The national parks are not only a top travel destination of mine, but also one of my favorite topics to incorporate into teletherapy with students of all ages. This theme allows me and my students to broaden our scenic horizons while we target speech and language goals. With National Park Week occurring every mid-April (the week of Earth Day), it's the perfect opportunity to explore some of the most beautiful corners of the country!
Speaking of exploring, check out the links below to a variety of national park-themed resources from around the web!
National Park Books
Search the following book titles/authors wherever you access digital versions of books (your local library, YouTube, websites, online stores, etc.).
Redwoods by Jason Chin
The Camping Trip That Changed America by Barb Rosenstock
Who Pooped in the Park read by the author, Gary Robson
Hello, National Parks! by Martha Day Zschock
Our Great Big Backyard by Laura Bush and Jenna Bush Hager
You Are Home by Evan Turk
National Park Videos
See all of the national parks in one minute in this video!
Check out this video to learn how the Grand Canyon was formed.
Here's a video all about Yellowstone, the United States' first national park.
Explore nature in the parks with these Sesame Street and National Park Foundation videos.
This 4-minute video gives the interesting history of the National Park Service.
National Park Website Games & Activities
There is TONS to see on the National Park Service's "Parks Through Your Screen" home page for kids, including virtual models, 3D tours, and videos!
This page of the NPS website contains more online activities, such as an at-home scavenger hunt and a fill-in-the-blank funny story.
The live webcams of the parks are not to miss!
This National Park quiz is a fun way to practice answering questions, expand vocabulary, or wrap up a session.
National Geographic Kids has some realllllly cool photos of many parks!
Similarly, this game on jeapardylabs.com makes for some friendly competition.
This quiz asks a series of questions to find the ideal park for someone's interests and travel plans (real or made up!).
This matching game pairs animals with the parks they can be found in!
All the pictures on this website can be colored digitally.
Digital National Park Guidebook
This Digital Guidebook opens in Google Slides and includes links to 10 U.S. national park websites for students to explore. Students can then synthesize information from the site and complete the guidebook while targeting goals such as identifying the main idea and supporting details, determining word meaning, and reading comprehension.
This WebQuest-type activity includes built-in links to the live webcams of each park for added excitement!
National Park Passages for Speech Therapy
This interactive PDF contains passages for seven national parks and questions for each one to target vocabulary in context, synonyms and antonyms, comprehension, and making inferences. I generally do one park a week with my students for several weeks in April and May!
Here are a couple more links to articles for targeting various language goals:
Want more? The National Park Service has you covered. They have this dedicated space on their site for teachers. It's full of links (nearly 300!) to "Distance Learning" resources for students of all ages. It's a lot to sift through, but you can narrow your search by grade level, common core standard, subject, and more on the left side of the page.
Your students might enjoy learning about the National Park sites around them! With over 400 in the U.S., you can use this site to look up parks by state.
I hope these ideas bring you and your students all the beauty of the nation’s protected lands (minus the pricey airfare... and bugs 🤣) in teletherapy this year. Plus, no one will even notice you sneaking in work on some speech and language goals. Next stop — anywhere you choose!
Want some more lesson planning inspo? Check out these other themed lesson plan blog posts or my FREE lesson plan spreadsheets for teletherapy!
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Hi, I liked these lesson plans. I wonder if you have any other lesson plans. Are you still doing this? I'm waiting for your reply.