5 SLP Hacks that will Save You Time and Money

In case you missed my FB Live Video on SLP Hacks, I thought I’d share here because these are some of my favorite short-cuts to save time and money! As someone who self-contracts, my budget is small-make that-my budget all comes out of my own pocket. So anywhere I can cut costs but still be efficient in my therapy makes me happy 🙂

Here are some of my favorite hacks:

1. Photo prints for verb cards. Instead of buying those super-expensive picture card decks, make your own! I use action shots of my own little family, but if you have permission, how neat would it be to use your very own students in your pictures. I used the 1-hour photo printing at Walmart and printed my deck for under $5. Not bad if you ask me. I wanted the square ones so they were $0.19 each but the 4×6 photos are just $.09 each. Order two prints of each and use them for a game of memory working on sentence structure, parts of speech, anything! (I wanted mine a tad sturdier so I taped card stock behind them and ran them through the laminator).

2. Make your own reading tracker. I bought some reading trackers on Amazon a few years ago but they are SO expensive. Simply run two strips of paper in a laminator and voila! You can even have students pick their own paper! *Tip-I like making mine different sizes in case the text happens to be bigger or smaller.

3. Use tension curtain rod for storing bulletin board borders. Borders for bulletin borders are…quite frankly, a pain to store. So many people have admitted to just throwing them out simply because they don’t want to store them! Instead, roll them up, clip them with a binder clip, and hang them on a tension curtain rod between your shelves. This way you can see them clearly and they are out of the way!

4. Puff balls on the tops of dry erase markers for erasers. We all know how much we use dry erase markers. Instead of always searching for an eraser, or better yet (what I used to do) a tissue, hot glue a puff ball on the top of each marker. Now they come with their own eraser!

5. Command hooks to hang…really anything. Command hooks are your best friend when it comes to storage. Think of all that space on your wall just waiting to be used! I used them at my old school to hang the EET on my white board. Now I place supplies in buckets to be hung. It keeps them out of the little hand’s reach.

I hope these tips save you some time and money this year! Feel free to pin the image below!