Who doesn’t like craftivities? I usually do speech therapy craftivities about 1-2x a month with my students. It helps keep the kids motivated and having fun. February is filled with lots of fun themes like winter, Valentine’s day and Chinese New Year!
Today, I have a round up of fun February speech therapy craftivities that are easy and functional! I love that I can send the craftivity home with the student for extra practice.
February Speech Therapy Craftivities
Next week, I am going to be doing a hot chocolate theme in therapy! Winter makes me want to drink lots of warm beverages.
This hot chocolate craftivity is perfect for your whole caseload because there are templates for lots of sounds, writing, vocabulary and sequencing!
We made Chinese lanterns and dragons with a little speech twist this week (check out my youtube video to see how you make these). Here is where I found the dragon template!
You can make these sweet treat speech craftivities! Click on the picture above to snag the FREE template.
To grab this free craft, just CLICK HERE or on the picture above!
This is another great craft that you can download for FREE by clicking on the picture above. You can have your students write in the words or glue speech sound cards on top of the heart!
What Valentine’s Day crafts do you like to do in speech therapy? I would love to add more to my stash!
A “Speechy” photo booth was in my speech room last week! I had my speech students do a little fun holiday photo booth with me! I am planning on sending my student’s home with a “speech” holiday card to wish them well before winter break.
I designed a card template that you can download by clicking on the photo above or click HERE! Then, I had my speechies pick out props that they wanted to use and took photos of them all.
I glued a sheet of artic words or conversation questions to the back of each card as a little “home practice” exercise. I also included a sheet for students to discuss winter vocabulary with their parents. You can grab that template by clicking on the photo above or grabbing it by clicking HERE!
I got all my photos printed at good ole’ Costco and cut them to fit the holiday cards. I wish I could show you all my cute speech kiddos with their photo props. I plan on sending them home with a little holiday pencil. What do you have planned for your last week in speech? Any special things you do with your kiddos?
Most of us school SLP’s have 3 weeks left before our big winter break. This blog post is filled with speech therapy Christmas activities that are low prep and easy to implement with mixed groups.
This is when I whip out the crafts, youtube, holiday apps, themed games and books!
My Hot Chocolate Phonology pack was a great winter activity that I was able to use for the whole winter! This year, I have a lot of students working on categories and describing items by attributes, so I made a language version to add to my stash. You can grab this set HERE or by clicking the picture above!
My Speech & Language ORNAMENTS craftivity is perfect for my entire caseload. I try to find or make crafts that can cover many goals, so my whole group can work on the same activity while still tailoring it their own goals. It covers action words, speech sounds, writing templates to work on grammar (or write a letter to Santa or create a winter story),
We started decorating them this week. I just went around the group while they were “crafting” and had each person practice their target. Kids stayed busy and I was able to target goals. I even made my 5th graders get crafty! Next week, we will assemble the ornaments and use the practice ornament sheets in therapy. This is fun because they can take them home and hang on their own Christmas trees or on the fridge.
Winter Snowy Day Picture Scenes are a free resource in my TPT store that is great for targeting following directions, creating sentences and just positive reinforcement!
We are playing my “what does the fox say?” holiday game to target artic, describing by attributes, categories and using grammatically correct sentences. I have been saying “yum, yum, yum, yum, yum, yum” a lot this week! Every time the student pics a fox, they get to eat a gingerbread man!
My social skill groups will be watching Buddy the Elf movie clips to work on making impressions, expected vs. unexpected as well as using non-verbal cues to guess what others are thinking.
We will be playing my Race to 100 Holiday style games with all my articulation and language groups. My artic students have to say the amount of words that they roll, and for my language students this game is a reinforcer while they practice their language goals! Download this for FREE by clicking the photo.
This should cover me till our winter break! What do you have planned for therapy this holiday season?
I use the vocabulary terms expected and unexpected behaviors from Social Thinking to identify behaviors students are exhibited in different social situations. Expected and unexpected behaviors allows me to acknowledge and praise my students when they are being “expected” for the situation as well as directly let them know when they are being unexpected without lecturing them for 2 minutes about why something is not okay to do.
Last year at the middle school, I primarily used expected vs. unexpected terms with my social emotional students as well as my students with social skill deficits. They learned the terms very quickly; however, when I would verbally point out their behavior (both good and not so good), I got two responses. I either received defensive comments and student denial about the action/words/tone of the behavior or continued behavior in which I was verbally monitoring their behavior throughout the entire session.
As I would further explain how my students behavior was making me feel, I was met with resistance, rude overtures and sometimes escalated behaviors. Most people don’t like to be told they are being unexpected! The struggle with our students with social skill deficits is that they do not naturally pick up on social cues to adjust their behavior independently. SOMEONE has to call them out, so they can learn to survive in the world. Most jobs rely heavily on being able to successfully interactive with other people and if you fail at that, it doesn’t matter if you are an amazing at your job because people remember how they feel rather than the actual job that was performed.
I decided that I would implement a visual monitoring system, so that I could take informal data about the percentage of time the student was exhibiting expected behavior, provide a visual cue (so, I could reduce verbal cues aka lectures), and use as an incentive to point out successes with expected behaviors. Download my easy template HERE or just click on the photo above. I just glued to construction paper and laminated, so I could use a dry erase marker with it.
During the session, I let the student know that I will be visually tracking their behavior. If they have more unexpected behaviors than expected, they do not earn their incentive (for my higher students, I did 5 stars = hot cheetos, jolly rancher, ipad time, game, etc). As I see behaviors, I mark expected or unexpected. If they are being unexpected, I mark unexpected and ignore undesirably comments/behaviors. I quickly try to mark expected to show the student that I am notice both good and bad behaviors.
With one student in particular, every time I tried to explain that his comments were sounding very rude, I would get a big argument about how he was not doing A,B, or C. I got the okay from parents to address his behaviors with the terms kind words/tone vs. rude words/tone. This student would either use rude words or he would say something in a very rude tone for very minimal things such as “I don’t want to play a game” or “I will not seat over there.” I did the exact same system and did not verbally engage the student when I marked rude comments. He quickly figured out that he had to adjust his behavior to kind because he really didn’t like seeing marks on the rude side. This worked for most of my students, but some students may escalate in behavior if they see the “negative” side, so that is something to consider when using this.
How do you work on self monitoring skills? I would love to add more tools in my toolbox!
If you are trying to get more trials in your speech sound sessions but want to keep your students motivated to practice, check out this free articulation game! Nothing makes a speech therapy session drag more than when students complain that they must practice their sounds repeatedly. It can’t be just me that has had this happen in their speech room.
You will learn how to use this game to get 100 trials and have kids asking to play it again next session!
Finding activities and games that keep your kids motivated to practice over and over again can be tricky when you have a heavy articulation and phonology caseload.
And nothing is more tiring and boring than saying, “Say your _____ sound ten more times?” for the entire session. After the third speech sound group, I needed something fresh to keep ME engaged with the activity.
Articulation and phonology flashcards can only go so far, so when you switch things up with a no-prep speech therapy game, you are WINNING. Am I right, or am I right?
The game is called Race to 100. You first use a die to see which person can get all one hundred squares covered. When the student rolls the dice, they get to color or check off the number of spaces on their articulation game mat.
Before they cross their squares, that’s the number of times they have to practice their speech word. You can use a twenty-sided die to ensure you get to 100 within the session.
What is great about this game is you can use it with ANY goal, so it is mixed group friendly.
Click the button below to grab your free articulation game! The best way to use them is by printing and putting them in a plastic sheet protector or laminate. Pair it with your favorite dye and dry-erase marker, and you are good to go!
Articulation Materials that Pair Well With the Game
The beauty of this game is that you can use any flashcards or pictures you have on hand! If you need some high-trial articulation materials to use with the game, check out these resources:
What Speech Sound Games Do You Love to Use in Therapy?
Do you use some favorite low-prep games for articulation and phonology therapy often? Share in the comments, so other SLPs have more fun articulation games to use in treatment. One of my FAVE games to use towards the end of the school year is my articulation game for describing words. It’s a Name It type of game you can use with language describing goals.
If you have a lot of cluster reduction or s-blend goals, these games have been great for getting a high number of trials.
My son is now a reader! We have been working on independent reading and reading out loud throughout the summer. Check out my FREE independent reading incentives bookmarks for your own kids. I wanted to make him some reading comprehension task cards that also worked on vocabulary and writing. Then, I thought “What if I could make some reading comprehension task cards that I can also use with my speech students next year?”Perfect! Now, I just needed a non-fiction topic…….
My son loves learning about bugs…..My speech students LOVE bugs, so that’s how this set began its creation! This upcoming year, I will be back at the elementary site, but I think these listenting and reading comprehension task cards could be used with upper elementary/middle school for students working at a younger grade level.
Great non-fiction passages to work on reading fluency and comprehension with a bug theme.
The activities in this set are perfect for independent work, can be used as a whole group lesson or as a literacy/language center. What I love the most about these cards is that there are QR codes that link to REAL LIFE photos of the bugs!! Pretty cool, huh!?
There are 12 non-fiction passages including 12 task cards with comprehension questions to answer about the passage. I laminated mine, so that the students can use with a dry erase marker and I can use them over and over again. Plus, I included hands on worksheet booklets to incorporate more learning after reading the passages. Skills included: comparing/contrasting, vocabulary, adjectives, drawing/writing task and a writing page.
Included in this set are some fun magnifying cards with QR codes to links to youtube videos that have more information about the bugs the students read about. What kid doesn’t love using that QR code app?
For all my fabulous followers, I made you a FREE BONUS LESSON to try out! This lesson is not in my larger set, so make sure to get both! It includes a non-fiction task card passage about honeybees, comprehension task card and a facts worksheet, so students can write down key details from the passage.
I am giving away 3 copies of this to some of my followers! Leave a comment below with a number between 1-100. I will be doing a live raffle on perioscope on SUNDAY, July 19 at 6pm PST. Meet me there to see if your number is drawn!!
This hot chocolate craftivity is perfect for your whole caseload because there are templates for lots of sounds, writing, vocabulary and sequencing!
