Penguin Basic Concepts: Tips for How to Build Vocabulary
When implementing a theme-based approach, you can target a lot of prepositions and basic concepts with themed toys and props. One of my favorite winter themes is penguins. They are the CUTEST animals and live near icebergs. Today, I will be sharing how you can target basic concepts using penguin-themed items! Penguin basic concept activities can be very hands-on, so your students will love the therapy session!
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Penguin Basic Concepts Props to Use
Items that are great for targeting prepositions and basic concepts are listed as follows:
Figurines or a plush penguin toy–Here is a set with different hats and scarves
Ice or icebergs–mini white plastic trash can or styrofoam (buy a trash can from Dollar Tree or save your styrofoam packaging)
Plastic egg–use a plastic Easter egg, a plastic egg from your play food sets, or these fake ones!
Tips for Teaching Spatial Basic Concepts
Items that are great for targeting prepositions and basic concepts are listed as follows:
Figurines or a plush penguin toy–Here is a set with different hats and scarves
Ice or icebergs–mini white plastic trash can or styrofoam (buy a trash can from Dollar Tree or save your styrofoam packaging)
Plastic egg–use a plastic Easter egg, a plastic egg from your play food sets, or these fake ones!
Penguin Basic Concepts to Target in a Session
Some basic concepts you can target with penguins to mark location are as follows:
- Over/under
- Under
- Next to
- Between
- In/out
- In front/behind
- Across/through
- On/off
- Top/bottom (of the iceberg)
To work on ordinal numbers for position in a line, you can work on first, last, before, and after. Penguins can be standing in line to dive off the iceberg. You can target “Who is first, last.” When targeting “before,” and “after,” have the penguins do a sequence of actions and discuss what they did before they jumped in the water.
Targeting Basic Concepts in Play Therapy
To implement play therapy with the child, allow them to explore the items and watch how they are interacting with them. If your student is engaging in more parallel play, you can simply model the basic concepts next to the child. Or, you can narrate where the penguin is with the targeted basic concept.
Before diving into a child-led play activity, you can plan some direct intervention where you are demonstrating the basic concepts for the session. It can be beneficial to pick basic concept pairs that go together such as “in” and “out” or “in front” and “behind.” Provide some structured practice with the items and then allow time to have the child play without explicit instruction from you.
Check out this blog post for more tips on how to implement play therapy.
Penguin Speech Therapy Activity Lesson Plans
Don’t stress about all the other speech and language goals you have to treat! Here are some blog posts to make planning with penguins easier:
Love the penguin theme, but don’t have time to go searching for materials? Use this penguin language lesson plan guide for your whole class and small group instruction.
If you are looking for some penguin speech therapy activities to make planning easier, here are some ideas for your elementary caseload.
For all the details about how to make a penguin sensory bin, check out this blog post!
