7 Free & Easy Holiday Ideas for Teletherapy

If you’re navigating this holiday season from across the screen, you might be craving those vacation days right about now. Keeping a student engaged virtually this time of year is like trying to catch a caffeinated squirrel. So how about some free holiday ideas for teletherapy?

Let’s bump up that engagement in therapy with some fun activities. Check out these 7 free holiday ideas for teletherapy (they actually work for in-person therapy too!)

1. I Spy – Holiday edition

Make a list of different Christmas (or any holiday) items that they can spot around the house. They can do this as a reinforcer activity or take the items and describe them. You can also give them clues and have them guess the item you are thinking about.

2. What’s in the stocking?

Have the parent fill a stocking (or large sock) with small toys. The student can request to pull one out, name the items, describe the items, talk about the categories, etc. They can also do the opposite and fill the stocking with the items you tell them to grab.

3. 12 Days of Christmas with articulation sounds

Sing the song 12 days of Christmas but instead of the typical 12 gifts, make up new lyrics with words that start with their articulation target sound. If they sing the song in its entirety, they’ll get tons of practice and carry-over of their sound!

4. YouTube songs & read-alouds

I love starting my teletherapy sessions with a fun little themed song. YouTube has tons of them – my favorites are from Super Simple Songs. Here are some of my favorites:

• 5 Little Elves Song
• Hello Reindeer, Goodbye Snowman Song
• Santa Shark
• S-A-N-T-A

There are also lots of themed books read aloud on YouTube. I love The Old Lady Who Swallowed a Bell, Little Blue Truck’s Christmas, and Don’t Push the Button Christmas this time of year.

5. ABCya themed games

Have you seen these cute games? ABCya has tons of holiday themed games that are great for reinforcement during your virtual sessions. Some of them are great for requesting and expanding utterances as well. Just screen share and start playing!

6. Free Boom card decks

If you’ve done virtual therapy for any amount of time, I’m sure you’ve discovered Boom cards! This year, I stocked up on SO many free decks for my Christmas theme. Here are a few of my favorites from some fabulous SLPs:

• Christmas WH Questions Freebie
• Silly Articulation Ornaments
• Santa’s Cookie Race
• Decorate a Tree Boom Cards
• Christmas Find It
• Pick a Present Describing

The Bingo deck pictured above isn’t free, but you can grab it on TPT or Boom if you need it. 🙂

7. Free worksheets and coloring pages

Worksheets are easy to share with your virtual students. You can use them with the Kami extension and annotate right there on the PDF. Or simply search holiday coloring pages on Google images and get lots of reinforcement ideas.

You can also grab these Christmas worksheets for FREE in my resource library!

I hope you got some great ideas for your virtual sessions! Follow me @busybeespeech on IG for more inspiration and ideas!