When the Spring weather starts to appear, so do all my favorite spring books. The book In the Tall, Tall Grass by Denise Fleming is a book you can use to target a TON of vocabulary and language goals. Plus, it goes perfectly with an insect theme! Today, I wanted to share how you use a In the Tall, Tall Grass speech therapy sensory bin to work on story retell and other receptive and expressive language skills. (Amazon affiliate links included for your convenience.)

In The Tall Tall Grass Speech Therapy Sensory Bin

• Grab a bin or container of some kind to use. The Dollar Store has metal tins, or you can find a container at Target that has clasps.
• Black beans for dirt (or anything you can find that can look like dirt)
• Green tissue paper, pasta dyed green, or shredded green paper for stuffing presents (I found some at the Dollar Spot)
• Small insects that you can find at The Dollar Spot, sometimes Target Dollar Spot, at Michael’s where they sell Toobs, or on amazon with the insect Toob set, rabbit and frog in the Pet Toob, a bat from the Wild American Toob set, and the bird toob set for the hummingbird.
• For all you SLPs on a budget, you can find printables from the book at Simply Speech and use those in the bin.

Another way to make “grass” for your sensory bin is to dye pasta green. I posted a quick video tutorial on my Facebook Page that you can watch and see how easy it is to make!

Insect Speech Therapy Activities to Pair with the Book

If you need more bug speech therapy activities to pair with the book, In the Tall, Tall Grass, you can use the insect language lesson plan guides to take the stress away from planning small groups and co-teaching sessions. Grab it HERE. Below are some of the activities included. You also get cheat sheets, a parent newsletter, Google Slides, and tips for setting up your push-in lessons.

In The Tall Tall Grass Speech Therapy Ideas for Articulation and Phonology

In the Tall Tall Grass Activities for Language

• Story retell – Work on answering questions from the book and retell what bugs and animals you saw in the tall grass.

• Grammar – Work on the verbs: hide, fly, crawl and see while playing with the items in the sensory bin.

• Vocabulary – Have your students describe the insects/animals by attributes. Sort the insects and animals into two category groups. Or classify the objects by the insects/animals that can fly/have wings vs. those that crawl.

• Basic Concepts – Target the concepts in/out, above/below, and next to the insects and animals in the bin.

• Functional Communication – Work on initiation, turn-taking, requesting for items, making comments, protesting, sharing an opinion, or asking to be “all done” with an object.

How Would You Use the Book In the Tall, Tall Grass in Your Speech Therapy Sessions?