Featured #2 Archives - thedabblingspeechie

Epic Beach Sensory Bin For Speech Therapy

by thedabblingspeechie | Jun 4, 2022 | Featured #2, sensory bins

Making a beach sensory bin as an extension activity for your beach-themed books can be a great way to cover a lot of speech and language goals and keep your students engaged.

Typically, when I plan my sessions, I find books that fit the theme I want to teach and then plan some extension activities that include vocabulary and concepts about the theme.

Today, I will show you how you can make an epic beach sensory bin and save time hunting around for all the items. Amazon affiliate links are included for your convenience in the blog post. I get a small commission on items purchased at no additional cost to you.

Sensory Bin Filler Ideas

Use this epic beach sensory bin to cover speech and language goals

Click here for your FREE Ultimate Sensory Bin Guide!

When it comes to your sensory bin filler, you can add elements representing ocean water and a sandy shore. Kinetic sand can work great for the shore, and there are a variety of options for your ocean as listed below:

Blue dyed dry rice, pasta, or chickpeas

I used kinetic sand, blue plastic rocks, and shredded blue paper for my sensory bin.

Materials to Add to Your Sensory Bin

It can sometimes be hard to find mini figurines and elements related to your sensory bin, but I found some CUTE beach-themed items in a most unlikely place, cake toppers!

You can use these beach cake toppers to have umbrellas, recliners, palm trees, shells, and more! You can get mini buckets, shells, and mini paper umbrellas at Michael’s to add to your bin. Here is another beach cake topper set in case you want to compare which one has the elements you need for your bin.

I used the ocean animal TOOBS that I have, or here is another set that would work well for ocean animals.

Beach Books to Pair with This Sensory Bin

Here are some beach-themed books that would pair nicely with your sensory bin:

Beach Day by Karen Roosa

Curious George Goes to the Beach by H.A. Rey

Just Grandma and Me by Mercer Mayer

When a Dragon Moves In by Jody Moore

Sun, Sun by Brad Gray

Do you use one of these books in therapy? Or, have a recommendation for a book to use with a beach theme? Let me know your recs in nteh comments of this blow post.

Therapy Ideas for Using Your Beach Sensory Bin

In therapy, you can target noun functions with the beach items, verb actions, answering wh-questions, basic concepts, and social-pragmatic language. The easiest way to keep things streamlined with your mixed groups is to have a list of words by your students’ target sound. Having the word list makes it easier to remember what you can target with all the students in your group.

For example, you can say, “Who swam up to shore?” to work on ‘who’ questions. But, you can also work on /s-blends/ and /sh/ with that question. How would you use this beach sensory bin with your students? Let me know in the comments! Would love more ideas.

Click here for your FREE Ultimate Sensory Bin Guide!

Need more Summer-Themed Sensory Bin Ideas

If you are on the hunt for more summer-themed sensory bins, check out how you can make an ocean sensory bin. You can also check out how to make a “Can You Find It?” sensory bin with different seasonal vocabulary including summer! To make mixed groups easier, you can grab the summer-themed sensory bin companion that comes with printables and cheat sheets to help you target all the speech and language goals in your group. If you make this sensory bin, I would love to see it! Tag me on Instagram @thedabblingspeechie

Easy Summer Crafts For Speech Therapy

by thedabblingspeechie | May 21, 2022 | craftivities, Featured #2, Themed Speech Therapy

You either love or hate crafts as an SLP. While I am not a fan of messy crafts that involve glitter and expensive craft supplies, I am down to do crafts that help my students stay engaged. And, if you can use the craft as a functional therapy tool, it’s a go for me! Try these easy summer crafts for your speech therapy sessions when you need to find engaging activities that pair well with a summer-themed book.

The summer crafts in this blog post require minimal supplies that you can afford or hopefully find in your school supply room.

Craft Supplies You Need for Summer Crafts

Here are the things you will need (Amazon affiliate links included for your convenience):

Glue
Scissors
Construction Paper or Cardstock
Paper Plates (You can find these at Dollar Tree)
Speech and Language Word Lists or Pictures
Paint
Tissue Paper Squares or Dot Markers

Some of the crafts featured in this blog post are from the summer crafts for the speech therapy set.

Beach-Themed Crafts for Speech Therapy

If you are doing a beach theme, make a kid buried in the sand craft! You will have one craft template and can print targets for your speech or language goals. Every student does one craft in your therapy sessions but has targets for practicing their goals.

Easy planning for you and keeps students engaged! And they can take it home for home practice.

Ocean-Animal Crafts for Speech Therapy

There are LOTS of fun low prep ocean animal crafts that you can pair with your favorite books. This craft is fun because you can glue targets on the inside of the craft and then use it to work on basic concepts and with your pretend play activities. For more ocean-themed craft ideas and books to pair with them, check out this blog post.

Easy summer crafts to use in your speech therapy sessions to cover goals and ideas for how to use as therapy props!

Summer Crafts That Pair Well With The Summer Season

Easy summer speech therapy crafts that will keep your students engaged in the session!

Making a sun with a paper plate or just with construction paper is perfect for summer because it’s hot outside! You can have students glue or write words on the sun rays or on the back of the paper plate. If you are working on summer weather concepts, you can write activities you can do when it is hot outside. Or, write down things that are hot and cold!

For more ideas for how to use this sun craft, check out the REEL on Instagram.

You can also make a lemonade craft or easy tissue paper or paint crafts for a summer 4th of July BBQ. Check out the pictures below. The lemonade craft is part of the summer crafts for speech therapy resources. And, the watermelon and fireworks low prep crafts are from the summer push-in lesson plan guides.

S’mores Craft For Speech Therapy

LOTS of kids are eating s’mores over the summer whether they are camping or having backyard firepit hangouts. This is an easy craft to do and pairs well with a camping theme! Need this template? It’s part of the summer craft set.

Books to Pair With These Summer Crafts for Speech Therapy

Beach Day by Karen Roosa has fantastic pictures! After reading this book, I had my students create a beach theme, and then they got to sprinkle natural sand on their craft with Elmer’s glue. You can read about it HERE!!

A Camping Spree With Mr. Magee by Chris Van Dusen is a great little story about camping. You can read about some of my camping-themed therapy ideas that I did last year.

When a Dragon Moves In by Jodi Moore is a fabulous beach-themed book! You could create a sandcastle or dragon craft with this book!

Alex and The Amazing Lemonade Stand by Liz & Jay Scott look like a fun read! I just ordered it. It would go perfectly with my Ice Cold Lemonade Craftivity.

Easy summer crafts for speech therapy that you can use with mixed groups and your favorite summer books!

What Summer Crafts Do You Love to Use With Your Summer Themed Activities?

What crafts do you love to use for the summer season? If you have one that is easy to prep and engages your students, share it in the comments! As always, tag me on social media @thedabblingspeechie if you use one of these crafts so I can see what you are up to in your speech therapy room.