Easter Therapy Activities & FREE Download!

Some of you lucky SLPs are already on break and I hope you are enjoying a restful, peaceful and fun week.  For those of us who don't have break until next week, here are a couple of fun Easter activities (and a freebie of course) to get you through!

Easter Egg Races

Materials: Easter Eggs (8-10 per student), Jelly Beans (or something small to go in the eggs), Spoons (one per student), 1 Big Basket, 1 Little basket (or bowl) per student and Free Worksheet

Goals Addressed: Language and/or Articulation

How To Play: 1) Place 0-3 jellybeans in each of the Easter eggs. 2) Set up the baskets, in a horizontal line, with 1-2 feet in between them.  3) Give each student a spoon and have the students line up next to the baskets.  4) Place all of the eggs into one big basket on the opposite side of the room.  5) On 'go', students walk as quick as possible across the room to the big basket of eggs.  They must grab an egg and place it on their spoon.  6) Once their spoon is extended out in front of them, they must 'walk quickly' back to their basket and drop the egg in their own basket. If the egg falls off the spoon, they must go back to the beginning and start again.  

7) Once all of the eggs are in the individual baskets, have the students bring their eggs to the table and sit down. **The entire race should only take 1-2 minutes out of therapy time** 8) Continue with the steps after the 'Find The Jelly Beans' section.

OR (If you don't want to have a race)

Find The Jelly Beans

Materials: Cupcake liners (8-10 per student), Jelly Beans (or something small to go under the liners), 1 Little basket (or bowl) per student and Free Worksheet

Goals Addressed: Language and/or Articulation

How To Play: 1) Place 0-3 jellybeans under each cupcake liner and set them in a large square on a table.  2) Have students take turns picking up the liners and placing the jelly beans they find in their individual baskets.  3) After everyone collects their jellybeans, continue with the steps below.

Once you complete one of the activities above...

1) Give each student one of the two worksheets. 2) Have students take turns opening one of their eggs or taking the jellybeans out of their basket.  For each jellybean they take out, the students must complete a task. You can come up with the task such as, 'say your word 5X' or use the worksheet with Easter themed words to address language goals.  This open ended worksheet can be used to describe, formulate sentences, define, categorize, etc. 3) If the student correctly completes the task, they get to place a jellybean on one of the eggs on the worksheet.  If not, it's the next student's turn. 4) Continue playing until someone fills their entire worksheet!

Click here for the FREE DOWNLOAD

Whether you are on break or still in school, I wish you and your families a happy and wonderful Easter!

Common Objects for Uncommon Speech Therapy: Pencil 'Lead' Therapy

I am so excited for the first post of my new series, 'Common Objects for Uncommon Speech Therapy'! To read about this new series, click here.  I hope you and your students enjoy these pencil activities as much as we did!  All you need for each of these activities are pencils, picture cards or task cards and the free download provided by me! 

Activity #1 - The Dot 'Pencil' Game

Ages: Any

Materials: Pencils & Picture or Task Cards

Goals Addressed: Any

Set Up: Place cards evenly spaced on a large table or the floor.  Place pencils in between each card, so that they are all connected.  See pictures.  

How To Play: Have students take turns taking one pencil off at a time. Continue to have students take a pencil until one card is completely 'uncovered' or untouched by a pencil.  The student who 'uncovers' one of the cards first has to either say that word 5 times (for articulation goals) or complete the task on the card (for language goals). 

If they correctly complete their task, they get to keep the card.  If not, the next student gets to try. Whoever correctly completes the task first, gets to keep the card.  The students can continue taking pencils until another card is 'uncovered'.  

Once all cards are uncovered and all tasks are completed, the student with the most cards wins!

Activity #2 - Spin A Pencil

Ages: Children who are able to spin the pencil correctly

Materials: Pencils & picture/task cards that have matching pairs

Goals Addressed: Any

Set Up: Place one card from each match in a large circle and place a pencil in the middle. Pass out the remaining matches to each student and have them place the cards in front of them facing up.  

How To Play: Have students take turns spinning the pencil.  Once the pencil stops spinning, the student has to say that word 5X or complete the task on the card that the pencil is pointing to.  

If the student has the match of that card, they get to pick up the card and place it with their match.  If not, it is the next student's turn.  Continue to take turns spinning the pencil and completing the tasks.  The student who gets all of their matches first, wins!

Activity #3 - Find The Pencils

Ages: Any

Materials: Pencils, Articulation Word List (free), Free Printable 

Goals Addressed: Articulation

Set Up: Write the numbers 1-6 on the erasers of the pencils. For a group of 3 students, I had four pencils for each number.  I also threw in three pencils with the number 10 to make it more difficult.  

How To Play: Give each student their own copy of the Pencil Game worksheet.  Place all of the pencils on the table with the erasers facing you, so that the students can't see the numbers.  Have your students take turns each pulling one pencil. When the students pick a pencil, they have to say their sound/word/etc. the amount of times as stated on the pencil.  Once they correctly say their words, the student gets to keep the pencil and place it on their worksheet.  If that pencil number is already covered, they have to put the pencil back in the pile.  Have students continue to take turns until one student fills up their entire worksheet to win the game!

Free Download

I hope you enjoyed the first post of the series Common Objects for Uncommon Speech Therapy! Just a reminder that you can also participate in this series by suggesting materials for me to use.  Just leave a comment with your suggestion!  

Common Objects For Uncommon Speech Therapy

Why did I want to become a speech pathologist in the first place?  The answer for me was that I wanted to be able to use my creativity to help my students communicate.

Well, working in a low income district for the past few years has been a wonderful experience, but it has really challenged me to use every bit of my creativity! I don't receive any money for materials, games or fun things for my students, which I think is pretty much the story for most districts. So, due to the lack of funding for speech therapy, I am starting a new monthly series on my blog called, 'Common Objects For Uncommon Speech Therapy'!

Here's the best part of this new series...I am open to using your suggestions! Leave a comment on this post with what you want me to use to create an activity or craft idea to be used in therapy.  You can suggest materials that you have in your speech room or you can just come up with some crazy suggestions...the harder the better :)  If I pick your idea, I have to use the materials that you suggested.

Here are a few rules about your suggestions:

1) They have to be safe materials that can be used with kids (obviously no sharp objects, poisonous, etc.)

2) Choose anywhere between 1 and 4 materials.

3) Materials must be less than $5.  I will be buying the materials, so I need to be able to afford them!

4) Each month, leave you suggestion on the new post for the next month's idea. 

5) Your materials will be the main focus of the activity.  However, I might also use common office supplies such as scissors, crayons, etc.

That's it!  I am so excited to start this series as I think it will be challenging and exciting to see what materials I will be using!  I will start the series next week with, 'Pencil Lead Therapy'!

Oh and of course, to make things just a little more fun, if I pick your materials, you will get a $10 credit to my TPT store! 

It's Time To Become The Student!

I am always trying to think of new and creative ways to keep my students engaged during articulation therapy.  I just wrote a new blog post called 'Tables Turn: When Students Become The SLP' on the Speech Spotlight Blog.  Personally, I had a lot of fun with this idea and I hope you will too!  Check it out HERE!  

What is Speech Spotlight?  It is a collaborative blog of 10 different speech pathologists who share their knowledge with you!   

Valentine's Day Speech Party!

Next week is already Valentine's Day!  Can you believe how fast this year is going?  I know, for me, that this time of year is usually full of IEPs, meetings, report cards, paperwork and everything just seems to be piling up.  It also seems to be the time of year where students start to get bored with the same old therapy games and begin to go a little stir crazy.  Not to mention, I always get little jealous of all the Valentine's Day parties that are happening, in all the classrooms, while I sit in my office billing medicaid... 

So, why not have a Valentine's Speech Party? I know, it sounds like a lot of planning and we have to work on speech goals, right?  Well, I did the planning for you!  Just click here to download the party plans and that's it!  It contains materials needed, a craft and a game to throw the ultimate speech party.  Your students will have a blast, while also working on their goals, of course! 

This specific download contains ideas for articulation therapy, however, you can have your students complete a language task in place of the articulation tasks.  I hope you and your students enjoy!

Valentine's Day Speech Party

Following Directions App Giveaway

 
Recently, I downloaded a wonderful app for my students who are working on following directions.  The app is called Funny Directions by Speecharoo and my students loved it!  Here are the top 10 reasons why I recommend this app!

1)Students can pick from four different settings: classroom, bedroom, beach and park. Students want to check out all of the settings which means they end up with a lot of practice!  Each setting addresses 1, 2 and 3 step directions for a variety of difficulty.  

2) The graphics are fun, bright and exciting! 

3) Students can tap the sentence if they need to listen again.  There is no limit on repetitions, which is perfect for kids who need more help. 

4) You can pick if your students get verbal and visual directions or just one of them.  It's easy to turn them on and off with a simple change in the settings. 

5) If students do not correctly follow a direction, it will automatically be repeated (if the voice option is turned on).  

6) Each time a direction is correctly followed, students get a positive reinforcement in the form of  songs, jokes or moving images.  Talk about motivation! 

7) At the end of 10 questions, no matter if students correctly follow 0 or 10 directions, a 'Great Job' graphic pops up.  Not only is this reinforcing for students, but they also get to 'pop' some celebration balloons! 

 8) Tracking is so easy with this app.  It tracks how many are correct or incorrect and is shown in the top right hand corner.  This is perfect for busy SLPs!

9) The directions include a variety of verbs such as tap, push, poke, tip, find, etc. which is great for students working on verbs.  Two and three step directions include a variety of prepositional words and phrases.  

10) It's fun, motivating, colorful, helps save time, motivates your students and tracks your data!  It is a wonderful app that you and your students will love!

Of course, I can't rave about this app without giving one away!  Enter here for a free copy of the Funny Directions by Speecharoo app.  

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Dollar Store Speech Ideas

I am joining in on this fun link up by Kristin from Talkin' With Twang! 
 
Every time I go into the dollar store, not only do I always come out with so much more than I initially planned on buying, but I also come out with some great therapy ideas!  As a therapist, the dollar store has become my favorite store!  Currently, I am in charge of doing evaluations at work, so I only see 5 kids for actual therapy. Unfortunately, I cannot do all of these therapy activities with my students, but I can always blog about my ideas and hope that they will help inspire you! 

During my previous shopping spree at the dollar store, I spent $9.54 and came out with some fun everyday and holiday crafts and activities!  These first two items, I didn't purchase, but I highly recommend that these are staples in every SLP therapy room.  First, I recommend the microphone which is a great way to inspire kids to speak louder, work on articulation or just to motivate them to participate.  Second is foam dice. They are perfect for the little ones and I have found that even older students like them!

Now, onto the fun stuff that I purchased...

St. Patrick's Day Items            Valentine's Day Items           Everyday Items

For the every day items, I bought pipe cleaners, Minnie Mouse puzzles and bracelet jewels.  

I am not sure how I will use the pipe cleaners yet, but I had to buy them!

The Minnie Mouse puzzle came with 4, 6-piece puzzles.  In my mind, this was perfect for some category therapy!  Here's how I would do it.  

First, pick out 4 categories that you want your students to work on. For this example, I chose colors, food, animals and transportation as my categories.  Then, I wrote the corresponding words on the back of each piece.  During therapy, have your students put the puzzles back together, but with the words facing up. If you have younger students, you might have to help them put the actual puzzle together once they separate the words. 

  

 Once the puzzles are together, slide them off of the desk onto a book/box/cardboard and flip the puzzle over.  It will reveal the final picture and if your students were correct!

 I also bought these connecting jewels from the dollar store.

You can do so many activities with these!  You can have students sort them by color, shape or both. 

 

You can also have your students make bracelets by letting them add a link for each task they complete (saying a sound 5x, answering a question, etc.).  If you have boys, have them make the bracelets for their mom, grandma or aunt.  This would be a great mother's day activity!

  

As always, the dollar store was fun, exciting and inspiring!  Thank you Kristin for this great blog link up!  What are your favorite dollar store items?

Remember to subscribe to my blog to find out what I will be doing with these fun, dollar store finds!