Nothing is worse than a lackluster mixed group session. Am I right or am I right? When you start to plan a winter-themed unit, you always want to include a general open-ended game or reinforcer that you can use across groups. By having one main game or activity as an incentive, you don’t have to come up with new games every week. Today, I wanted to show you how to use this winter snowball fight activity as a speech therapy reinforcer. Better yet, there are some functional goals and CORE words you can target with it too!
What You Need for the Winter Snowball Fight Speech Therapy Reinforcer
To create your winter snowball fight activity, you need a few items. Hopefully, you have some or all of the supplies, so it won’t cost you much money. Here are some materials you need (Amazon affiliate links included):
-Container to hold the snowballs
Download your FREE Elf and Yeti Snowball Fight Printables
How to Play the Winter Snowball Fight in Speech
Print the elves or yeti’s on cardstock and laminate for durability. Attach each printable to a binder clip or photo holder. Students can earn “snowballs” after each turn practicing their speech or language target. You can either give them a set amount each turn or they can roll a die to see how many they collect.
Then, when all the snowballs are collected, students can have a snowball fight trying to knock down the elves or yetis. You could set up two games and have students do elves versus yetis. See which team can knock down all their players first. Have each student take a turn to throw a snowball.
To add another variation, you can write different numbers with dry-erase markers on the back of the cards. Have some cards that have unique numbers like subtract 10 points or double your points. When a student knocks down the player card, they get to see how many points they earned. The person with the most points at the end wins the game.
Save over 70% off with the SLP Winter Survival Kit
Suppose you are in survival mode and need help planning a winter theme for your elementary caseload. In that case, you can get a kit of winter-themed resources for over 70% off during the extended Black Friday sale from November 21st-December 3rd. You can get $100 worth of speech therapy materials for only $29. It will help you save time, reduce stress, and bring back joy to your therapy sessions. Grab it HERE.
Additional Goals to Target With This Open-Ended Game
Not only can you use this as an open-ended game for any goal, you can also adapt to cover students goals with a fun, hands on play activity.
You can work on verbs, describing the yetis and elves, and answer simple “Who” questions.
Work on CORE words, turn-taking, or making a funny snowball fight story.
Download your FREE Elf and Yeti Snowball Fight Printables
How would you use this snowball fight to cover goals for your students on your caseload? Share in the comments your therapy ideas!
If you need a winter themed version of this, check out the winter language lesson plan guides for printables.
Easy Ways to Adapt This Activity With Other Task Cards
If you have other printables, add them to the binder clips and have a snowball fight the last five minutes of the session. With your students working on speech sound disorder goals, put their target word flashcards on binder clips and knock them down. Whatever card falls, that’s the one they need to practice. See the winter sensory bin companion for some winter-themed printables to do this in your therapy sessions.
Blog Post with MORE Winter-Themed Therapy Ideas
When planning by themes, it can get a bit overwhelming searching for activities you need. Fortunately for you, I have a LOT of blog posts about winter.
This is one of my fave seasons to use because there is so much theme smashing you can do between clothing, weather, transportation, and activities.
Check out these blog posts:
–Ideas for Winter Crafts to Use in Speech
–Winter Sequencing Short Stories for Speech Therapy
–Winter Activities for Speech Therapy
Real Talk SLP Podcasts:
–5 Winter-Themed Books for Mod-Severe Caseloads
–Winter YouTube Videos for Older Students
