaller items allows you to fit more in your theme bins, your therapy bag and also lightens the load! For example: instead of using hard cover or board books, use paperback books; use mini objects and play sets rather than typical sized sets (e.g., doll accessory set for food versus kids kitchen sized food items; play mobile travel sets), use travel sized games/small board games vs, normal sized games (e.g., Orchard Games are small and compact). EXTRA TIP: get rid of boxes and put them in a bag - easier to store in theme bins and take on the road with you!

Are you looking for more lesson plan ideas, tips on how to use play and themes in your sessions as well as FRESH ideas on how to use toys in a variety of ways??? We have 2 entire modules (out of the 13 modules provided) dedicated to "7 Top Toy Categories - How to Use Toys to Target Any Goal" and "Themes & Play-Based Speech Therapy" that cover just that! Don't miss out on our next course launch on - join our waitlist here!