If I were to bet what your current SLP situation looked like, I would go out on a limb and guess you are overwhelmed.
Planning therapy is the last thing on your list between all the IEPs before break and kids hyped up on holiday excitement.
What if I told you that you could use Elf movie clips in speech therapy in minutes to cover LOTS of speech and language goals?
Not only would you be happy because it’s low prep and the Elf movie, but your kids will dig it.
And the Elf movie speech therapy style means you can use these clips across ages, for multiple sessions, and with many goals.
Free Elf Movie Speech Therapy Google Slides
One of the best ways to organize your Buddy the Elf movie clips is with Google Slides. You can have the clips set up to start and stop certain parts in the movie, so you only show the parts of the clip that you want!
Check out my techy hack tutorial here.
I made some Elf movie speech therapy Google Slides that you can target past tense verbs, wh-questions, summarizing, perspective taking, or articulation carryover. When you use them in edit mode, you can move the black rectangle to reveal the visual sentence strip.
Work on Body Language and Perspective Taking
Use this clip to identify non-verbal signals that the characters are showing and what message they are sending with their body language. Have the students generate questions to ask each other in the group about what they thought about the clip and discuss what Buddy should have done when he saw the raccoon.
Discuss Perspectives and the “Thought Bubble”
You can use this Elf movie clip to discuss what the characters are feeling while Buddy is burping at the table. This is also a great time to map out how we navigate conversations at the dinner table and what to do if we burp!
With a thinking bubble, you can have students tell you what Buddy’s brother, dad, and step mom might think about him when he is burping at the table.
Use the EET tool for describing the settings or the Characters
If you own the Expanding Expressions Tool, you can have students describe the setting or the characters in the movie. Or you can also work on story elements using the Elf movie clips.
When working on speech sound goals, you can have students generate word lists from the clip with their speech sounds. Have them practice their speech sounds at the word level or give them challenging words when summarizing the clip. For more articulation carryover ideas, head to this blog post.
For example, the snowball fight clip would be great for students working on s-blends. And the scene where Buddy tells Santa he sits on a throne of lies would be great for students working on /s/ or /th/.
If you have students working on tier II vocabulary, explaining shades of meaning, or naming antonyms and synonyms, pick some words that would be good examples to use with the movie clip. Have your students make a personal dictionary page explaining the word and use it in a sentence about the Elf movie.
Sharing Opinions and Explaining Cause and Effect
For students working on conjunctions, they can share their opinions about the movie clips using correct grammar structures. And students working on answering cause-and-effect questions use the Buddy clips to have them practice that skill.
For example, students can explain “Why Buddy kept eating the old gum on the railing” or “What caused Buddy to spray the perfume in his mouth?”
How Would You Use the Elf Movie in Speech Therapy?
What goals do you have on your caseload that you could adapt these Elf movie clips to work with your student’s areas of needs? Share a fun way you would use these clips in therapy in the comments.
You are the secret Elf by providing us with such fun and wonderful ideas. Thank you and Merry Christmas!
I’m prepping right now for my middle level social/pragmatic group, I can not wait to use this lesson plan. Thanks so much!
Great,fun activity before the break. My kids begged for more!
Really great suggestions! I love your ideas! Have a wonderful Christmas!
Thanks Annie for the nice words. I hope you had a great holiday!
THANK YOU! I’ve been wanting to use elf in speech therapy for a while, but I didn’t have all the clips together like this. You are awesome!!!
One of my all time favorites! Such a fun and effective way to compare what we know vs. what Buddy thinks. These scenes are also great for narrative/story retell!
I love this! Thank you! Merry Christmas!
I cannot wait to try this with my groups. Thank you so much for sharing!
This was a BIG hit with my social skills group. Thanks for the fabulous idea. Got anymore?
Over Christmas, my son absolutely loved watching Elf! He probably watched the movie ten times over the Christmas break and spend a lot of time copying all of Will Ferrell’s impressions. We thought that it was a good thing, because it really helped my son to get out of his shell a bit and made it so he wanted to talk more. What are some other movies that would be good for children who have speech problems?
Great ideas. One more would be the scene with the manager talking about the ‘north pole’ and Buddy ‘arguing’ with him. Unexpected and Expected, great example of something others do that is annoying. We stopped motion on the managers face and asked ‘what is he thinking’ as well as a great visual for ‘someone having wierd’ about Buddy due to his unexpected behaviors. I want to just keep using ELF all year long!!