Tip Tuesday! Cookie Cutter Playdough fun!

This is one of my favorite holiday therapy activities!  Cookie Cutter Playdough

is so simple and cheap to do.  As play dough is a staple in most therapy supply closets AND homes for young children, whether you are a parent or therapist this is a super easy activity to do to work on any speech and language goal.

I head down to my local dollar store and buy a bag full of holdiay cookie cutters (which ever holiday or season it may be at the time).  Above are my Christmas cookie cutters I bought a few years ago.  Below you will see pictures of my Halloween Cookie Cutter Activity but the premise is the same.

I use a small muffin tin (makes 6 muffins) and put a different color of play dough in each whole.  I either place the cookie cutter on top of the play dough (like the picture above)...or sometimes I use pictures of cookie cutter shape (so picture of a real bat, ghost, etc.) and place them over top of the play dough or in a bucket so the kids can pick which cookie cutter they will use "out of a hat"...fun to create anticipation that way.

First, we practice our stimulus cards (I usually try to practice 5-10 items or words in a row) then take a turns "making" our holiday shape with the playdough and cookie cutters.  If I get 10 practice trials between shapes that's a total of 60 trials during this one activity!!!!

At the end of this activity we get to compare and count the shapes we made and talk about the colors we used to make those shapes (great PK vocabulary)!

And that is it!  Simple, fun, cheap, and motivating!  Don't have your own cookie cutters?  Don't worry...just head on down to your local dollar store and buy a bag (usually I get 5 or 6 cookie cutters for $1).

Have fun "play doughing" and happy talking!

FREEBIE Friday: Easter Egg Puzzles Word Association Game!

It's FREEBIE Friday again and it's time we get ready to celebrate Easter in my therapy sessions.  My clients had so much fun with my Heart Word Association Puzzles a few weeks ago, that I decided to make some Easter Egg ones as well.  You will notice that some of these associations are quite obvious and some require a bit more thinking.  I tried to make a few a bit more complex for my older clients.

This packet includes: 

• 24 Easter egg puzzles with picture associations
• Answer key

Grab your FREE copy HERE!

You may notice that these cute egg templates are actually made by Jenn over at Crazy Speech World.  You can go to this link and check out her Clips by Jenn!

Enjoy and happy talking!

FREEBIE Friday: St. Patrick's Day Puzzles!

Want another St. Patrick's Day Freebie?  

How about a few St. Patty's Day Puzzles?  

I made the rainbow and pot of gold puzzle for my kiddos but I thought, what can you use for your older kids?  So you have two puzzles to choose form AND one page of blank puzzle pieces for any ?s you want to target yourself.  Or maybe you want to add sight words on the puzzle pieces?  Whatever works!

I specifically stayed away from any religious references about St. Patrick so these activities can be use in public schools as well.

Just remember to print front to back and the questions will match the puzzle pieces.  I know it works because I have one already to go!

Grab your copy of this freebie HERE!

Enjoy!  Happy Talking!!!

Freebie Friday: Follow the Artic Rainbows!

I LOVE St. Patrick's Day and I also love using pictures for my articulation kiddos (as most of my kiddos are non-readers).  But to make this activity I really couldn't fit pictures into the small spots above so I wrote words.  I decided to use words from Webber's Jumbo Articulation Drill Book because I'm pretty sure many of us SLPs have access to this resource.  Each page has words that go along with pictures from the book so readers and non-readers can use these handouts.  Also, you have the option to use this activity in therapy or to send home to parents.

As you can see, each page focuses on a different sound with 10 words in the initial, medial and final positions separated by the rainbows strips.

You could use dot markers, stickers, crayons, pom poms, or even bingo chips to color the rainbow strips.

I'm pretty sure I'm going to use skittles so my kids get to "taste" the rainbow while following it! :)  I am planning on placing colored skittles on the words, and after they are produced correctly at the level we are working on (word, phrase, sentence, etc.), they get to eat the skittle and color in the circles (with crayons, dot markers or maybe I'll even use water color paints...that sounds like fun)!

I included a blank page for you to make your own if you want.

Check out the packet and download it here for free!

Enjoy and happy talking!

FREEBIE: Tic-Tac-Love!

I really wanted to use those candy hearts for St. Valentine's Day so I thought, why not make a game of Tic-Tac-Love and use the hearts as my "Xs" and "Os"?  So that is what we are going to do.  Each child will have their own color hearts and I'll have mine.

I think to add some movement for my PK kiddos, I'll be printing out a second copy of one of these pages and use them as my Tic-Tac-Love cards, throw them all over the floor (face down of course), and have my kids take turns throwing bean bags on them to "choose" their picture.  Makes it a bit more exciting to leave winning up to chance.  Don't you think?

There are four different Tic-Tac-Love sheets so you can use them for group therapy sessions as well.  You could pair up 2 kids per card.

It can be used as a vocabulary game or a reinforcement game.

Parents wanting to use this game: practice your child's speech and language homework/pictures, etc. and after a few trials, have you and your child choose a card and place a chip or candy heart on the picture chosen.  OR just play like regular tic-tac-toe. Whomever gets 3 in a row in wins!!!

Teachers you can use this as a whole class activity, pairing kids up or as a center.  Its up to you.

How do you plan on using this game?

Grab your freebie here!

Happy St. Valentine's Day and Happy Talking!

FOR PERSONAL USE ONLY.  NOT FOR REDISTRIBUTION.  FOR MORE INFORMATION REGARDING MY TERMS OF USE CLICK HERE.

Freebie: Building Syllable Hearts! Targeting /P/ and /B/!

I have another St. Valentine's Day activity for my kiddos who are working on bilabials!  For my readers, this is a perfect articulation and phonological awareness task.  For my non-readers I plan to "write out" the words, letter by letter, as I sound them out after the child labels the picture to show them the connection between sounds (phonemes) and their letters (graphemes).  

Oh and I think I'll be giving out some valentine candy hearts for each word said correctly!!!! YUMMY!

Want your FREE copy?  Grab it here!  

How do you plan to us this activity?  Comment below!

Freebie Friday: Heart Puzzle Word Association Game!

In therapy, we are talking about how two things are similar and different.  So I made this simple word association game and put the pictures on heart puzzle pieces.  As you know by now, whatever I make for my kiddos you get to have as well.   

So grab your FREEBIE here!

In this activity there are two sheets of 9 heart puzzle word associations and one page of blanks so you can make your own!

Just cut laminate and have your students match up the two pictures that "go together" and explain why.  Some of these associations are more complex or out of the ordinary than others just to increase the complexity and to encourage my kiddos to "think outside the box".

I'm excited to use these, I hope you like them too!

Second freebie below:

I don't think I ever told you this, but my son and I volunteer at a local assisted living on the dementia unit and I make cognitive therapy activities from time to time.  I made the below activity for them.  I know some of you SLPs out there also moonlight with adult patients so I thought I'd add this FREEBIE just for you.  If these types of activities are something you would like to see more of, let me know.  I don't know if this type of activity is something you could us or not so I need your feedback.

This activity is a Famous Couple Heart Puzzle Match Up.  Download, print, cut and have your clients match up which pair of famous people go together!

Grab this freebie here!

Happy Talking!

I Heart Therapy L Game!

Here is the last articulation packet I have made for the Valentine's fun we will be having in a few weeks!  

This packet contains 6 pages of L cards (initial, medial, and final word position) and 1 page of heart game cards.

Check out some of the pages of this packet below.

Want your copy?  Grab it at the bottom of this blog.

Grab your FREEBIE below:

I Heart Speech Therapy L Game

Enjoy and happy talking!!!!