You either love or hate crafts as an SLP. While I am not a fan of messy crafts that involve glitter and expensive craft supplies, I am down to do crafts that help my students stay engaged. And, if you can use the craft as a functional therapy tool, it’s a go for me! Try these easy summer crafts for your speech therapy sessions when you need to find engaging activities that pair well with a summer-themed book.
The summer crafts in this blog post require minimal supplies that you can afford or hopefully find in your school supply room.
Craft Supplies You Need for Summer Crafts
Here are the things you will need (Amazon affiliate links included for your convenience):
- Glue
- Scissors
- Construction Paper or Cardstock
- Paper Plates (You can find these at Dollar Tree)
- Speech and Language Word Lists or Pictures
Paint - Tissue Paper Squares or Dot Markers
Some of the crafts featured in this blog post are from the summer crafts for the speech therapy set.
Beach-Themed Crafts for Speech Therapy
If you are doing a beach theme, make a kid buried in the sand craft! You will have one craft template and can print targets for your speech or language goals. Every student does one craft in your therapy sessions but has targets for practicing their goals.
Easy planning for you and keeps students engaged! And they can take it home for home practice.
Ocean-Animal Crafts for Speech Therapy
There are LOTS of fun low prep ocean animal crafts that you can pair with your favorite books. This craft is fun because you can glue targets on the inside of the craft and then use it to work on basic concepts and with your pretend play activities. For more ocean-themed craft ideas and books to pair with them, check out this blog post.
Summer Crafts That Pair Well With The Summer Season
Making a sun with a paper plate or just with construction paper is perfect for summer because it’s hot outside! You can have students glue or write words on the sun rays or on the back of the paper plate. If you are working on summer weather concepts, you can write activities you can do when it is hot outside. Or, write down things that are hot and cold!
For more ideas for how to use this sun craft, check out the REEL on Instagram.
You can also make a lemonade craft or easy tissue paper or paint crafts for a summer 4th of July BBQ. Check out the pictures below. The lemonade craft is part of the summer crafts for speech therapy resources. And, the watermelon and fireworks low prep crafts are from the summer push-in lesson plan guides.
S’mores Craft For Speech Therapy
LOTS of kids are eating s’mores over the summer whether they are camping or having backyard firepit hangouts. This is an easy craft to do and pairs well with a camping theme! Need this template? It’s part of the summer craft set.
Books to Pair With These Summer Crafts for Speech Therapy
Beach Day by Karen Roosa has fantastic pictures! After reading this book, I had my students create a beach theme, and then they got to sprinkle natural sand on their craft with Elmer’s glue. You can read about it HERE!!
A Camping Spree With Mr. Magee by Chris Van Dusen is a great little story about camping. You can read about some of my camping-themed therapy ideas that I did last year.
When a Dragon Moves In by Jodi Moore is a fabulous beach-themed book! You could create a sandcastle or dragon craft with this book!
Alex and The Amazing Lemonade Stand by Liz & Jay Scott look like a fun read! I just ordered it. It would go perfectly with my Ice Cold Lemonade Craftivity.
What Summer Crafts Do You Love to Use With Your Summer Themed Activities?
What crafts do you love to use for the summer season? If you have one that is easy to prep and engages your students, share it in the comments! As always, tag me on social media @thedabblingspeechie if you use one of these crafts so I can see what you are up to in your speech therapy room.