Ahoy! Talk Like a Pirate Day is Upon Us!!

Back to school has absolutely capsized me! While I was actually looking forward to a calm return, it just didn't pan out that way. I came back to reevaluations, referrals, IEPs, and the bane of the school SLPs existence; the dreaded schedule!! Alas, my social media fun was stowed like cargo and I was out to sea without a paddle.

Fortunately for me, there are creative SLPs in this big blogging ocean to help keep me afloat with material, so I am linking up with Tracy of Gold Country Speech for some pirate fun.

I love capitalizing on a theme. It makes my therapy planning easy, engaging, and productive. International Talk Like a Pirate Day is no exception. In fact, I like this one so much and I have so many materials, I stretch it out over two weeks.

I am not a prolific TpT author (future blog post topic). On the contrary I think I'm a pretty lame TpT author, however I am a pretty good SLP. I have a few clever ideas and I know how to utilize the clever ideas of others. This post doesn't contain products, just a couple of ideas that my students love.

First of all, I LOVE to dress up! It just adds a little bit of spunk to things. (I like this picture...I look thin!) Then I inject an accent here and there throughout my speech, I "talk like a pirate." Yes, for two weeks ;) I will admit I love accents. I am fairly good at them, too, except Russian. That /l/ eludes me. I have been watching some YouTube videos on how to perfect my accent.

My pirate book booty is only four books large. If I know myself, it will expand!

I found a mini Pop-Up Pirate game on Amazon last year. It was very inexpensive. Yay! Not really, it stopped popping pirates this year! Boo!

My son loved(s) his Play Mobile toys. He would spend hours creating a "set up." When he spied me bringing this to school, he got a little nervous. I had to assure him that I wasn't plundering his collection. He's 15.

I have a subscription to Vocabulary A-Z and I love it! I created data sheets (if you would like the data sheet, comment with your email address and I will "ship" it off) for intermediate and middle school students and pair the vocabulary with articles from Wonderopolis and Newsela. My middle school students have been reading the Wonderopolis article, which I pasted into Google Read and Write, watched the corresponding video and then designed their own pirate flag. After creating the flag they wrote a "biography" of their pirate using the Expanding Expression Tool. I suppose now you understand why this takes two weeks!!

Of course, I use the myriad of materials I have amassed from the SLP fleet of amazing and talented folks in addition to the aforementioned. Here are a few of the items that are part of my pirate arsenal: Jenn Alcorn , Sparklle SLP, Speech Snacks

Well, It's time for me to lift anchor and set sail and I promise, no more pirate puns!