Speech 2U

Once you reach them, you can teach them.

Toss it In: Fun ways to work on speech goals

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I love tossing games during speech therapy.  I toss my cards across the room, slide them down gutters, and whip them at walls frisbee style.  (I even do these with my personal set of Kaufman cards.  I’m probably crazy…)  It’s a super sneaky way of getting in lots of repetition for articulation practice.  Here are a few of my favorite card receptacles.

Talking Cookie Jars

I used to have a bunch of talking cookie jars that I used with my clients.  I’d have them say a bunch of cards and then we’d open up the jar quickly and throw the cards in the jar.  The police jar usually made the kids cry-so we worked on vocabulary like “scary” and “go away” and “never show that to me again.”  One jar was shaped like a wave and played a Beach boys Song.  The other was shaped like a hut and played the Gilligan’s Island theme.

 

Unfortunately, I got sick of them and sold them at a Garage Sale.  *Sigh*  If I could get back in my SLP time machine and retrieve these I would.  What therapy gems do you miss?
Hampers
The Biscuit’s baby room theme was Monkeys (of the see no, hear no, speak no kind.)  Do you remember the SECRET craze a few years back?  It was basically about how you will get more of whatever you are thinking or talking about.  I think those monkeys messed with our little guy.  Right after he turned 4, he got in trouble for saying “bad words” at Daycare.  I asked him if he had said them and he replied, “No!”  I asked if he was telling me the truth and he assured me he was.  He said, “You weren’t there.  You didn’t see me.  You didn’t hear me.  So I didn’t do it.”  OMG.  We are really going to be in trouble when he is a teenager.  
 
Anyhow, I used to use this pop up Monkey hamper in his room (which I had picked at Target) for dirty clothes before his room was super-heroized.  I like that the hamper folds up into a flat circle for easy storage.  I play with it tall or with it shorter and have my clients throw in bean bags, speech cards etc.
 
 
1, 2, 3 Boxes
I picked these up from Ikea.  I will sometimes set them up in the room as stations when doing obstacle courses.  I can put picture cards in them (10 seems to be my magic number) and have them complete the cards before we complete the next activity.  These boxes are great when working with children on the Autism Spectrum.  I put each of our activities in the  box-and then a picture OR the actual reward at the end of the table.  It’s like little numbered work stations.  

There is a zipper on the bottom which allows you to fold the boxes flat for storage.

I hope I was able to give you a few ideas for using storage containers in therapy-and if you happen to be at the Goodwill and see one of the cookie jars-I’d love for you to send it my way.

What creative containers have you used in therapy?

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