Playing with toy sets is one of the best ways for kids to interact with their environments and learn about the things around them without getting into things they shouldn’t. Even more so, kids love animals, which is why pet hospital toy sets can be such a great tool to incorporate into your speech therapy sessions! While acquiring a pet hospital toy set is an upfront cost, there are so many different speech and language skills that you can target while “playing” with your speech students!
Where Can I Buy a Pet Hospital for My Speech Room?
There are a few different pet hospital toy sets available online. All of the ones I’m suggesting below can be found on Amazon, but you might be able to find them at stores like Target, too. The links below are Amazon affiliate links for your convenience.
- Critter Clinic Toy Vet Set
- Pet Vet Toy by B. Toys by Battat
- Learning Resources Pretend & Play Animal Hospital (This set is good for traveling SLPs that need lightweight materials to transport.)
Toy-Themed Therapy Resources
Need a cheat sheet guide to help you with targeting wh- questions, Tier II vocabulary, articulation, basic concepts, adjectives, and helpful therapy ideas for toys you use during play-based therapy? Grab this Toy Companion Cheat Sheet Guide for Prek-2nd grade and have stimulus targets mapped out for fourteen different toys.
Using a Pet Hospital Toy Set in Speech Therapy with Younger-Aged Children
A pet hospital set can be used to target so many speech and language skills! Listed below are some of my favorite ways to engage children in these skills:
- Work on sequencing steps for cleaning a cut, wrapping a broken bone, grooming the pet, or doing a check-up.
- Work on CORE vocabulary with AAC to work on open, close, go, stop, need, want, my turn, and your turn.
- Work on following directions with basic concepts and prepositions.
- Put mini trinkets in the doors of the vet hospital that have students sounds, vocabulary, etc. The animals can open the doors to find what is in their space. Students can work on building grammar sentences, working on sounds, describing vocabulary, and answering wh- questions.
- Put items behind the doors to work on inferencing.
- Compare/contrast the different doctor tools and/or animals.
- Your animal is sick! Think of all the things and items they enjoy that you can do with them when the animal is healthy again.
- Work on story retell and have the child tell a story to their sick animal.
- Your new puppy or kitten just got his/her shots and is ready to come home. Make a list of all the things you need to buy for home. Talk about the noun’s functions.
- Make an animal obstacle course for the animal to enjoy after they are feeling better. Work on following directions, sequencing, and verb actions.
How Do You Use a Pet Hospital Toy Set in Speech Therapy?
Do you have a fun way to engage your students with a pet hospital toy set in speech therapy? Share in the comments, tag me on Instagram @thedabblingspeechie, or email me at feliceclark@thedabblingspeechie.com.