Top 5 Online Materials for an In-Person SLP who has Conquered Teletherapy on Virtual Days
"Winter is coming" should be Tennessee's new tagline.
If you work in the schools, know someone who works in the schools, have kids in the schools - you know how many winter days we've had since the beginning of 2025. A lot of counties have been slowly ticking down their allotted snow days or are out completely, which can lead some to use virtual days. As a Sidekick per session employee, it may seem like a wash of a day. However, given enough phone calls and texts to parents on your caseload you may find yourself with a small but mighty teletherapy schedule for these virtual days. With a scheduled day, you, a typically in-person-only SLP, are now a teletherapist overnight.
First of all, congratulations.
Second, all your really awesome themed books, Legos, Play-doh, kinetic sand, and so much more suddenly isn't useful whatsoever. Therefore, here is a list of easy-to-navigate, engaging websites from someone who typically never uses them.
My Top 5 Online Resources
(as someone who has only done this 4 times)
- https://www.abcya.com
- This website is a dream. It's free. It's user friendly. A few of my favorite games on the website are the 'Make a Pizza', 'Make a Cupcake', 'Make a Treehouse', and 'Storymaker'. They are easy open-ended games that can be done between articulation trials or utilized for targeting MLU, spatial concepts, requesting, commenting, and basic concepts. They also have a lot more specific games that target a variety of academic skill related games that can be searched via the 'Common Core Standards' tab.
- https://toytheater.com
- If your kids love Uno as much as the kids on my caseload, then search 'Four Colors'. It's literally Uno's cousin. It's simple to navigate. I've found this is best for articulation kids and basic concepts like colors, same/ different.
- https://pbskids.org/games
- PBS is a power house and we need to utilize them. Their games incorporate all their well-known, favorite characters. A few of my favorites on here are ' Elmo and Grover's Farm Fun-time' and Sesame Street's 'Backyard Bug Hunt'.
- https://nationalzoo.si.edu/webcams
- This website is every animal lover's dreams. While it is contingent on the animals being outside, this is still worth it to check out. These animal cameras make it easy to target confrontation naming, categories, associated vocabulary, descriptions, present progressive, and commenting.
- https://kids.nationalgeographic.com/weird-but-true/
- Fun facts galore. Every wh- question, comprehension question, working memory, describing, and adjective-targeting SLP's dream. Short kid appropriate videos that are engaging enough to continue utilizing for an entire 30 minute session.
And there you have it—five teletherapy resources to make your sessions smoother than a perfectly articulated /r/ sound! With a stable enough Wi-Fi and some determination, these tools have your back!
by Kara Amin, M.S., CCC-SLP