Love Books in Therapy?

In my brief experience as an SLP, it has come to my attention that everyone does therapy differently. It's not all that shocking really since that's true of many professions. However, it can be frustrating as a graduate student (especially an out-of-fielder) when you are desperately trying to please intimidating supervisors.

My therapy style is rather laid-back as I'm a pretty easy going person. I also love to do creative projects/concepts. This equates to my therapy sessions consisting of more craft projects (paper plate owls, making cards, making posters about nouns/verbs, making ghosts out of milk jugs, etc...) than games.

 I also use a ton of books rather than the school computer. The English major deep within my heart believes that it's a great thing to expose children to text and to combine it with items that they can manipulate (ie...making a Rainbow fish by tearing up pieces of construction paper & gluing it into a collage). I also feel rather strongly about this because so many of my students just want to play games. (Don't get me wrong, I love how easy it is to incorporate games into therapy.)

So here is a helpful hint to those of you who love book-based therapy:

Library Book Sales

I love library book sales because the sales of these books go to something that I strongly believe every community needs...a public library. I feel very fortunate that my mother took me to our library as a child to listen to story time, check out wonderful books, and participate in many of their special programs. It's a small way that I can give back to the community without breaking the bank.

In my community, the FRIENDS of the Library have a bookstore that is open several days each week. It is a peaceful place with the reasonable price of $1 a book for paperback & children's books. Hardbacks vary depending on the popularity and condition, but most of them are only $2. These prices are pretty much the same as what I have to pay at Goodwill. I also shop the sales at the library in my grandmother's small community. They typically ask .10-.50 for their children's books. I managed to get The Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly for .25 cents last week. Don't just take my word on it though, here is a link to another blogger who supports these sales too.



(And, yes, this is my way of procrastinating work on my Common Core Goal Bank. I've started 5th grade for Speaking & Listening, but the daunting task of Language is still ahead of me.)