Speech therapy is an important part of a child’s education. Kids who struggle with speech have to overcome a whole host of challenges in addition to the normal schoolwork that all children encounter, and there are many ways to make this process easier. Bulletin boards are a great way to encourage your students, give them a place to put their work and thoughts, and help them set goals.
A bulletin board is an informational display board, often made of a material such as cork, that can be written on and used to display pictures or other information. Bulletin boards are usually found in schools and offices.
Why use bulletin boards?
Bulletin boards can be used to show off students’ work, display important reminders, and spread awareness about topics or events. By using a bulletin board in speech therapy sessions, you can motivate your students and stimulate their learning by creating a fun environment.
How do I make a bulletin board?
Plan the theme of your bulletin board. Decide what information you want to share with your students and what visual elements will help you communicate this information most effectively.
Choose your materials. You will need some kind of foam or corkboard, tacks, string or yarn, pushpins, scissors, and paper (colored construction paper works well). The rest of the materials will depend on what type of theme you choose for your bulletin board. For example, if you want to create a speech therapy bulletin board with a fruity theme, you may also want to purchase fruit stickers/cutouts or real fruit that can be pinned to the board.
When you are a speech therapist, it is your job to create a fun and inviting learning atmosphere for your students. One way to create this atmosphere is by using bulletin boards in your classroom.
There are many different ways that you can incorporate bulletin board ideas for speech therapy into your classroom. Anytime you can get your students up and moving and involved, you are doing something right. The more active the students are, the more they will learn from one another.
If you’re looking for ideas for your speech therapy classroom, you might start by considering what type of materials you are working with currently. Do you have a lot of glitter paper? Is your class mostly focused on verbs and action words? If so, an excellent idea would be to create a “Verb Wall”, where each child picks their favorite verb out of all the ones they’ve learned so far (or even makes up one!), and writes it down on a piece of paper that they decorate and then post on the wall. This can be done in any subject matter—adverbs or adjectives work well too.
Another great way to get your kids involved in decorating their bulletin board is by making it interactive. You might have a large tree drawn on construction paper with branches cut out for leaves. Each child can then draw themselves as an animal, person or object and add it onto the tree using glue sticks! Or maybe there’s an empty space at the bottom where students can write out sentences describing what they think about different subjects (e.g., “I like swimming.”).
As a speech therapist, you might not be the most confident in your artistic abilities. After all, your training has focused on helping others communicate (and sometimes even swallow!) more effectively—not on how to decorate your office walls.
Fortunately, there are plenty of design ideas out there that are appropriate for your work environment and still manage to be easy enough for almost anyone to execute.
It can be difficult to create bulletin board ideas for speech therapy. One of the easiest ways to create bulletin board ideas is to make a list of the holidays, events, and seasonal celebrations coming up in your area, and then come up with some ideas related to each one.
Sometimes it’s even easier to start by finding a larger calendar with all of the holidays and events listed that you can hang on your wall, and then brainstorm from that.
If you’re having trouble coming up with ideas for any particular holiday or event, try looking online for inspiration. You might find that even just searching for “bulletin board ideas for speech therapy” will return a lot of good information and ideas.