Engaging Ice Cream Speech Therapy Activities

Engaging Ice Cream Speech Therapy Activities

by | May 28, 2023 | Themed Speech Therapy, Therapy Materials, Uncategorized

During the summer months, planning an ice cream speech therapy unit for your elementary caseload is the BEST! There are lots of ways to adapt this theme for younger and older students. You won’t regret planning ice cream activities because your students will stay engaged while they practice their speech and language. I mean, what kid doesn’t love talking about ice cream? It’s seriously the best summer treat.

Ice Cream Activities with Toy Sets & Dramatic Play

Learn tips for ice cream speech therapy toys and activities to plan therapy with ease!

If you are working with preschool through 2nd grade, investing in a pretend play ice cream toy set is worth it! I got the Melissa and Doug ice cream toy set, and LOTS of my 4th-5th graders begged me to play with it when they saw it from a previous speech session.

You can target many speech and language goals using a play-based speech therapy approach with an ice cream toy set. 

Here are a few recommendations for an ice cream set:

You can turn your speech room into an extra cool therapy space and make a dramatic play ice cream shop. Get more preschool ice cream speech therapy activities for easy planning. 

 

Ice Cream Speech Therapy Activities You Can Eat

Teach your students science and cover speech therapy goals while making ice cream in a bag! Your students will be engaged to learn because, in the end, they get to taste a yummy ice cream treat that they made.

To learn more about how to make the ice cream in the bag, here is a recipe. Plus, you can use the SciShow Video to discuss the process, answer wh-questions, and teach tier II vocabulary words such as crave, flavor, measure, or melt. 

For articulation and phonology goals, you can have students use challenge words or phrases with their sound, such as “flavor” for l-blends or R, “three, ice cream, ingredients, and cream” for r-blends, “shake” for SH or “salt” for s.

Because you have to use different-sized bags, you can target big/little as well as vocabulary for cooking!

When targeting language goals, you can work on sequencing the steps for making the ice cream focusing on transition words, verbs, sentence structure, and vocabulary. If you need visual supports for this activity, my ice cream push-in language unit has some! 

If you need some visual recipes for ice cream in a bag or milkshakes, Live Love Speech has a great set for your push-in whole-class lessons or small groups.

Get some ice cream preschool activities to use in your speech therapy sessions.

Ice Cream Speech Therapy Sensory Bins

Check out these ice cream activities you can use with your speech therapy students

Work on verbs such as scoop, sprinkle, eat, give, and melt with an ice cream sensory bin. To make your sensory bin, you can use the kinetic sand kit from Lakeshore Learning or add the following to your container (Amazon affiliate links are included):

 

You can incorporate the following basic concepts:

  • big/little
  • more/less
  • full/empty
  • in/out
  • hot/cold
  • colors
  • first/last
  • open/close

Think about the goals on your caseload and come up with a little cheat sheet list of words or concepts you can target while playing with the bin!

Ice Cream Sequencing Activities for Language Goals

Sequencing the steps for making ice cream in a bag, creating an ice cream sundae, or root beer float is a great way to incorporate a variety of language goals such as sentence structure, transition words, vocabulary, answering wh-questions, morphology, and speech sounds in sentences. Use the Ice Cream Sequencing Boom Cards and sequencing short stories from the Themed Therapy Membership to cover goals easily!

Get some ideas for your ice cream speech therapy unit that you can use to increase engagement and target a LOT of goals.

Ice Cream Lesson Plan With STEAM 3D Shapes

Ice cream speech therapy lesson plan ideas for your elementary caseload.

Anytime you can do an easy hands-on activity to cover speech and language goals,  you should do it! Kids are way more engaged when they have something they can create. This STEAM 3D ice cream lesson plan can help you cover 2D and 3D shapes but also target lots more skills. You can get all the printables for FREE and target tier II vocabulary for predicting, adjusting, formulating, and hypothesizing.

Naturally, practice adding suffixes for ‘est’ to discuss the weakest or strongest spheres. Make a list of words to target while doing the activity with your student’s speech sound. And use the 3D cone to fill with pom pom balls for every production. How else could you use this 3D shapes ice cream lesson plan with your caseload? Let me know in the comments.

What Ice Cream Activities Do You Plan With Your Caseload?

If you have a website, activity, or resource you love using with your ice cream speech therapy lesson plans, let me know in the comments. Sharing what you are doing with your students gives SLPs ideas for what they can do too! Loving an ice cream theme and want to save time planning? Check out this list on Amazon (affiliate links) of ice cream books, activities, games, and props to make your ice cream speech therapy lesson planning easier!

Ice cream activities for your Prek-5th grade speech therapy caseload.
EP 98 Easy Outdoor Speech Therapy Activities for Elementary

EP 98 Easy Outdoor Speech Therapy Activities for Elementary

by | May 23, 2023 | Real Talk SLP

If the weather is nice in the spring and summer months, taking speech therapy outside can be just what you need to re-engage your students! In today’s Real Talk SLP podcast, I am sharing LOTS of easy outdoor speech therapy activities you can do that don’t scrimp on targeting speech and language goals. It’s okay to ditch the worksheets and target goals outside in a naturalistic setting. I hope you find some new outdoor speech therapy activities you can use with your Prek-5th grade caseload!

 Amazon affiliate links are provided for your convenience. I receive a small commission for purchases made with my link. 

Summer Speech Therapy Activities for Prek-5th

Iconic-gestures-coaching

 For SLPs working this summer with private clients or during ESY services (summer school) make therapy planning easier with ready-to-go summer speech therapy activities you can use with Prek-5th grade. 

 

If you need push-in lessons to rock ESY services, this language lesson plan bundle has everything you need to love working summer school without stress!

The Themed Therapy SLP Membership has themes for pets, beach, food, water activities, sports, and ice cream for June and July!

Outdoor Speech Therapy Activities Shared in the Episode:

 

  1. Go on an I spy nature walk or a bug hunt (look for real bugs or toss some fake ones in the grass). Get some I Spy speech and language activities that you can do outside on the playground or yard. Get your free I Spy language games to use in therapy and to coach parents. 
  2. Play Red light, Green light outside and work on fast/slow, AAC CORE words go/stop, teach colors, or pick words that have your student’s speech sounds. For more variations, Empowered Parents has some good suggestions. 
  3. Do art projects you can take outdoors to work on speech and language goals like this –windsock craft
  4. Use sidewalk chalk to do hopscotch, play chalk Boggle, write answer choices to hop to when asked, and more!
  5. Head to the school’s playground to do beach ball prepositions, make an obstacle course and target basic and spatial concepts with the playground equipment. 
  6. Who doesn’t LOVE bubbles? There are many ways to adapt bubbles, and it’s a lot more fun under the sun. Relay races or challenges to target basic concepts, wh-questions, spatial concepts
  7. Bring your toys outside. Do therapy at a picnic table or on the grass. You can do the same toy activities but just change up the scenery.
  8. Plan a pretend or real picnic for a whole class lesson.
  9. Go visit the school’s garden or plant flowers outside. For more info on how to teach the plant life cycle, check out this blog post.   
  10. Do pool noodle tag to work on social communication, “who questions” such as “Who is it?” or every time someone tags a person, they have to say their challenge word that has their speech sound.
    <br /> Go on an I spy nature walk or a bug hunt (look for real bugs or toss some fake ones in the grass). Get some I Spy speech and language activities that you can do outside on the playground or yard. Get your free I Spy language games to use in therapy and to coach parents.<br /> Play Red light, Green light outside and work on fast/slow, AAC CORE words go/stop, teach colors, or pick words that have your student’s speech sounds. For more variations, Empowered Parents has some good suggestions.<br /> Do art projects you can take outdoors to work on speech and language goals like this -windsock craft<br /> Use sidewalk chalk to do hopscotch, play chalk Boggle, write answer choices to hop to when asked, and more!<br /> Head to the school’s playground to do beach ball prepositions, make an obstacle course and target basic and spatial concepts with the playground equipment.<br /> Who doesn’t LOVE bubbles? There are many ways to adapt bubbles, and it’s a lot more fun under the sun. Relay races or challenges to target basic concepts, wh-questions, spatial concepts<br /> Bring your toys outside. Do therapy at a picnic table or on the grass. You can do the same toy activities but just change up the scenery.<br /> Plan a pretend or real picnic for a whole class lesson.<br /> Go visit the school’s garden or plant flowers outside. For more info on how to teach the plant life cycle, check out this blog post.<br /> Do pool noodle tag to work on social communication, “who questions” such as “Who is it?” or every time someone tags a person, they have to say their challenge word that has their speech sound.<br />
    Go on an I spy nature walk or a bug hunt (look for real bugs or toss some fake ones in the grass). Get some I Spy speech and language activities that you can do outside on the playground or yard. Get your free I Spy language games to use in therapy and to coach parents. Play Red light, Green light outside and work on fast/slow, AAC CORE words go/stop, teach colors, or pick words that have your student’s speech sounds. For more variations, Empowered Parents has some good suggestions. Do art projects you can take outdoors to work on speech and language goals like this -windsock craft Use sidewalk chalk to do hopscotch, play chalk Boggle, write answer choices to hop to when asked, and more! Head to the school’s playground to do beach ball prepositions, make an obstacle course and target basic and spatial concepts with the playground equipment. Who doesn’t LOVE bubbles? There are many ways to adapt bubbles, and it’s a lot more fun under the sun. Relay races or challenges to target basic concepts, wh-questions, spatial concepts Bring your toys outside. Do therapy at a picnic table or on the grass. You can do the same toy activities but just change up the scenery. Plan a pretend or real picnic for a whole class lesson. Go visit the school’s garden or plant flowers outside. For more info on how to teach the plant life cycle, check out this blog post. Do pool noodle tag to work on social communication, “who questions” such as “Who is it?” or every time someone tags a person, they have to say their challenge word that has their speech sound.

    What Outside Speech Therapy Activities Could You Plan?

    If you have any fun games or activity ideas for doing speech therapy outside, share them in the comments. It’s always great to get more ideas for increasing engagement with your students. There is something about going outside that is motivating for kids. Plus, you can’t beat the vitamin D, either!

    EP 98 Easy Outdoor Speech Therapy Activities for Elementary

    by The Dabbling Speechie

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    Dog Themed Games for Speech Therapy

    Dog Themed Games for Speech Therapy

    by | May 19, 2023 | Themed Speech Therapy, Toys for Speech

    A pet or dog theme is one of the best themes you can plan for your speech therapy caseload! Kids love dogs, and it’s an easy theme to adapt to. Plus, there are LOTS of dog-themed game and toy options, making planning for mixed groups easier! Today, I want to share a round-up of all the best dog-themed games and toys you can use with preschool and elementary students. 

    The cool thing about using a dog theme is that you can plan it anytime! If you need more year-round preschool themes, I got you covered in this blog post. 

    How Many Themed Games and Toys Do I Need For My Speech Therapy Caseload?

    dog-speech-therapy-toys

    If you are just getting started with planning by themes, do not read this blog post and think you have to purchase EVERY dog toy and game shared. You are likely on a budget and don’t need every toy to make a theme-based approach work well.

    When looking for themed games and toys, you want to consider the price and how adaptable it is for your caseload.

    If it can be used for a wide range of skills and ages, that’s a plus! Or, if it provides fun manipulatives that you can use with the game rules or adapt for other activities like sensory bins, that is something to think about too!

    And, if you score it at a Thrift store, even better!

     I try only to purchase themed toys and games to fill an area on my caseload. For example, if I work with a lot of prek-2nd graders, a dog toy set is something I will probably invest in because it would be used all the time. 

    Dog-Themed Toy Sets for Play-Based Speech Therapy

    You will need a dog toy set if you work with the prek-2nd grade crew!

    Here are some of my faves:

    Struggle with how to use toys in your play-based speech therapy sessions? You will stress less when you have a toy companion cheat sheet guide to reference in your sessions. The toy companions come with a cheat sheet for a dog toy set, and the Pet Vet Hospital set. 

    dog-themed-games-speech-therapy

    Pet Store Dramatic Play Setup

    dog-themed-preschool

    For those who love to transform your rooms into a themed dramatic play center, check out how to make a pet store dramatic play from Pocket of Preschool. If you want to make a dramatic Vet play-based activity, Melissa and Doug’s Pet Vet Play Set looks great!

    Or, if you are teaching how to take care of dogs or need props for retelling dog-themed books, this Melissa and Doug Feeding and Grooming Pet Care Play Set would be awesome! Or, grab your dog stuffie and buy dog toys and supplies from Dollar Tree to DIY it!

    Dog-Themed Games for Preschool to Early Elementary

    If you are looking for dog-themed games for your preschool and early elementary caseload, here are some great speech therapy game options:

    Reinforcer Speech Therapy Games for Elementary Ages

    dog-theme-preschool-speech-therapy

    The life of an elementary SLP is filled with mixed groups! Often it’s nice to have a reinforcer speech therapy game to use in a session. Here are the dog-themed games for elementary ages:

    What Dog-Themed Toys & Games Do You Use?

    Do you have a dog toy or game you love using with students? How do you target speech and language goals? Please share in the comments your favorite dog toys, props, or games and how you use them in your speech therapy sessions!

    dog-themed-games-speech-therapy
    EP 97 Iconic Gestures Strategy for Coaching Teachers During Reading

    EP 97 Iconic Gestures Strategy for Coaching Teachers During Reading

    by | May 16, 2023 | Real Talk SLP

    If you have students on your speech therapy caseload with language disorders, particularly with areas of need in vocabulary development, you can improve vocabulary skills by implementing a coaching model in the classroom setting. Oftentimes SLPs serve students in a pullout model to work on language goals. But, what if you did pullout sessions paired with a weekly or monthly coaching model to help teachers use iconic gestures while reading picture books to their class? In this episode of the Real Talk SLP podcast, I break down iconic gestures as an easy strategy to help students improve their vocabulary skills.

    What You Will Learn About Iconic Gestures in This Episode:

    Iconic-gestures-coaching

     

    • What are iconic gestures?
    • Examples of different types of iconic gestures
    • Why pair iconic gestures with vocabulary words is such an easy and powerful strategy for vocabulary building
    • Discuss the importance of vocabulary development for academic success
    • Explain how iconic gestures can help reinforce vocabulary and comprehension
    • Tips for how you can implement a coaching model in the classroom

    Coaching model Real Talk Episodes Mentioned:

     

    Ep 67 Tips for Implementing a Coaching Model in Teletherapy

    Ep 27 Tips for Parent Coaching

    Ep 41 Collaborative Service Models

    Ep 43 Parent Coaching During Daily Routines

     

    Research Articles Mentioned:

     

    Vogt, S., & Kauschke, C. (2017). Observing iconic gestures enhances word learning in typically developing children and children with specific language impairment. Journal of Child Language. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0305000916000647

      Iconic-gestures-coaching

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      Simple Color Sensory Bins That Are Versatile for Speech Therapy

      Simple Color Sensory Bins That Are Versatile for Speech Therapy

      by | May 9, 2023 | sensory bins, Uncategorized

      If you have been on the struggle bus trying to find activities that keep kids engaged and their hands busy, try sensory bins. Specifically, color sensory bins because these are easy to make, and so, so versatile for targeting speech and language goals. Today, I am going to share how you can teach colors to preschool and kindergarten students as well as a LOT of other speech and language goals.

      Amazon affiliate links are included for your convenience. I earn a small commission for affiliate links included at no additional cost. 

      Items to Add to Your Color Sensory Bins

      color-sensory-bins-speech-therapy

      For your color sensory bins, you can add the colored pom poms you are targeting. If you are doing a rainbow-colored sensory bin, add in rainbow colored rice or popcorn, multi-colored pom poms.

      To combine printables and physical items, go through your play food sets, figurines, and game sets for items with the color you want to target. For color printables, use the flashcards from the color sensory bin companion. 

      If you need mini trinkets or figurines, here are some of my favorites that can be thrown into your bin:

      You can get some organization ideas by reading this post on organizing your sensory bin materials. 

      Books to Pair with the Color Sensory Bins

      One of my favorite ways to use sensory bins is to pair them with books. You can start the session by reading a story and then use the color sensory bin to carry over vocabulary and concepts with your students. Check out all my favorite color books to find one that works best for your speech therapy caseload. 

      color-sensory-bins-speech-therapy

      Ways to Teach Colors With the Sensory Bin

      teaching-colors-in-preschool

      Teaching colors to preschool and kindergarten, students is a skill teachers work on with activities in their curriculum. Furthermore, when you teach colors to students, it is a beginning adjective word you can use to describe nouns when working on syntax and morphology goals. Plus, colors are a category group, and you can show how groups of items go together because of their color. You can get all the details about how to teach categories to help your students build their vocabularies. To help students understand how items can be categorized by color, you can put out color printable sorting mats (these are in the color sensory bin printable resource) or colored containers for students to put the item that matches the color.  I love how Play to Learn Preschool used color masking tape with water bottles as a color sorting sensory bin with rainbow pom poms. 

      Hands On As We Grow had a great idea of making tubes out of colored paper with rubber bands as sorting tubes. 

       

      More Tips for Teaching Colors With Sensory Bins

      For students that would benefit from learning one color at a time, have students hunt around for items by giving them cues such as “Find the blue fish.” You can set up two color mats or two colored containers so students can sort all the “blue items” on the blue mat. Having two sorting mats helps you see if the child is associating the items with the correct color.

       

      When students appear to receptively understand the color, introduce expressive language tasks by having the student tell you or another child what to find. For example, the student can say, “Find red cherries.” Pair this activity with a sentence strip and have the child make a sentence at their level. If the child is using 2-word phrases, you can have them try to work on expanding to three to four-word sentences such as “I see red cherries.”

      activities-to-teach-colors-speech-therapy

      Speech Sound Goals to Target with the Color Sensory Bin

      The beauty of color sensory bins is that you can often find items that fit your student’s speech sounds. For example, if you made a yellow-colored sensory bin, you could add items with your student’s sound, such as lemon, school bus, bell pepper, yellow crayon, tennis ball, pineapple, and sunflower, all have the L sound. Or,  you can come up with a sound-loaded phrase such as “I see ____” for /s/, “I like ___” for K, or “I spotted _____” for s-blends.

       

      Students can go on an I Spy sound hunt with the color sensory bin to find items with their sounds. You can also work on auditory awareness and judge if the item has the student’s sound.

      teaching-colors-ESL

      Language Goals You Can Teach With the Sensory Bin

       

      As SLPs, we work on a lot of different language goals. So, a perk of using a color sensory bin is that we can adapt it to target what each student is working on in speech. Here are some ideas for how to use the bins for language goals:

       

      • Describing items by attributes (i.e. category, location, parts, function, texture, size, etc.)
      • Answering wh-questions about the item
      • Target yes/no questions about the color or item
      • Use in a sentence to work on sentence structure and morphology
      • Share opinions if the child likes or doesn’t like the item
      • Expressively name the color of the item
      • Compare and contrast two of the colored items by similarities and differences
      • If you have multiples of items you can work on singular and plurals
      • Work on “who” questions by giving items to students in the group or to stuffies and ask, “Who has the green hose?”
      • Give inference clues to find items in the sensory bin

      What Speech Therapy Goals Would You Target with Color Sensory Bins?

      How would you use this sensory bin to teach colors or other speech and language goals on your caseload? Share your ideas in the comments. Any way we can adapt speech therapy material to cover more goals is a plus!

      teaching-colors-to-kindergarten-speech-therapy
      Ep 96 Easy Tips for Collecting Language Samples

      Ep 96 Easy Tips for Collecting Language Samples

      by | May 9, 2023 | Real Talk SLP, Uncategorized

      Taking a language sample for your speech therapy assessments can feel daunting because you are on a time crunch to get all your assessments done. And, if your students aren’t the most chatty, it can be really difficult to get those 50-100 utterances. Even though informal language samples can feel like a pain, it is a great assessment tool that can give you valuable information about your student’s language development. Today on the Real Talk SLP podcast, I have Allison Fors on the podcast to share her best tips for collecting a language sample!

      Language Sample Tips Discussed in This Episode:

      language-samples
      • Language samples are critical for assessing one’s speech and they allow us to gather a variety of data to look at a student’s syntax, morphology, semantics, comprehension and narrative language. 
      • Tips for taking language samples
      • How to encourage student participation during a language sample
      • Tools and materials for collecting language samples
      •  

      Need Support with Grammar Intervention for Your Prek-5th Grade Caseload?

       

      If you have been struggling with where to begin with grammar intervention and how to embed evidence-based strategies into your therapy activities, come attend the LIVE webinar “Effective Grammar Strategies for Language Therapy” with Allison Fors and myself! You will get one hour of Clinical Maintainance Hours, resources and tools for where to start in therapy, and LOTS of therapy ideas you can implement tomorrow (we are giving you ready-to-go resources with your ticket.) Get on the waitlist for the webinar and receive a promo code for $5 off when ticket sales open up.

        language-samples

        Blog Posts and Resources Mentioned in This Episode:

        language-samples

        Tips for Taking Language Samples by Allison Fors

        Grammar Development Handouts by Allison Fors

        Picture Scenes for Speech Therapy Blog Post by Allison Fors 

        Picture Scenes for Speech Therapy Blog Post by Felice Clark

        Bilingual Assessment Cheat Sheets Resource by Felice Clark 

        Audacity

         

        How to Stay Connected with Allison Fors

         

        Instagram

        Website

        Facebook

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        SLP Inspirational Quote When Overwhelmed

        SLP Inspirational Quote When Overwhelmed

        by | May 2, 2023 | Real Talk SLP, Uncategorized

        As SLPs, we are juggling A LOT! Especially if we work in the school setting. Between the high caseloads, piles of paperwork, and trying to stay up-to-date with best practices, it’s easy to get overwhelmed with the job. And, staying inspired about being an SLP when you feel ineffective with the giant workload given to you is real. In today’s episode of the Real Talk SLP podcast, I will break down an SLP inspirational quote by Arthur Ash that helped me push through when things were rough in my job.

         

        I hope that this helps bring new inspiration in dealing with some very difficult work environments. 

        Here are some points I share in the episode:

        SLP-inspirational-quote-overwhelmed

        • Start where you are

          1. It’s okay to be a beginner at something. 
          2. Working with staff on a new collaborative service model or trying to get them on board with trying a strategy takes time. It’s okay to start small.

          Use what you have

          1. Don’t go prepping tons of materials when you are overwhelmed. Use what you already have prepped. Then, use it over and over again. Join the Themed Therapy SLP membership if you need Prek-5th grade themed-based materials to help you plan with less stress. 
          2. Use your abilities to bring to life your sessions. Your students come to see you above all else.

          Do what you can

          1. When we serve high caseloads or heavy workloads with many different needs, it’s easy to think you aren’t doing enough for your students. Find small ways to make a difference in your students’ lives.
          2. Sometimes we must think outside the box for creative ways to serve our students well.
          3. Advocate for your students, your workload, your space, etc., but during the process of that, remember that small steps lead to big leaps. The change will happen if you keep moving forward, no matter how small the step is.

        Do what you can

        1. When we serve high caseloads or heavy workloads with many different needs, it’s easy to think you aren’t doing enough for your students. Find small ways to make a difference in your students’ lives.
        2. Sometimes we must think outside the box for creative ways to serve our students well.
        3. Advocate for your students, your workload, your space, etc., but during the process of that, remember that small steps lead to big leaps. The change will happen if you keep moving forward, no matter how small the step is.
        SLP-inspirational-quote

        Need Support with Grammar Intervention for Your Prek-5th Grade Caseload?

        language-samples

        If you have been struggling with where to begin with grammar intervention and how to embed evidence-based strategies into your therapy activities, come attend the LIVE webinar “Effective Grammar Strategies for Language Therapy” with Allison Fors and myself! You will get one hour of Clinical Maintainance Hours, resources and tools for where to start in therapy, and LOTS of therapy ideas you can implement tomorrow (we are giving you ready-to-go resources with your ticket.) Get on the waitlist for the webinar and receive a promo code for $5 off when ticket sales open up.

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        Speech Therapy L Sound Activities That Are Effective!

        Speech Therapy L Sound Activities That Are Effective!

        by | Apr 28, 2023 | articulation, Uncategorized

        All our students learn so differently. One student may respond to a cue we always use, but another may struggle to produce their target sound. There’s always a new trick to learn and an activity to add to our toolbox. I wrote this speech therapy L sound articulation post to help add to your toolbox, to use as your call for backup during a busy week, and whatever else you might need to work on the L sound in syllables, words, sentences, reading, and conversation. 

         

        This blog post contains Amazon affiliate links for your convenience. I receive a small commission at no additional cost to you.

        Resources for Teaching the L Sound in Speech Therapy

        First step, elicit that L sound. Here are some helpful links for this first step.

          Speech-therapy-L-sound-activities

          L Sound in Isolation and Syllables

          speech-therapy-L-sound
          • Once you’ve elicited the L sound, practice it in isolation. You can use this free printable from Adventures in Speech Pathology to get repeated practice with the L sound in isolation. Don’t forget to grab some dot markers, crayons, or markers for your students to color as they practice! 

           

           

          Get Your Free Syllable Speech Sound Practice Sheets

          Speech Therapy L Sounnd Words Activities

          Next on the L Articulation to do list? Practice the L sound in syllables and words! Here are some ideas.

           

          • Keep everything in one place with these L activities speech therapy digital folders. You can easily customize quick drill activities for your in-person and teletherapy sessions. The digital folders include links to websites, YouTube videos, Google Slides, progress monitoring tools, and PDFs.

           

           

          • These FREE Speech Therapy L Word Activities Books will help get those high trials in with activities and word lists. Print, laminate, cut them out and keep them together with binder clips. No time to prep? Use the L word activity books on your iPad or computer!

           

           

          L-word-list-speech-therapy

          More L Articulation Therapy Ideas

          L-words-for-speech-therapy
          • Print out L speech word picture cards and use them for I spy games, drills, sensory bins, and more articulation activities your students enjoy! 

           

          • For kids who need movement or games that are sound-loaded, Home Speech Home has a few great suggestions. 

           

           

          • Play Lids N’ Lizards!  Head to the blog for some free printables to use this game throughout the year. 

          L Articulation Sentence Activities

          Finding that your students are ready to work on L in sentences? Here are some ideas for you!

          • Make L sound-loaded phrases with your students on paper that you can practice in the session. Then, your students can take this paper home for weekly homework.

           

          • For example, you can use the phrase “Look at the ______.” Then, students think of different words. They don’t have to have an L because the word your student will be working on is “look.” When using mixed groups, give them a category group to name items.
          • If you’re doing a theme-based approach, you can do this activity but use the themed vocabulary. See this IG for more details. 

           

          • Compare and contrast similar nouns that contain the L sound. For example, lemon and lime or pool and lake would be great L words to compare. If you need pre-selected compare-and-contrast flashcards, check out the L articulation carryover set. 
          L-sound-speech-therapy
          L-words-for-speech-therapy

           

          • With your words lists, have your students create tongue twisters that they can practice. You can even have them illustrate their tongue twister to make a fun speech sound book. For example, you could use “Lucy loves long walks around the lake” or “Lionel left his lunch in his locker.”

           

          • Play guessing games for secret words that only have the L sound. Add in carrier phrases for people to use like “My lips are sealed, but here is a clue: ______” 

          Speech Therapy Crafts for the L Sound

          Many kids get super motivated when they have created something of their own. I’ve made a list of some fun L sound crafts for you and your students.

          • Make speech sound wallets that your students can store in their speech folders or use for practice at home. 

           

           

          • With construction paper, glue, markers and a hole punch, your students can create this cute ladybug hole punch craft from Speech Sprouts. Each time you practice a word, they can punch a new hole in the ladybug wings!
          L-articulation-activities

          L Sound Conversation Activities

          When your students have mastered the sentence level, it’s time for reading and conversation!

          • My L and L-blend conversation activities includes data sheets, short stories, non-fiction passages, compare and contrast cards, conversation starters, sequencing cards, problem solving bingo and a mystery delivery activity. It also includes a digital option for all activities included! 
          • Use some L sound-loaded non-fiction articles for students to read aloud. 
            • Check out Wonderopolis and readworks.org for more L sound-loaded articles. For example, students can read about Abraham Lincoln or about lizards.
          • Make sound loaded questions or would you rather games using the L sound. For example, you can ask “What do you LIKE more?” 
          • Have students read the directions of a game, or read the cards while playing a game like Bubble Talk. 

          Create a list of words that start with the L sound (laugh, lazy, lion, learn, like, look, light, large, leg) then have students make silly sentences or create a story trying to get the sound-loaded words in the story.

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          Progress Monitoring Tools for the L Sound

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          If you need quick data checks for updates on your L sound speech therapy goals, check out the L progress monitoring Google Slide and Forms in the L digital speech folder. If you are working on minimal pairs for gliding or cluster reduction, there are also progress monitoring tools for those sound pairs. 

          What Speech Therapy L Sound Activities do You Plan?

          I hope this post gave you some new ideas for cues, activities and resources when working on the L sound at all levels. There are so many ways we can work on speech sounds with our students and different ways we can support them in and out of sessions. What have you been doing during sessions to keep your students engaged while working on the L sound? Share in the comments or tag us on social to share your ideas!

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          Transportation Sorting Activities for Teaching Classification

          Transportation Sorting Activities for Teaching Classification

          by | Apr 22, 2023 | Therapy Materials, Toys for Speech, Uncategorized

          One way you can improve vocabulary in your preschool and early elementary students is building depth of knowledge with new words. And, one of the ways you can build depth of knowledge is by teaching semantic features such as the category group, function, parts, size, location, etc. In today’s blog post, I am going to share hands-on transportation sorting activities that will help you teach classification to your students in a way that sticks! Plus, you’ll learn some takeaways from research on how you can coach teachers with these transportation activities in the classroom to build vocabulary. 

           

          This blog post contains Amazon affiliate links. When you use one of my affiliate links, I receive a small commission at no additional cost. 

          Evidence-Based Practices for Teaching Vocabulary

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          For our students to have a solid understanding of a word, they must understand it beyond just labeling it. We call this depth of knowledge. A child with a strong vocabulary has formed many connections with a word to connect it to a certain context. And when we learn new words with depth, it’s way easier to fit that new word into our semantic system. So, here are some ways  you can work on vocabulary knowledge:

           

          • Provide multiple exposures to words in different activities
          • Teach the words explicitly with kid-friendly definitions
          • Identify the function or feature that would fit the word into a category group
          • Break down the word by semantic features (i.e. categories, function, location, parts, size, texture, etc.) or by how they relate to a particular theme

          A vocabulary intervention research study by Hadley et al., 2018 found that when students learned the words sharing semantic features, they could better talk about the vocabulary words in more detail.

          The structure of their study used books and guided play to work on vocabulary, and this blog post will provide lesson plan ideas for transportation using this setup! To read more about the article, head here.

          You can also hear more about teaching depth of knowledge in episode 46 of the Real Talk SLP Podcast. 

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          Transportation Books About Air, Land, and Sea 

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          To help your students work on classifying transportation by air, land, and sea, there are some great books you can use in your speech therapy sessions. You can use these transportation books as the teaching portion, where you provide many exposures and give kid-friendly definitions. Also, you can show your students why they go together because of a similar function or feature.

          Transportation!: How People Get Around by Gail Gibbons

          National Geographic Kids Look and Learn: Things that Go by National Geographic Kids

          National Geographic Little Kids First Big Book of Things That Go by Karen de Seve

           

          If you have GetEpic, these books are available on that website. Is there a particular transportation book you love to use with your students? Share in the comments of this blog post. 

          Toys for Sorting Transportation Activities

          To work on sorting transportation items by water, air, and land, having some figurines that you can use in a variety of play-based learning activities will serve you well.

          Here are some transportation figurines I have:

          In the Sky Toob set

          In the Water Toob set

          On the Road Toob set

           

          Another option for transportation manipulatives is these magnetic portable playboards or transportation rubber fridge magnets.

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          How to Use the Transportation Figurines with Speech and Language Activities 

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          With these figurines, you can make fun sensory bin activities such as this one from Teaching Special Thinkers.

          You can sort the transport items into air, land, and sea using printables from the transportation unit in the Themed Therapy SLP membership. Transportation is the themed unit for May when you are a monthly subscriber. Upgrading to the annual subscription, you can access this theme anytime during the school year. 

          Another fun way to incorporate spatial concepts while working on vocabulary and categories is to make a hands-on activity from the transportation push-in language lesson plan guide like this one. 

           

          While you are playing, you can add sound effects that match the definition of the words. For example, for the word fly or air, you can make a humming noise; for the word car or jeep, make a honking noise; for the word train, you can say choo-choo. This research article found that kids improved receptive and expressive language when the target words were paired with sound effects. 

          Tips for Using Transportation Sorting Activities in Mixed Groups

          When planning for mixed groups, we must find ways to hit LOTS of goals with one activity.

          The beauty of these air, land, and sea sorting activities is easy to adapt. First off, you can target categories and sub-categories for transportation.

          When considering different language goals, here are some skills you can target:

          • Describing the transportation items by attributes
          • Have more than one item to work on singular and plural noun markers
          • Build sentences with verb tense to explain by type of transportation item it is, such as “The car is driven on land.” or “The ship is an air transportation.”
          • Teach pronouns by having pictures or figurines and sharing “who” is driving or using the transportation item.
          • Target wh-questions
          • Give problems for using the vehicles and discuss solutions.

          When you have articulation and phonology goals in a mixed group, think of sound-loaded words that would fit your student’s speech goals. For example, if you are working on /g/, have the student say “go” every time they sort a transportation item. Or, if working on s-blends, you can have students say, “It goes in the sky. Or it doesn’t go in the sky.” Consider vehicles that have your students sound to use while sorting transportation items.

           

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          What Transportation Sorting Activities Do You Use in Speech Therapy?

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          Do you have a particular book or sorting activity that you use with your transportation-themed unit? I would love to know of any props or activities you plan to engage your students with while teaching classification with transportation items. Share in the comments! 

          Easy Ladybug Sensory Bin for Speech Therapy

          Easy Ladybug Sensory Bin for Speech Therapy

          by | Apr 15, 2023 | sensory bins, Uncategorized

          If there is one insect that I love, it’s probably ladybugs. They are cool to look at, help eat pesky bugs in your garden, and are fun to catch outside. Today, I am going to share how to make a ladybug sensory bin to increase engagement in your speech therapy sessions. You will also learn some books to pair with the ladybug sensory bin because the BEST speech therapy sessions involve a book and a hands-on activity.

          Amazon affiliate links are included in this blog post. I receive a small commission when you use my link.

          Ladybug Books for Preschool and Early Elementary

          ladybug books preschool speech therapy

          On the hunt for a ladybug book to pair with your sensory bin? Here is a list of my favorites:

           

          Items You Need for Your Ladybug Sensory Bin

          For a mini ladybug sensory bin, you need the following:

          To assemble a sensory bin in a larger latched container, you can add the following items:

           

          Ladybug-sensory-bins-speech-therapy

          How to Assemble Your Ladybug Sensory Bin

          Layer your fillers in the bottom of the bin. To add in some textures, add in sticks, leaves or flowers. Because ladybugs love to eat aphids, you could draw little circles on some of the flower petals or leaves with a permanent marker. Add in your ladybugs, and any additional materials that you want to use with your groups.

          I like to have my visual sensory bin rules handy to reinforce how to handle the sensory bin. Click the pink button to get your visual support and a free sensory bin guide. 

          Get Your Free Ultimate Sensory Bin Guide

          YouTube Videos About Ladybugs to Pair with the Bug Sensory Bin

          To stretch the excitement about the ladybug sensory bin, incorporating other materials and activities will help keep students engaged. Here are some YouTube videos you can use with ladybugs:

          ladybug-sensory-bin-speech-therapy

          Need more Insect Activities and Ideas?

          Trying to stay creative when you have a GIANT speech therapy caseload is overwhelming. Especially when you don’t have time to plan lessons. If you have been feeling all over the place when it comes to planning theme-based activities for your Prek-5th grade caseload, come join the Themed Therapy SLP membership. Our mission is to help take lesson planning off your plate so you can enjoy therapy with your students. With the monthly membership in April, you get access to activities for Prek-5th grade for the themes insects, chores, and spring/garden. If you want the annual membership, you get access to over 24 theme units at one time! Sign up here.

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          Lazy-ladygub-book-story-map-speech-therapy

          How to Use Your Sensory Bin to Cover Speech and Language Goals

          Ladybugs-preschool-speech-therapy-activities

          The coolest thing about sensory bins is that once they are prepped you can use them to cover all or most of the goals on your speech therapy caseload. Here are some ways you can adapt this bin for different articulation and language goals:

           

          • Target speech words for L, K, G, S-blends, R, CH, F, R-blends: ladybug, look, spot, very small, fly, grass, lucky, lovely, crawl, bug, insect, aphid, hatch, food, larva, 

           

          • AAC CORE vocabulary: eat, more, little, big, look, yes, no, 
          • Action verbs – crawl, fly, eat, lay, live
          • Tier II vocabulary – harmful, protect, pest, predator
          • Target basic concepts – big/little, more/less for number of spots, all/none, on/off
          • Work on prepositions with the materials in the bin for “where” the ladybug is located
          • Make a story retelling sensory bin for one of the ladybug books to work on narration
          • Answer wh-questions about “Where” and “What” the ladybugs are doing
          • Work on morphology and sentence structure with the sensory bin

           

          How would you use this ladybug sensory bin with your speech therapy groups? Share in the comments. 

          More bug sensory bin ideas

          If you are looking for more bug sensory bin ideas, check out this fun In the Tall, Tall Grass sensory bin. Pairing a hands-on extension activity with the book brings it to life! Also, you can see some more insect sensory bin ideas on this blog post. 

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