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.
February Favorites & Seasonal Must-Haves 💜
Whether you’re riding the Super Bowl buzz, sticking with winter themes, or mixing and matching based on your students’ interests, we’ve pulled together some timely favorites to make planning easy.
Start on your My Resources page with these Monthly Theme Units:
Commercial Break: Ads (February 2026 Monthly Theme Unit)
Our brand-new February unit taps into commercials students already know and love. It’s packed with opportunities to target inferencing, perspective-taking, persuasive language, comprehension, and discussion - especially around Super Bowl ads. Short, engaging, and highly motivating, this unit was created directly from member requests for more intentional ways to use commercials in speech.
Huddle Up: Football (January 2026 Monthly Theme Unit)
If you didn’t get a chance to use this unit in January, now’s the perfect time. With the Super Bowl coming up, football is still front-and-center for many students. This unit includes reading passages, YouTube Cheat Sheets, figurative language, social scenarios, and inferencing activities that work especially well for middle and high school learners.
Winter Games (February 2022 Monthly Theme Unit)
With the Winter Olympics in full swing, this unit is a great option for February sessions. It includes winter sports–themed reading passages, discussion questions, and language activities that support comprehension, vocabulary, inferencing, and background knowledge — and pairs perfectly with this month’s Olympic bonus resources.
Behind the Freeze: Winter (February 2025 Monthly Theme Unit)
Winter is still very much in season, and this unit continues to be a great fit for February. Use Describe the Picture scenes, winter vocabulary, Mad Libs, and inferencing activities to keep sessions seasonal while staying aligned with your goals.
Then don’t forget to check the Bonus Page for February-ready resources that align perfectly with what students are experiencing right now:
💜 Black History Month Mini Bios
February is Black History Month, making this an ideal time to bring meaningful, relevant content into your sessions. These short, student-friendly bios are easy to plug into speech sound practice, vocabulary development, comprehension, and expressive language tasks. Use them for articulation, retelling with transition words, compare-and-contrast activities, or student-choice learning while supporting important cultural learning.
💌 Communication & Connection: Valentine’s Day Pack
February naturally brings up themes of relationships, friendships, and social boundaries - and this pack leans into that in a way that actually works for older students. Use these activities to target perspective-taking, figurative language, conversation skills, and social reasoning through real-life scenarios, red flag vs. green flag behaviors, and discussion-based tasks that feel relevant (and not babyish!).
🎞️ Valentine’s Day Social Inferencing with GIFs (Google Slides)
This resource is a perfect February fit for students who thrive on visual and media-based learning. Using GIFs tied to Valentine’s Day themes, students practice analyzing emotions, tone, intent, and perspective - all skills that come up frequently during peer interactions this time of year. It’s high-interest, discussion-friendly, and easy to adapt for groups.
🥇 Winter Olympics: Beyond the Podium
With the Winter Olympics happening this month, this bonus is a natural extension of February sessions. These new fiction and nonfiction passages build background knowledge while targeting reading comprehension, inferencing, and discussion skills. It pairs especially well with the Winter Games (February 2022) Monthly Theme Unit for expanded learning around winter sports.
📍 All four bonus resources above are located in the Holiday section of the Bonus page.
✨ Don't miss this change to the SLP Elevate Referral Program!
In case you didn't see, we've got an exciting update to the SLP Elevate Referral Program, and it’s all about saying an even bigger thank you for helping grow this community.
If you’ve shared SLP Elevate with a colleague, friend, or CF, you already know how powerful word-of-mouth can be. Starting now, referrals come with even more meaningful rewards:
1 referral → $10 Starbucks Gift Card ☕
2 referrals → Speech Time Fun merch item 📔
3 referrals → New! One FREE ticket to a Speech Time Fun Speech Retreat Virtual Conference (ASHA CEU eligible!) 🎉
4+ referrals → One FREE month of SLP Elevate 💻
Whether you’re inviting a friend who’s just getting started, a coworker who needs better resources, or a fellow SLP who could use a little support, your referrals help strengthen this community - and they unlock some pretty fun perks, too.
Each new member can notate that you referred them on their Onboarding Survey, and there’s no limit to how many referrals you can make. We’re so grateful for every recommendation and every connection you help create.
Thank you for helping SLP Elevate grow - one referral at a time. 💜
🖥️ February 2026 - Commercial Break: Ads 🖥️
Lights, camera… Commercial Breaks! 🎬📺 The February 2026 SLP Elevate Monthly Resources turn ads and commercials into powerful, student-approved speech and language practice. Start by watching the short video tutorial to see how everything fits together, then head to the downloads section to grab what you need - either all at once with the convenient ZIP file or by picking individual PDFs.
This month’s lineup is packed with high-interest, low-prep tools, including Choose Your Own Adventure: Life Skills Edition and AAC Sentence Builders. More activities to target goals like inferencing, summarizing, context clues, compare and contrast, and multiple-meaning words, plus games, task cards, and even YouTube Cheat Sheets. It’s everything you need to keep sessions engaging, functional, and perfectly timed - no remote required. 😉
AAC Sentence Builders
Students build sentences using the visuals. Three different levels to engage students. Create a sentence using a carrier phrase, pick words from categories to build a sentence, and create a sentence without visual aids.
Choose Your Own Adventure: Life Skills Edition
Practice real-world life skills through a structured, choose-your-own-adventure format. Students follow a familiar, motivating scenario and make choices that impact how the day unfolds. Each decision targets functional skills, including planning, safety awareness, communication, problem-solving, and self-advocacy.
Context Clues Picture Stories
Five worksheets, each with a short passage and graphic organizer. Use the context clues from the passage to determine the meaning of the target vocabulary words.
✨ New February Bonuses Are Here!
February is packed with natural opportunities for real conversations, meaningful reflection, and high-interest learning - and this month’s bonus drop leans right into that. These four resources were designed specifically for this time of year and are easy to plug into sessions with older students.
Black History Month Mini Bios
Bring important stories into your sessions with short, student-friendly bios that feel approachable and purposeful. These are perfect for articulation practice, vocabulary building, comprehension, retells with transition words, and compare & contrast - while also supporting meaningful learning that fits February naturally.
(Located in the Holiday Bonus section.)
Communication & Connection: Valentine’s Day Pack
February is full of social moments, be it friendships, mixed signals, boundaries, and big feelings. This pack gives you realistic, older-student-appropriate ways to target perspective-taking, figurative language, conversation skills, and social reasoning using real-life scenarios, red flag vs. green flag behaviors, and discussion-based activities that actually resonate.
(Located in the Holiday Bonus section.)
Valentine’s Day Social Inferencing with GIFs (Google Slides)
Perfect for students who light up with visual and media-based learning. Using Valentine’s Day–themed GIFs, students practice analyzing emotions, tone, intent, and perspective - skills that are especially relevant during peer interactions this month. High-interest, flexible for groups, and great for justifying answers.
(Located in the Holiday Bonus section.)
Winter Olympics: Beyond the Podium
With the Winter Olympics happening this month, this bonus is a natural February fit. These new Skeleton-themed fiction and nonfiction passages build background knowledge while targeting reading comprehension, inferencing, and discussion skills. Pairs especially well with the Winter Games (February 2022) Monthly Theme Unit for extended learning around winter sports.
(Located in the Holiday Bonus section.)
💡 All four February bonuses are ready to use now and were chosen specifically to support seasonal themes, classroom conversations, and student interests this month. Be on the lookout for our next round of bonuses dropping mid-month in March!
Black History Month Mini Bios
Bonuses → Holidays
Communication & Connection: A Valentine's Day Pack
Bonuses → Holidays
Winter Olympics: Beyond the Podium
Bonuses → Holidays
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!
March 2026
April 2026
May 2026
There’s always something exciting on the horizon! While we don’t have any live sessions scheduled right now, we’ve got fresh professional development opportunities coming to SLP Elevate soon - stay tuned for details on what’s ahead!
We’re also already dreaming up next year’s Speech Retreats (yes, plural 👀) - so you can look forward to more ways to connect, learn, and recharge in 2026.
In the meantime, don’t forget that your PD Hub is full of on-demand sessions you can watch anytime for PDH/CMH!
315: Language & Literacy Connection and More!
314: Case of the SLP Sunday Scaries
313: Winter Screen Time That Works: Using Videos for Speech Goals
312: Let’s Chat Working With High Schoolers
From Hallie's Desk -
Hey Elevate Friends,
February has a totally different kind of energy- shorter days, longer to-do lists, and students who are very ready for something new to grab their attention. Enter this month’s theme: Commercial Break: Ads. 📺✨
Super Bowl commercials are packed with everything we love targeting in speech, like storytelling, inference, humor, persuasion, perspective-taking, and so much discussion potential. They’re short, engaging, and feel relevant, which makes them perfect for sparking buy-in (especially with older students who might be a little checked out this time of year). This theme was built directly from what you’ve been asking for - more ways to use commercials intentionally and meaningfully in sessions.
As February rolls on, give yourself permission to keep things simple and effective. You don’t need flashy or perfect - just tools that work, moments that connect, and activities that meet your students where they are. Those add up more than you realize.
Here’s to thoughtful conversations, strong language work, and sessions that feel engaging for you and your students - even in the middle-of-winter stretch. 💜
Rooting for you!
Xoxo,
Hallie