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Keeping your students motivated to practice their speech sounds can be tricky! Getting high trials with articulation and phonology goals helps with generalization, so we need productive sessions. I have a bunch of fall articulation drill activities that you can do to get higher trials and keep kids engaged while practicing. These articulation drill ideas are perfect for a pumpkin, apple, squirrel, or fall season theme!
During the fall season, the leaves change and fall off the trees. Using concepts about leaves falling is a great way to increase productions. You can use colored cardstock and pom balls to have students let leaves fall off the tree after every speech sound production.
Feed a leaf mouth fall-colored pom poms for every production as another option (we have the leaf printable in the Themed Therapy SLP membership.)
Put a printed set of articulation flashcards uncut on the bottom of a container. Add fake leaves on top and have kids rake the leaves away to reveal the speech sound word to practice. You can also throw in some of your sound-specific mini trinkets to have students rake the leaves to find their items in this easy fall sensory bin. You can use the articulation picture cards from my Any Craft Companion on TPT or the themed articulation flashcards in the Themed Therapy SLP membership. We have pumpkins, apples, squirrel, fall, and more themed articulation cards.
You can do many drill play speech therapy activities with an apple theme! Pretend you are at an apple picking farm and have students put red pom pom balls in toilet paper roll apple trees or make apple trees with Velcro dots to pick apples. Bring a toy tractor to fill up with apples being picked. Use Little People or other figurines and give them names with your student’s target sound. Think of sound-loaded phrases to use while apple-picking. You can see this in action on my Instagram.
If you own the game Hi Ho Cherrio, use the apple figurines to fill up the basket. Every time your student practices, they get to put an apple in the bucket. When they are all in the bucket, then play the game or move on to a new activity. Another fun way to do trials is using apple orchard mats (in the Themed Therapy SLP membership) and have them put little apple playdough on the trees for every production.
For those that want to do pretend play, do an apple pie baking play activity. As your student is practicing their speech sounds, they can fill up the pie tins with filling.
Pumpkins are a fun fall speech and language theme to do with your caseload. Incorporating pumpkin games and props with your speech sound practice can be a lot of fun.
In the themed therapy SLP membership we have a variety of open-ended pumpkin games that can be paired with any articulation cards or word lists. One of my faves is the roll-and-cover game mats that you can use with a magnetic wand or make your pumpkins to cover the game mat with orange pom poms with green pipe cleaners glued on top as the vine.
Throw your DIY pumpkins into a pumpkin patch sensory bin, and have students roll a die to see how many pumpkins they can collect. Whoever has the most at the end wins. Practice their speech sounds every time they get a pumpkin.
A squirrel theme is one of the BEST fall speech and language themes to use with your caseload! These little critters are all around during the fall season and make it fun for some articulation drill practice. Print a squirrel face and cut a hole for its mouth. Feed the squirrel, brown pom poms, real acorns or acorns from your Sneaky Snacky Squirrel game. Use the fun Sneaky Snacky Squirrel game as a way to get high trials. I share all my best tips for high trials on Instagram. Use squirrel figurines to collect articulation cards or acorns around your room while you have student practice in between hunting for acorns.
I hope these fall articulation activities give you some new inspiration for bringing articulation drill to life! What fall articulation drill activities do you plan with your students? Share in the comments.
