Welcome to Elevate Essentials!
This is your go-to spot for news and information on everything you need inside of SLP Elevate, updated throughout the month to keep you in the know! Come here anytime to stay up to date on what’s new - whether it’s the latest bonus resources, upcoming PD sessions, or key updates for Elevate members. Think of this page as your one-stop space to keep you connected, organized, and in the loop.
🍎 August Favorites & Back-to-School Must-Haves 🍎
A new school year means new students, new schedules, and about a million things competing for your attention. The good news? We've gathered some of our favorite back-to-school resources to help you spend less time searching and more time connecting with your students.
Start on your My Resources page with these Monthly Theme Units:
📚 New School Year: Who Dis? (August 2026)
Our brand-new August unit is all about helping students ease back into school while strengthening executive functioning, organization, flexible thinking, and self-advocacy. It's packed with engaging activities that help students establish routines, solve everyday school challenges, and start the year feeling confident.
🎒 Back to School (August 2021)
This classic back-to-school unit is filled with activities designed to help students settle into new routines, build classroom vocabulary, practice social communication, and get comfortable with the start of a new school year. It's an easy way to kick off therapy with familiar, meaningful topics.
🤝 Friendship (August 2022)
As students meet new classmates and reconnect with old friends, this unit is a perfect fit. Use it to target conversation skills, perspective-taking, inferencing, summarizing, main idea, and social communication through activities centered around building and maintaining friendships.
Then don't forget to check the Bonus Page for resources designed specifically for the beginning of the school year:
📝 Back-to-School Tools
Head to the Tools section for practical resources you'll use all year long, including Scheduling Forms, Teacher Input Forms, IEP Checklists, IEP At-a-Glance pages, and Meet Your SLP forms. Need to explain your role to staff or administrators? Be sure to grab the Understanding the Role of the School SLP presentation while you're there.
💜 Beginning-of-Year Engagement Resources
The Engagement section includes favorites like the Comfort Contract, Interest Finder, and Getting to Know You Activities to help you build rapport, establish expectations, and learn what motivates your students from day one.
🎒 Back-to-School Holiday Resources
Visit the Holidays section for everything you need to kick off the year, including Back to School Escape Room Google Slides, All About Me activities, Back to School Activities for Older Students, Back to School Starter Kit + Why Am I in Speech? Video, and Back to School Scenarios & Role Playing activities.
Whether you're welcoming brand-new students or reconnecting with familiar faces, these August resources are designed to help you build relationships, establish routines, and start the school year feeling organized, prepared, and excited for what's ahead. 💜
✨ A little reminder about the SLP Elevate Referral Program…
Sharing SLP Elevate with a colleague just got even more fun… and more rewarding. 💜
Here’s the new lineup:
1 referral → $10 Starbucks gift card ☕
2 referrals → Speech Time Fun merch 📔
3 referrals → FREE ticket to a Speech Time Fun Speech Retreat Virtual Conference (ASHA CEUs!) 🎉
4+ referrals → FREE month of SLP Elevate 💻
Know a CF who needs support? A coworker who wants better materials? A fellow SLP who would love this community? Send them our way! When they list your name on the onboarding survey, you get the credit - and the perks.
There’s no limit, so refer away. We’re so grateful for every recommendation and connection you help create.
🎒 August 2026 – New School Year: Who Dis? 🍎📝✨
A new school year brings fresh routines, new faces, and plenty of opportunities to help students build the executive functioning skills they'll use every single day. New School Year: Who Dis? takes all the excitement (and chaos!) of back-to-school season and turns it into meaningful, age-respectful activities designed specifically for older students.
Once you're inside the unit, start with the quick video walkthrough, then download the full ZIP file or pick the individual resources that fit your caseload.
You'll find all of your favorite core resources, including Reading Passages & Activities, Picture Stories, Building Background Knowledge, Word of the Week, and YouTube Cheat Sheet - all centered around navigating the start of a new school year while strengthening comprehension, vocabulary, inferencing, and discussion skills.
This month's supplemental resources put executive functioning front and center. Students can build planning and organization skills with the Executive Function Toolkit and Let's Prioritize Those Plans, practice identifying important information with Relevant vs. Irrelevant Details, and strengthen higher-level language through Paraphrasing, Figurative Language Scoot, and Predicting Stories.
Looking for functional, real-world problem solving? What Would You Do If?, Real Life Photos, and the Goblin Tools Task Breakdown Companion help students work through everyday school situations, break larger tasks into manageable steps, and develop flexible thinking as they adjust to new routines.
You'll also find AAC Chat Mats to support functional communication and Articulation Stories that make speech sound practice engaging while staying connected to the back-to-school theme.
Whether you're helping students learn new routines, organize assignments, navigate friendships, advocate for themselves, or simply adjust to the start of another school year, New School Year: Who Dis? gives you practical, engaging tools that support executive functioning while keeping therapy meaningful and relevant.
Because a successful school year doesn't start with the perfect planner - it starts with students having the communication, organization, and problem-solving skills to tackle whatever comes next. 💜
AAC: New School Year
Support functional communication from day one with low-tech AAC supports centered around back-to-school routines, people, and activities. These visuals help students communicate immediately and can easily be added to their personal AAC systems for ongoing use throughout the school year.
Task Breakdown: Goblin Tools Companion
Teach students how to use the popular Goblin Tools app to break overwhelming tasks into manageable steps. It's a practical way to strengthen executive functioning, planning, organization, and independence both in and out of the classroom.
Executive Function Toolkit: Get Organized for School
Help students start the year strong with activities focused on planning, organization, self-monitoring, and goal setting. Through reflection activities, organization scenarios, and planning tools, students build the executive functioning skills they'll use all year long.
✨ New August Bonuses Are Here!
The beginning of the school year is all about setting students (and yourself!) up for success. This month's bonus resources are designed to help you build strong routines, support meaningful collaboration, and make therapy fit seamlessly into the school day. Whether you're teaching self-advocacy, connecting with families, or pushing into classrooms, these practical tools are ready to make the start of the year a little easier.
💜 My Success Plan
Help students discover what helps them learn best through this neurodiversity-affirming resource. Students identify their strengths, explore helpful classroom supports, practice self-advocacy, and build personalized success plans using visuals, scenario cards, and interactive planning activities.
(Located in the Life Skills section of the Bonus page.)
🏡 Parent Carryover Toolkit
Strengthen the home-school connection with ready-to-use email templates, caregiver guides, conversation starters, and simple carryover strategies. It's an easy way to help families reinforce speech and language goals during everyday routines.
(Located in the Tools section of the Bonus page.)
🏫 Push-In Therapy Companion
Make classroom-based therapy easier with flexible activities and graphic organizers that naturally target speech, language, executive functioning, social communication, and fluency within academic lessons. Perfect for individual students, small groups, or whole-class participation with minimal prep.
(Located in the Tools section of the Bonus page.)
💡 Whether you're building classroom routines, introducing new students to therapy, collaborating with teachers, or supporting families from day one, these August bonuses are packed with practical tools to help you start the school year feeling confident, organized, and ready to make an impact. 💜
My Success Plan
Bonuses → Life Skills
Parent Carryover Toolkit
Bonuses → Elevate Tools
Push-In Therapy Companion
Bonuses → Elevate Tools
Up Next in SLP Elevate...
The coming few months are packed with exciting theme units that bring fresh ideas and student-approved fun. From new stories to ready to go activities, we’ve got tools that make therapy planning easier and sessions more memorable. Stay tuned - you won’t want to miss these!
September 2026
October2026
November 2026
SLP Elevate Summer Camp is bringing you THREE incredible ASHA CEU-eligible PD opportunities this summer — all INCLUDED within your membership! 💜
🎓 SLP Elevate Camp PD | Jayne's Navigate Elevate — August 4, 2026
Register here: Jayne's Navigate Elevate
🎓 SLP Elevate Camp PD | Hallie's Power Hour — August 5, 2026
Register here: Hallie's Power Hour
🎓 Beyond Checklists: Rethinking Clinical Supervision in Real Practice with Kayla Obenour — August 6, 2026
Register here: Summer Camp Session 3 Registration
Keep an eye on your email for registration information and reminders for all upcoming Summer Camp PD events! 💜
341: Why Word Webs Work: An Easy Vocabulary Strategy for Older Students
340: AAC Support That Feels Less Overwhelming
339: The Role of SLPs in 5th-Year Transition Programming
338: Motivation in Secondary-Age Students with Speech Sound Disorders
From Hallie's Desk -
Hey Elevate Friends,
August always feels a little like the first page of a brand-new notebook. 📚✨
There’s excitement. There’s possibility. There are fresh planners, color-coded pens... and then approximately three days later, sticky notes everywhere and someone asking, "Wait... when was that due?" 😅
That's exactly why this month's theme is new school year and executive function focused!
We wanted to create something that goes beyond "back-to-school" worksheets and really focuses on helping students build the executive functioning skills they'll rely on every single day. Organization, planning, flexible thinking, prioritizing, breaking down big tasks... those are the skills that make such a difference, both inside and outside the classroom.
And really - they're skills we could all use a little help with this time of year. 🙋♀️
As you're getting your therapy space ready, learning new schedules, meeting new students, and figuring out how everything is going to fit together, I hope you'll also give yourself permission to not have it all figured out on Day One.
The first few weeks aren't about perfection.
They're about building relationships.
Learning names.
Creating routines.
Figuring out what works.
The rest comes with time.
One of my favorite things about being a school SLP is that every August feels like a fresh opportunity - not because everything is magically easier, but because we get another chance to make a difference for a whole new group of students.
So take a deep breath, celebrate the little wins, laugh when the copier inevitably jams (because... it will 😂), and remember that you don't have to have the perfect session to have an impactful one.
I'm so excited for everything this school year has in store, and I'm incredibly grateful we get to be part of it together.
Here's to a great start!
Xoxo,
Hallie 💜