Dollar Store Halloween Ideas

Are you in need of last minute Halloween-themed therapy ideas without breaking the budget? The dollar store is a great source of inexpensive materials. Below are some ideas for therapy activities that were super cheap, fast, and easy.

1. Magic Potion
I found foam cauldrons and Halloween sticker shapes at Dollar tree. I basically had students "earn" the potion ingredients by practicing their target words a number of times or completing a language tasks. This is a quick and easy activity to do with younger students. You can also pair it with a Halloween book about witches. Some good choices are:
* A Very Brave Witch
* Humbug Witch
* The Little Green Witch
* Excuse Me Are You a Witch?
* The Sweetest Witch Around
* Room on the Broom
* Grimelda: The Very Messy Witch
* A Job For Wittilda (this one seems to be out of print, but you can buy it through 3rd party sellers)

2. Spider Web Toss
For this you will need the following:
* A plastic basket with holes in the side
* White ribbon
* Fake spiders or bugs
 Thread the white ribbon criss-cross through the holes in the basket to create a spider web like appearance. Place the basket in the middle of the group and have students toss spiders or bugs. If the spider lands on the web, they get a point.


3. Halloween Jumpers
I'm sure you've seen these little jumping toys in the party favor aisle. I found this particular set at Walmart. These lend themselves really well for articulation therapy! Press one of the characters down and challenge students say a target word correctly X times. If they manage to do so before the character jumps, they get a point and it's the next players turn. Note that the production only counts if the word is being said correctly! This is a great way to work on carryover.

4. Jumping Spiders
For this activity you will need:
* Muffin tin
* Jumping Spiders (Walmart or Dollar store should have them in a smaller pack) - you can also use other critters and just throw them
* Construction paper

Cut out construction paper circles and write different point values on each (I used 1-6). Tape them to the muffin tin bottoms. Next, have students take turns making the spiders jump and see if they can get them into the muffin tin. Who can get the most points? This would also be a great activity for OT, as it works on finger strength!

What other cool materials have you found at the Dollar store? Please share in the comments!

Using STEM in Speech: Skeletal System

Note: This post contains affliate links.

Given all of the spooky skeletons everywhere in the month of October, our monthly STEM unit revolved all around bones and the skeletal system. Just as with the unit on Density, you can incorporate tons of language concepts and adapt the activities for articulation/fluency/social skills. Below are some ideas to get started.

I introduced my groups to the concept of bones by reading the book Bones (Science Readers: A Closer Look). With my younger/SDC kiddos we read Skeleton Hiccups. Of course, you could read any Halloween themed book about skeletons to get into the mood.

I also purchased some Halloween decor at Walmart: An (anatomically correct - this is important!) Skeleton, as well as a "Bag of Bones". We used these props to talk about the different bones in the body and learned some of the scientific names. There are some great bones containing /r/ and /s/ - femur, humerus, skull, pelvis, ribs, spine, etc. that you can have your artic students practice. The bag of bones was great for guessing which bone was which by comparing them to the bones in the skeleton model. Bonus: I can reuse these guys as Halloween decorations!

Students loved exploring the animal x-rays!

Next, we got to the fun part!! I discovered two different sets of X-Rays on amazon - Animal X-Rays and Human X-Rays. We used the animal x-rays to compare the skeletal structure of different animals to that in a human body. I also had students try to guess what animal might be depicted by the x-ray. You can also have students compare and contrast the skeletal structure of two different animals.

Putting together human x-rays

I used the set of human x-rays to solidify students' knowledge of the names of bones and our general skeletal structure by having them assemble the skeleton on white butcher paper. This was actually harder for many of my kiddos than they anticipated! They were allowed to use a diagram of a human skeleton, as a reference. When they were stumped, I gave them hints such as, "This is an x-ray of a tibia." They then had to reference the diagram to figure out where the bone would go.

As an extension activity, we made the Q-tip skeleton that is plastered all over Pinterest. Students had to "earn" each bone by either saying their speech sound 5x or completing a language task. Tip: Make sure to cut all of the Q-tips prior to the activity, as it will save time in the long run.

What I loved about this unit was that I was able to incorporate STEM in a Halloween-themed unit, while teaching students about important concepts AND working on their speech goals at the same time. Win-win!!

Using Blank Playing Cards in Speech

Note: This post contains affiliate links.

As I was browsing Amazon for therapy materials over the summer, I came across the most amazing thing: blank playing cards! As soon as I saw them, the wheels in my head started turning to come up with ways on how to use them in Speech.

I tried out three different variations of blank playing cards made by Apostrophe Games: Rectangular, Square, and Dry Erase.

Blank playing cards are available in these three options: rectangular, square, and dry erase.

If you’re like me, you are probably tired of using the same old artic decks over and over in your sessions. To combat the monotony, my students and I decided to use these cards to make our very own articulation decks! At first I thought that we could use index cards. However, the quality of these blank playing cards is SO MUCH BETTER and definitely worth the extra money.They are about 2-3 times as thick as index cards and marker / Sharpie does not bleed or seep through to the other side. Since you will likely end up using the finished cards with your students in therapy sessions, it makes sense to want them to be durable. They are so thick that you could even skip laminating - seriously, who has time for that?

I started by having my groups come up with words containing their target sounds. This was great for stimulating their awareness of their sound. As they were rattling off words, I wrote them onto the playing cards with a Sharpie, making sure to highlight target sounds in red. Of course you could have students write the words themselves, but I wanted to make sure the writing was nice and big and didn't have spelling errors. To make this more engaging, I allowed students to include Pokemon and Minecraft things (Hey kid, if you want to practice the word "creeper", which has two /r/ sounds, be my guest!). Next, students drew pictures of their words onto the card (we used washable markers for this), although pencils or crayons would work as well. While we worked, we also practiced saying the words we were drawing. Students were super motivated throughout their session. And look how awesome their cards turned out!

I used both Square and Rectangular cards for this activity and didn't really have a preference. The square ones seemed to be big enough for a picture, and also might be better for little hands.

This would also make an excellent homework activity: send home ten blank cards with the words on it and have students draw and practice at home. You could also let students keep their cards at home for practice.

And of course you could adapt this activity for language groups - you can make homonym/homophone cards, opposite cards, WH-question cards, and so much more!

I also found a use for the Dry Erase Cards - I used them for a listening activity with my language groups. Because these cards are double sided, they lend themselves well to alternate response mode activities. I drew a happy face on one side and a sad face on the other. Each student in the group received one of these dual-sided cards. Then they had to listen to conditional statements (e.g. "If you have brown hair, hold up your happy face") and follow the directions. This was great for working on following directions and general listening skills. A note: To prevent smearing on these cards, you may want to consider Vis-A-Vis Markers.What is really nice about the dry erase deck is that it can be reused over and over.

This is a therapy activity I will definitely keep doing again and again as I cycle through new students. I'm so glad I found these cards!!

Autumn Tree Craftivity

I have been swamped with IEPs and assessments over the last few weeks, so I did not have any time to come up with any involved Thanksgiving projects for my students. I did however celebrate the advent of fall with some of my articulation groups by making some autumn trees using the good ol' Q-tip trick. I used some free clipart that I found on TPT to create the tree template and had students practice a word with their sound before placing a leaf on their paper. This might make a good last minute fall project for those of you who are working this week. Happy Thanksgiving!

~Viola

Building Speech & Language Skills in the Kitchen

I don't really have a lot of educational posts for parents on here, so I thought it may be high time to write one!

With Thanksgiving coming up, I have been encouraging my students' parents to involve their children in the cooking and meal preparation process. There are so many great opportunities to work on speech and language targets while slaving away in the kitchen, in addition to opportunities for teaching children some useful and necessary life skills. This post has some ideas and is separated into sections based on the therapy focus. Feel free to share this information with your own students' parents. I have compiled this information in a (FREE!) downloadable handout that is available here.




LANGUAGE

• Vocabulary: Cooking provides multiple exposures to novel ingredients and utensils. Vocabulary like grater, zest, sage, baste, whisk (etc.) is not commonly used in every day conversation, so you will be able to introduce your child to these new concepts by having them help you out while preparing Thanksgiving dinner.
• Following Directions: This skill automatically gets targeted when following a recipe.
• Sequencing: Following a recipe provides an opportunity to work on sequencing skills. Talk to your child about what to do first / next / last.
• Describing: Exposure to a large variety of ingredients and dishes will allow you to work on describing them. You can talk about textures, smells, tastes, as well as physical appearance of a specific food item.
• Categorizing: You can practice categorization skills by grouping the ingredients for a particular recipe by food group: dairy, meat, vegetable, etc. For younger children, you can have them sort by size or color.
• Answering Questions: You can work on targeting simple Wh-questions during and after the meal preparation process. What ingredients do we need? Who helped you? Why did we need to measure? How many eggs do we need? When do we need to take the turkey out of the oven? Where is the oil? etc.
• Listening Comprehension: You can read the recipe to your child and have them tell you what they remember.
• Narrating Personal Events / Recall: Have your child explain to someone how they helped out in the kitchen and / or how they prepared a particular dish.
• Problem-Solving: Throughout the cooking process, ask your child questions that will stimulate their critical thinking skills. How can we keep the lemon seeds from falling into the juice? How can we separate egg yolk from egg white? How can we make a triangle out of this square cheese slice?

ARTICULATION

• Word level: Have the child find ingredients that have their speech sounds and have them practice saying it out loud.
• Sentence level: If the child is a reader: have them read the recipe to you while paying attention to their speech sounds.
• Conversation level: Encourage the child to use their best speech sounds while having a Thanksgiving dinner conversation.

 

SOCIAL SKILLS

• Taking Turns: Practice taking turns during dinner preparation.
• Perspective Taking: Have your child help set the table -- have them think about who is coming to dinner and how many plates will be needed.
• Conversation Skills: Thanksgiving dinner is a great opportunity to practice working on conversation skills (eye contact, turn-taking, topic maintenance).
• Manners / Etiquette: Thanksgiving dinner also lends itself for targeting manners -- frontload your child prior to dinner by talking to them about etiquette: chewing with their mouth closed, not taking the last food item without asking, etc.

Of course these ideas are applicable year-round. If you have any ideas to add, feel free to leave a comment!

~Viola

Halloween Articulation Words

I came up with a super easy, cheap, and fast Halloween articulation activity. There's not much to it, but if you are out of time / too lazy to prepare something more extravagant, this last-minute activity may be for you.

I needed a quick Halloween-themed thing for my next artic group. I simply placed a parchment paper template (check TPT, Google images) and placed it into a word doc. I placed a table with hidden borders over it to create  lines on the paper and put the title "Halloween Words" on top (I found that the Blackadder ITC font that comes with Microsoft Word looks pretty Halloween-ish). I then printed out a copy for each student.

When the students came in, I asked them to brainstorm as many words with their target sound that have to do with Halloween. My s/z group had a lot of fun trying to fill up their lists. We then practiced the words from this list. This is a great activity to help younger students increase their awareness of their targets within words.

I almost felt guilty because this was so easy!

~Viola

DIY: Articulation Connect Four

One of my favorite games growing up was Connect 4. To this day, I enjoy playing this game. And did you know that this game can be adapted into a cheap, awesome, and fun articulation activity? 

You will need the following items:


* Connect 4 game (check for used copies at Goodwill, I found several there for $1.99)
* round Avery labels (3/4" diameter) - check Walmart
* pen
* a list with target words


First, write your target words onto your labels. Then, stick the labels onto the game chips. There should be 21 tokens of each red and black in a complete Connect 4 set, so if you stick a label on both sides, you can have 28 labels for a sound in each initial, medial, and final position. In my example, I highlighted the target sound by making it a different color. 

Put a label on each side of the play tokens.

As soon as all of the labels are attached, you are ready to play!

Articulation Connect 4!

Tip#1: Make sure your label size doesn't exceed the 3/4" diameter, otherwise the chip's color will be covered up.
Tip#2: If you want to make multiple sets for different sounds, but only have one game: basic checkers chips are the same size, too.
Tip#3: You can re-create this activity for a checkers game.
Tip#4: This works for other educational targets, like sight words.

I hope you like this as much as I do!

~Viola

No Plan Articulation Activity: Hot & Cold

I haven't updated in a while (completely swamped with triennial and initial evaluations!). If your life is any bit like mine, it is unlikely that there is much time for planning a therapy session (not that there is a lot of time for that anyway). I know that my articulation students are tired of mindless drill, so I thought I should give a brief update with a quick, cheap, easy, and functional therapy activity that my mentor showed me during my school-based internship. All you need for this game is a deck of Super Duper articulation cards (or any other deck that has the cards in pairs). First, separate the deck so that you end up with two identical decks. 

Make sure there is one of each card in each deck.

Next, take one of the decks and line up the cards in your therapy area, so that they are arranged in a rectangle. The order of the cards does not matter.

Set up the cards like this.

You are the "keeper" of the second card deck. To begin the game, shuffle the cards and look at the card on the top. Make sure your students can't see it! Only you know what the picture on the top card is. 

Only you get to know the secret picture.

On their turn, students have to guess the secret picture by figuring out its surrounding pictures. So they ask questions like, "Is the word around a ___?" I purposely used this carrier phrase for my /r/ group, but you can modify it to suit your needs. You will then say "hot" or cold" depending on whether the secret card is surrounding the card they guessed. So for example, if the target word is "four" and students ask, "Is the word around a bear?", you would say "Hot". Students then keep asking until they have enough clues to guess what the word is.

The Four is surrounding the Bear.

This activity takes no prep -- the hardest part is separating the card decks and spreading them out. And kids think they're playing a game. Does it get any easier?

~Viola