DIY materials Archives - thedabblingspeechie

Feed the Monster Prop for Speech Therapy

by thedabblingspeechie | Oct 9, 2022 | DIY materials, Uncategorized

The ONE thing you need for your monster theme is a feed-the-monster prop! By having an easy-to-adapt-themed therapy prop, you can increase your sessions’ engagement without reinventing the wheel for activities in each mixed group session. Plus, this DIY feed the monster-themed prop is cost-effective to make! If you want to know where you can find more themed props, check out this blog post.

Supplies You Need To Make Your Feed the Monster

Amazon affiliate links are included in this blog post. Here are the supplies you need to make your Monster:

Mini trashcan – I found one at Dollar Tree before, but if they don’t have one, you can get this set on Amazon.

I have also found this one, or the container store has a mini trashcan.

Googly eyes – There are usually googly eyes at Dollar Tree, but you can also find these on Amazon or any craft store.

Pom pom balls and pipe cleaners

Hot glue gun

Open Ended Activity Idea With Your Feed the Monster Prop

Get some eyeball ping pong balls from Dollar Tree during the Halloween season and use them to feed the monster. After every turn for any speech or language goal, your students can feed the monster an eyeball. You can also feed your monster mini trinkets or put cut-up index cards face down with numbers written on them. Then, you can have your student pick a card at each turn, and they get to feed the monster that number of eyeballs or earn that amount of points. I am sure if you have smaller play food, you could also feed that to your monster! Check out the visual sentence strips in my store to get high trials at the word or sentence level. They have sound-loaded carrier phrases to help get lots of trials.

All the BEST tips for how to use a DIY feed the monster prop in speech therapy!

Themed Therapy Monster Language Activities for Push-In

If you work with prek-2nd grade students and need some monster-themed language activities for small groups and push-in therapy, this monster lesson plan guide will save you time and stress! Plus, your students will dig into all the activities and not know they are working hard to build their language skills.

Tips for Adapting This Themed Therapy Prop in Speech Therapy

The beauty of this monster prop is that you can feed him ANY flashcards you have on hand. It’s the best mixed group activity. Each child in your group can have their cards to feed the monster. If you are looking for Halloween-specific cards, there is a set in my TPT store using Halloween vocabulary to target grammar and language goals with grammar flashcards.

You can also give your monster food items and then discuss the item by adjectives such as sweet, sour, hot, cold, etc. In the monster push-in lesson plan guides there are flashcards and sentence strips for this activity.

For your students using AAC to communicate, there are a LOT of CORE words you can target while using the monster prop. While using the eyeballs, mini trinkets, small play food, or flashcards, here are some ideas for CORE words to target:

“what” – ask “what did the monster eat?”

“put” and “in/out” – while putting the eyeballs or items in and out of the monster’s mouth

“eat” and “like/don’t like” – to talk about what the monster is eating and if he liked it or not

“more” and “all done” – to feed the monster more or have him say he is all done with eating.

What CORE words would you use during this activity? Share in the comments.

If you need some low-tech AAC flipbooks and visuals, check out this resource.

How Would You Use this Monster Prop in Therapy?

Let’s share some other fun ways you would use this monster prop in therapy! Drop your ideas in the comments!

For more monster-themed therapy ideas, check out these blog posts:

Digital Monster Activities for Teletherapy

Monster Sensory Bin for Speech Therapy

Check out this blog post for monster-themed activities that are FUN

Monster Activities for Speech Therapy

Pencil Box Speech Therapy Material Ideas

by thedabblingspeechie | Aug 20, 2022 | DIY materials, Uncategorized

Most SLPs cover at least two schools and often carry our speech therapy materials from site to site. If you are one of the lucky SLPs with only one location, you may go into classrooms or pull kids out in the hallways to do quick artic sessions.

Either way, having easy-to-travel therapy materials is nice to have on hand! Today I will share pencil box speech therapy material ideas that fit compactly in your work bag and help you have engaging therapy!

Four Pencil Box Speech Therapy Material Ideas for Your Caseload

Use your pencil box to make fun stamp-it-out activities with either kinetic sand or play dough. You need a set of stamp letters and any picture-word task cards. The picture task cards in this photo are from the Letter Stamp Articulation Sets. Your students can stamp out words that have their speech sound or are related to their language goals.

Lakeshore learning is the set that I have for these activities. You can get lowercase and uppercase. If you are looking for letter stamps on Amazon, this one looks great (Amazon affiliate link)!

Use these pencil box speech therapy material ideas to help you have activities that fit in your work bag!

Quick Artic Speech Sound Pencil Box Speech Therapy

If you do quick artic groups in hallways at your school, having materials you can carry in one hand is nice!

Or, when running mixed groups, you can create individual speech sound station activities that your students can do while working with other kids in the group. Making a quick drill kit is one way to have everything ready to go. You can put your flashcards, visual cues, clickers, and anything else you can fit in the pencil box!

Here are some of the items that I fit in mine:

Articulation flipbooks – just print 4 to a page. See this demo on Instagram. Try the /l/ flipbook for free.

Magnetic wand and chips (Amazon affiliate links)

Speech word list flashcards – try this set for free

Finger Hand Tally Counters (Amazon affiliate)

Plus Plus Blocks (Amazon affiliate)

Mini trinkets – check out this blog post for how to use dinky doodads

What else could you fit in the pencil box for quick artic sessions? Share in the comments.

If you want a larger box, I have a blog post about staying organized with your speech sound goals using Michael’s container HERE.

Check out this blog post on more articulation station activities.

Make Pencil Box Sensory Bins for Speech Therapy

Another pencil box speech therapy material idea is to make pencil box sensory bins! You can check out my Instagram replay LIVE video, where I share the pros and cons of this type of container.

Use any sensory bin filler and materials on hand to make travel-sized sensory bins. Some of my favorite materials for these sized bins are from TOOBS or wild republic. And, you can find some entertaining accessories with cake decoration kits. Check out this beach sensory bin idea. It would work perfectly for a pencil box sensory bin!

One way to use your sensory bin companions in a pencil box is to print your images four to a page. It will save some paper and make the printables smaller, so they fit in the pencil box!

Use the themed verbs and vocabulary flashcard resources in the Themed Therapy SLP membership to make pencil box sensory bins.

Create Pencil Box Play-Based Toy Sets for Speech Therapy

Kids love using toys in therapy and doing pretend play activities. So, why not make some pencil box play-based toy sets to use in your speech and language sessions? You can create a fun dog play set using a mini dog set from Dollar Tree or figurines from this pretend play dog set (Amazon affiliate link.)

Some other mini toy sets you can put in a pencil box are from the Calico Critters toy line. You can store your toy dollhouse furniture in your therapy room and take the necessary pieces!

You can find other dollhouse furniture sets like this one that could fit in the pencil box. What other play-based pretend play sets could you make? I would love to hear your ideas!

What pencil box speech therapy material ideas do you have for SLPs?

It’s fun to collaborate with other SLPs to get more ideas for how to use an item. So, I want to know, “What pencil box speech therapy material ideas do you have to share?” Let me know if you use pencil boxes to store materials or create activities for your students in the comments.

Get high trials with this paper plate paddle in speech therapy!

by thedabblingspeechie | Mar 17, 2021 | craftivities, DIY materials

Has your speech sessions needed a little revival of enthusiasm to keep your students motivated to practice their speech productions in therapy? Or, maybe you have a child that is a mover and shaker and needs to get out of their seat to stay focused on their productions. In this blog post, I am going to be sharing how YOU can make paper plate paddles with your students and get high trials while also incorporating movement into your session. Plus, your students will love taking home their paper plate paddle! To learn more about how to prep this craft (spoiler alert: it’s really easy!), keep reading.

How to Make the Paper Plate Paddle Craft

I love functional crafts that will achieve meaningful outcomes for my student’s progress on goals. SLPs don’t have a ton of time OR money to prep extensive crafts. You probably have everything on hand or can get for cheap. Here are the supplies I used:

Amazon affiliate links are included for your convenience. I get a small commission when you purchase using this link.

Paper plates (you need the flimsy white ones)
Dot markers, stamps, or regular markers
JUMBO popsicle sticks
Glue Gun
Balloons

Have your students decorate their paper plate with circles using the dot markers. You can also have them glue or write their speech words or other language targets on the plate.

paper plate paddle craft for speech therapy that can help you get high trials in your speech sessions. Use this craft to add movement into your speech sound disorder treatment sessions.

Glue the jumbo popsicle stick on the back of the paper plate. You can also glue a word list on the back for the child to reference while practicing in the session or at home for additional practice. The word lists I often use come from my Any Craft Companion Pack.

Tips for How to Use the Paper Plate Paddle Craft with Speech Sound Disorders

Use the dot markers to keep your students engaged with their speech sound productions. Have your student decorate the paper plate with dots before creating the paddle. To make sure you get lots of repetitions in a session, you can have your students say their sound/word for every dot they make on the plate. Or, you can have your students drill five words/sounds per dot.

Sometimes, if my students struggle with waiting or if they take a long time to make dots, I will drill for 1-2 minutes and then let my students put 5-10 dots on the paper and repeat this until the paper plate is fully decorated.

Or, if you don’t have time for crafts, you can make the paper plate paddles and use while the student practices a word and then hitting the balloon up in the air.

Tips for How to Use the Paper Plate Gumball Craft with Speech Sound Disorders

Using Your Paper Plate Paddles for Speech Sound Disorders

The fun really begins when you have the paper plate paddle completed. Blow up a balloon and have students practice their sounds while they keep the balloon in the air. Of course, you can always use this to cover a lot of goals especially for our friends working engagement, joint attention, expanding functions of communication (uh oh, fell down, get it, whoa, high, drop, etc.)

You can give your student one target word to focus on that they can say as they hit the balloon. Or, you can have your student do drills for 1-2 minutes and if they got 20 productions, let them have a movement break to see if they can keep the balloon up in the air for 20 hits.

To help with transitioning between getting to hit the balloon with the paddle and practicing, you can glue words on the back of the paddle (I have an Any Craft Companion Resource with targets all ready to go.) Onc they say all of the words on the back of the plate, they get to use their paddle.

Send this craft home with your students for additional practice with a balloon. You can direct your parents to blow up the balloon and use the paddle to keep the balloon in the air while they say their speech productions.

Speech Sound Resources to Use with the Paper Plate Paddles

If you are looking for articulation resources to use while getting those high trials, you can grab my articulation flipbooks. They include word lists, pictures, carrier phrases, and picture scenes for each sound. Use the L flipbook for FREE. The NO Print versions can be used on laptops or iPad.

For your students working on speech words at the word and structured sentence level, use my visual sentence starters to help your students get that repetitive practice while creating this craft.

If you need another paper plate craft for working on grammar skills, check out these ideas in this blog post HERE.

Share How You Used This Paper Plate Paddle Craft With Your Students

Paper Plate paddle crafts for speech therapy to help get high trials with speech sound disorders

I hope that this post gave you a variety of low-prep and easy, yet effective, ideas for treating speech sound disorders on your caseload. My speech students have loved using the paddles to hit balloons and move around the room as they practice. If you do this craft with any of the students on your caseload, I’d love to hear how you adapted it to fit their needs. Comment here on this blog post or email me at feliceclark@thedabblingspeechie.com.

In the Tall Tall Grass Lesson Plan for Teletherapy

by thedabblingspeechie | May 22, 2020 | DIY materials, Therapy Materials

A shared Google Slides presentation is the easiest way to run a virtual teletherapy session or class meet-up. You can add in YouTube videos, images, and visual supports your students may need during the lesson.

Click the pink button below to grab your free In the Tall, Tall Grass teletherapy activity Google Slides and have everything ready to go!

Click here to get your FREE Google Slides

in-the-tall-tall-grass-lesson-plan-teletherapy

How to Set Up Your Whole Class Lesson

in-the-tall-tall-grass-speech-therapy-pin-2

As a group, we did our morning greetings, sang an insect brain break song, and then read the book, In the Tall, Tall Grass by Denise Fleming (Amazon affiliate link.)

I read the book aloud and showed the students the pictures while the other teacher removed the things hidden in the tall, tall grass on the Google Slide.

Then, we played the game, “What’s in the tall, tall grass?” using the virtual grass backgrounds.

Use Insect Toys To Work on Language

You could also use real toy bugs that you already own and have them land on your head. Just use the ‘STOP VIDEO’ feature to put a new insect on your head. Then, start the video again for the kids to name the insect or give them a CORE word such as “look” to use during the activity.

How to Change your Virtual Background in Zoom

Doesn’t this look super engaging for your students? I would love to know how it goes, so please tag me on social media. Have other fun virtual backgrounds that you use? Let me know! I always need more tools for my speech therapy toolbox. With remote learning, I need all the digital ideas I can get my hands on.

Click here to get your FREE Google Slides

Insect Sensory Bin Ideas

If you are wanting to do more insect themes for your therapy, click the images below to see how you can make these insect sensory bins!

If you like to plan your therapy around themes and enjoy doing an insect/bug theme, then you will love the K-2 language activities in my Insect Push-In Language Lesson Plan Guides. You can use the parent newsletter and Google Slide presentations during remote learning and then have lessons ready for when in-person therapy happens again.

For your older students, you can work on learning about insects with these non-fiction task cards. Students can make an insect book to work on tier II vocabulary, main idea, describing, and explaining details.

Using Popsicle Sticks in Speech Therapy

by thedabblingspeechie | Sep 17, 2019 | DIY materials, Therapy Materials

Some of my best therapy materials come from affordable things I can find at a dollar store. Have you used popsicle sticks in your speech therapy sessions? They can be a great material that can cover a lot of goals.

And, let’s face it: So many of us don’t even get a budget for speech therapy materials. Plus, we’ve all got bills, so buying a ton of extra fancy materials for therapy isn’t always an option. Today, I want to share all the ways you can use popsicle sticks in your next speech therapy session.

Popsicle Stick Games for Mixed Groups

Zap It is a great game for mixed groups! You can target any goal, and the kids love the game. This game also gets my artic students to practice more trials. Whatever number is written on their popsicle stick, they have to say their word that many times! Check out the game HERE (it has a rule cheat sheet guide).

Play pick up sticks using a set of popsicle sticks. Just write your students’ targets on both sides of the sticks. I try to make sure to pick articulation targets that can also be used for vocabulary instruction. For example, if a child is working on /l/, I would pick lemonade, lion, and lock because we can work on category groups, noun functions, locations, and parts. Or, other students can create grammatically correct sentences using the words.

Popsicle Stick Pacing Boards for Speech Therapy

You can create pacing boards using popsicle sticks. I like using the jumbo-sized popsicle sticks (Amazon affiliate link) for making these. Students can create dots, stars, or other designs with markers. You can also allow students to pick out their favorite stickers to put on the popsicle stick.

Then, you can use them for lots of different goals! Check out my ideas:

-Use as a pacing board for fluency-enhancing techniques

-Identifying how many sounds are in a word

-Creating longer sentences

-Pacing how many times a student has said a sound or a word

Popsicle Stick Puppets for Speech Therapy

One of the easiest crafts to make with your students is making popsicle stick puppets. You can print a sheet of characters, have the students color them, and then attach them to a popsicle stick. The students can work on story retell, pronouns, basic concepts, or following directions with their puppets.

Using Popsicle Sticks with Literacy

When planning mixed group therapy, I tend to use books to plan lessons. I can plan more efficiently while still targeting everyone’s goals. While reading the story, you can give students “jobs” when listening to the story. I cut 3” by 5” index cards in half, write what the students are working on, and tape them to popsicle sticks.

I tell the students to hold up their sticks whenever they hear their sound or hear a word they don’t understand. Students can remember what they are working on by looking at their “job” on the stick. So, when I call on a student to make a sentence about the story picture, they know what I want them to do.

You can also put story grammar element visual cues on popsicle sticks. Hand a few of the story element sticks to each student in the group. While you are reading the book, you can stop and go through the elements of the story. To keep everyone engaged, they have specific elements to recall.

Grab these free story visual cues by clicking the pink button below.

Make Visual Cues with Popsicle Sticks

You can make visual cues for any skill with popsicle sticks! This is an easy way to visually remind your students about what they are working on in speech therapy. Some of my students have moved beyond drill and are working on self-monitoring. I love using visual cues for articulation carryover and for social pragmatics. During conversational tasks, you can visually remind your students about their social behavior. This can help them to remember the social rules or to look around for the non-verbal body language.

Grab these free speech sound cues HERE.

How Do You Use Popsicle Sticks in Therapy Sessions?

Aren’t these functional ideas great for therapy sessions? My favorite place to stock up on popsicle sticks is at the Dollar Tree. Therapy doesn’t have to always be with fancy toys and programs to be effective. How do you use popsicle sticks in your therapy room? Share in the comments.

Using Letter Stamps in Speech Therapy

by thedabblingspeechie | Apr 29, 2019 | articulation, DIY materials, Therapy Materials

I am always on the hunt for materials that are easy to prep and will help engage my students while they are working toward their goals. A good worksheet or set of flashcards will definitely produce positive outcomes in the therapy room, but my kids seem to produce so much more work when the activity is hands-on.

Letter Stamps Can Increase Engagement

Today, I want to show you how you can use letter stamps in speech therapy. It won’t make a huge mess and will be easy to carry around for you traveling SLPs, or those SLPs who do quick artic in the hallways.

Amazon affiliate links are included in this blog post for your convenience. I get a small compensation when you click on the link and purchase the item.

Where to Find Letter Stamps for Speech Therapy

Last summer, I found these plastic Letter Stamps from Lakeshore Learning and had to have them! You can also snag some on Amazon from Discount School Supply. There is also Mad Mattr dough that never dries out and has a fun consistency. I bought the upper alphabet set that comes with numbers and letters. If you need more playdough ideas for therapy, head to this BLOG POST (it includes FREE mats to use with playdough).

Making Your Traveling Letter Stamp Kit

You will need the set of letter stamps, a pencil box or small container, and playdough or kinetic sand. I put some playdough in the pencil box and was ready for therapy!

How to Use Letter Stamps in Speech Therapy

There are several ways SLPs can use letter stamps in speech therapy. Here are some of my favorite ideas for articulation/phonology therapy:

Have your student use the letter that correlates with his/her sound and stamp it each time that he/she producing the sound in syllables or words. I know that not all the sounds match the letters perfectly, but it works for most of them. You can get in lots of drill with this! If you need some stimulus task cards for prevocalic R, r-blends, and vocalic R words, grab this Articulation Letter Stamp Station HERE. I also have a blends version you can grab HERE.

More Ways to Use Letter Stamps

You can read words, single sentences, or a story out loud to your student. Your student can stamp his/her sound letter every time he/she hears her sound.

Use the B, M, E stamp letters in the kinetic sand. Say a word to your student and have him/her identify which position your student hears his/her words. This will work on sound awareness and also phonological awareness skills.

Make an Articulation Station

If you are working with mixed groups and need some dedicated time to baseline/progress monitor other students or just need a good solid 10 minutes to teach a new concept to a student in the group, you can create articulation stations with activities that keep the students focused on his/her goals independently. You may need to teach the behavioral expectations when implementing stations those first few weeks. If you need a framework for how to do that, head to this BLOG POST.

Give your students a task card with pictures and the spelling of the words. Have them stamp out each word in the playdough. Then, they have to practice that sound 5 times or write it in a sentence. Then, the student can take those sentences home to practice or use the next session as a warm-up!

Phonological Awareness Activities With Letter Stamps

With the number stamps, you can have students identify the number of syllables in a word for phonological awareness or working on breaking down multi-syllable words.

You can also work on building phonemic awareness by having students stamp out real or nonsense CVC words in the playdough/kinetic sand. Then, have your students work on substituting sounds to make new word combinations. Or have them add or delete sounds to create new sounds.

Using Letter Stamps with Language Therapy

When you are working on describing nouns by attributes (i.e. category, function, size, color, texture, parts, etc.), you can have your student stamp a number for each attribute they share. This will allow them to visually see how many attributes they provided. You can visually and verbally give feedback when they provide more attributes.

Students can identify if a phrase is true/false using the T and F letter stamps.

Using Letter Stamps To Visually Cue Students

For your students working on monitoring social behavior in a group session, you can stamp an E for expected behavior and a U for unexpected behavior during the session. This can visually cue the student to monitor his/her behavior without stopping the lesson. Plus, you will have some data on how often you had to cue them. You can also give the student a social situation and have them stamp E if the behavior was expected or U if the behavior was unexpected.

Share How You Would Use Letter Stamps in Speech Therapy

The best way to get the most out of a material item is to collaborate with other like-minded professionals. That is why I always want to know how you would use a material in therapy. When I have more ideas, therapy feels fresh and new with my groups. If you use letter stamps in speech therapy, please share how you use them in the comments or email me at feliceclark@thedabblingspeechie.com.

Also, I love seeing therapy pics in action, so feel free to tag me on Instagram with your letter stamps @thedabblingspeechie.

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