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Planning your Christmas activities for speech therapy doesn’t have to mean reinventing your whole December lesson plan. With a few fun, festive ideas, you can keep students motivated while getting in tons of meaningful articulation and phonology practice. In this post, I’m sharing my favorite Christmas articulation activities that work with any speech sound—whether you’re drilling minimal pairs, targeting high trials, or managing mixed groups. All of the activities pair perfectly with my Articulation Flashcards, so you can easily turn holiday play routines into impactful, high-repetition practice your students will love.
During December, planning festive-themed activities and games makes speech therapy sessions more engaging! Kids start to get burnt out with articulation worksheets and flashcard drills. You probably are getting bored too! That’s why having some Christmas activities for speech therapy drills will keep your students motivated & get those high repetitions. You can use many of these Christmas speech therapy activities with mixed groups working on both language and articulation goals. Plus, I am going to help you save time on planning by linking all my favorite materials and props from Amazon (I will use affiliate links). But don’t worry, you don’t have to buy a ton of stuff. Use what you have on hand, or head to the Dollar Tree to see if you can get these supplies for cheaper. It’s not necessarily about having all the fancy toys and materials, but using DIY things to make articulation and phonology drill practice feel more like play than work!
I hope these Christmas activities for speech therapy help you bring more engagement—and more meaningful articulation practice—to your sessions this month. Whether you use the jingle bell dice game, pretend play routines, or Elf-inspired drills, each activity is designed to boost repetitions while keeping your students excited to participate. If you want ready-to-go picture cards that work with all of these Christmas articulation activities, check out my Articulation Flashcards on TPT or in my shop to make December planning even easier.
If you’re looking for easy Christmas articulation activities that encourage high trials without feeling repetitive and boring, these Christmas activities are just for you! You can turn articulation and phonology drill practice into playful, motivating routines your students will actually enjoy. Whether you’re using speech therapy flashcards, mini trinkets, poppers, playdough, dot markers, sensory bins, or easy DIY games, each activity below is designed to help you get lots of meaningful repetitions in a fun and natural way. You can mix and match these activities for whole-group sessions, mixed groups, or quick five-minute warm-ups—and all of them pair perfectly with whatever articulation flashcards or wordlists you already use. Let’s jump into the Christmas activities that will make your speech therapy sessions both engaging and productive this month.
Create Christmas trees with Magnatiles. Have your students say their target word 5-10 times, then roll the dice. Add the amount of bells they rolled. Use small Christmas bells orregular-size ones. This activity pairs really well with my articulation flashcards!
Download my free Christmas BINGO game printables and Christmas game mat, and pair with the free Christmas articulation word list. You can pair with any sound! Ashley Rossi has a fun set of free Christmas articulation game mats you can use with your flashcards or word lists.
With a liquid chalk marker, make a string of lights on a cookie sheet or glass container. You can also just draw a string of lights on paper with markers! Students can add magnetic chips or colorful pom poms to make a string of Christmas lights while they practice their speech sounds. If you love worksheets, use my no-prep Christmas lights articulation worksheets.
Add binder clips to any articulation or phonology flashcard set. Have your students practice a flashcard 5-10 times, then try to knock it down with your Elf, Santa, or snowman ball popper. If they knock down a card, they get to keep it and practice their speech sound! Whoever has the most cards wins! Make sure to download my free Elf snowball fight reinforcer because you can use those with this idea too.
Make Christmas trees with playdough and have your students earn decorations for their tree by practicing their speech sounds. Use playdough andcookie cutters, or put green playdough over styrofoam cones. Add beads, foam stars, ornaments, Jingle bells, or any other fun decorations you have on hand. You can make your own green playdough with this recipe!
Cover a sheet of construction paper or a paper roll with blank candy canes. Students practice their articulation (phonology) speech sounds, and can add stripes to each candy cane or decorate it with dot markers. Once they are all covered with stripes, the activity is done! This activity pairs nicely with my articulation flipbooks, word lists, and picture word lists.
There are so many fun Christmas tree crafts and activities that you can use to incorporate speech sound drill practice. Inspire My Play has this fun Christmas tree idea where kids can build the “lights” with buttons, beads, pom poms, or stars. She suggests using sticky contact paper, but you could draw this on a piece of paper with zig-zag and wiggly lines for students to fill in as they practice. Another festive prop is a big felt Christmas tree. Students practice their speech sounds and then put up a decoration. Alternatively, if you add Velcro dots to your speech therapy flashcards, you can attach the flashcards to the tree. If you have the extra money to buy a prop, this is a cool one for other speech goals, too!
Make a felt wreath and have students add Christmas-colored pom-poms after practicing their speech sounds. This is a fun, hands-on Christmas speech therapy activity for quick drill practice.
Use these fun Christmas speech therapy printables for a fun “Feed Me” game. Students can feed Santa, Mrs. Claus, an elf or a reindeer cookies with numbers on them. This can be how many times they have to practice their speech sound or points they earn. Whoever has the most points wins!
Use a paper bag or a real stocking to pull out mystery items. You can either give kids clues (work on inferencing, too) or have them pull out an item to practice. Add in their speech therapy flashcards, mini-trinkets, or other play food or figurines. Your students can determine whether the item contains their speech sound and, if it does, practice it 10 times. This activity pairs really well with my articulation flashcard sets!
Take a square piece of construction paper and make four quadrants with washi tape to represent “ribbon” on the gift. Place one strip horizontally across the middle and lengthwise. Then, let your students create their wrapping paper. After each turn practicing their speech sound, they can use dot markers, or make stars, lines, hearts, boxes, etc. with markers.
Put mini trinkets, jingle bells, pom poms, or pictures of speech words in the Surprise Party Boxes from Learning Resources. Place the “Christmas gifts” in a sensory bin or under a mini artificial tree in your room. Students can pick a present to see what’s inside. If you do different quantities in the box, then students can see who has the most at the end. Or, just put a special bell in one of the boxes, whoever finds it wins. Practice your speech words before each turn.
Use a piece of cardboard, a handful of green pipe cleaners, painter’s tape, and a gold star to create a fun Christmas activity for speech therapy sounds! Students practice their speech sounds while they string lights (plastic craft beads) on the tree. You will keep little hands busy and conduct many speech sound trials.
I hope these Christmas activities for speech therapy provide plenty of festive ways to keep your students engaged while still delivering the meaningful, high-quality practice they need. December can feel hectic, but simple, hands-on routines such as jingle bell games, stocking surprises, tree decorating, and DIY crafts—can make articulation and phonology drills feel more like play than work. Try a few of these ideas with your groups and see which ones become new yearly favorites.
If you want grab-and-go picture cards that pair perfectly with these Christmas articulation activities, my Articulation Flashcards (available on TPT or in my shop) make planning much easier during busy months. However you celebrate the season in your therapy room, I hope these ideas help you wrap up December with more engagement, more progress, and a little more joy.
