Using books in speech therapy can be a great way to plan therapy because you can adapt the book to cover a wide range of goals, including story comprehension, oral narration, grammar, vocabulary, and perspective-taking. Plus, you can have students working on fluency or articulation carryover to summarize or retell the story while working on their strategies or sounds.
For the younger students, one way to get increased engagement with a book is to create story prop kits. Using story props allows students to kinesthetically get involved with the story. Today, I want to show you how to make an Apple Trouble Story Prop Kit to use in speech therapy.
Where to Get the Book Apple Trouble by Ragnhild Samell
If you are looking for a great fall book that works on story comprehension and story retell, you will want to check out Apple Trouble by Ragnhild Scamell. It was originally called Ouch!, so you may be able to find it at your local library under that name. Amazon affiliate links are included in this blog post for your convenience.
When I don’t have a book on hand, I will use a YouTube book read aloud and just mute the reader, so that I can read the book to the students. I always love having the real book, but when you are in a jam, this works well too. Today, I am going to share how you can make a storybook prop kit for Apple Trouble!
To help your students recall the details and vocabulary from the story, it’s nice to have hands-on materials to bring the story to life.
Invest in the Mini Animals and Reuse for Future Theme-Based Lessons
Plus, you can use the elements from this story prop kit for future theme-based lessons when working on forest animals, farm themes, hedgehog books, or apple themes. Amazon affiliate links are included in this blog post for your convenience. When you use the affiliate link, I get a small commission with no expense from you.
Join the Themed Therapy SLP Membership for Prek-5th Grade Elementary Caseloads
If you love planning by themes for your elementary caseload but don’t have the time or creative energy to find all the activities for your themed therapy, join the Themed Therapy SLP membership. We take lesson planning off your plate so you can focus on enjoying therapy with your students.
You can access over 24 themed units for Prek-5th grade when you join the annual subscription. There are also monthly options, but you only get access for two months at a time. Sign up HERE. See a sample of the apple-themed unit below.
Items you will need to make your story prop kit
Forest animals figurines: has a mini hedgehog, frog, squirrel
Plush or mini hedgehog: The mini hedgehog is included in the forest animals figurines. You can find a plush hedgehog on Amazon.
Farm Toobs: This set has a pig, and goat. You can get this set on Amazon or at Michael’s.
Hedgehog’s nest is made from cut up cardboard and green moss hot glued that I found at the Dollar Tree. You could always buy some decorative leaves from the Dollar Tree or craft store and stick them in a box as the hedgehog’s nest.
Fake mini apples: You can find mini and large-sized fake apples on Amazon or at Michael’s. I got mine at Michael’s.
For the other items that get stuck in the hedgehog’s fir, you will need a pear, a blue piece of paper.
How to Make the Apple Tree in the Story
You can easily make an apple tree using toilet paper rolls and cutting out a green piece of construction paper to look like leaves and branches. Color red apples on the tree. Then, cut two slits in the toilet paper roll on one side. Slide the green tree into the toilet paper roll and now you have an apple tree.
Use this apple tree for a future apple-themed unit to use when talking about apple trees and orchards. You can make an apple orchard sensory bin like the one I share on Instagram.
Speech Therapy Goals You Can Cover With the Story Prop Kit
With your story props you can target the goals as follows:
- Story comprehension and oral narration – act out what happened throughout the story
- Work on basic concepts with the characters and props from the story
- Describe the character’s by attributes and look for text to support answers
- Build grammatically correct sentences using the characters and actions from the story
- Add the props to a sensory bin and allow students to pretend play while working on initiation, commenting, vocabulary, etc.
- Work on conversation dialogue with the characters
- Have students practice summarizing or retelling while using transition words. This can also be a skill to work on articulation carryover.
How Do You Use the Book Apple Trouble in Speech Therapy?
I would love to know how you would use this Apple Trouble story prop kit to target goals with your speech therapy caseload. Share in the comments or tag me on social media @thedabblingspeechie
Need more tips on how to use books to cover language goals? Check out this post with some book reading strategies.