Use them in crafts.

Use them in crafts. Have students glue them to different pictures or crafts, such as these woven books. Have students say their words as they glue the cards to the craft.

If you need a quick activity, put out various craft materials and cut out mini artic cards. Have the students create their own crafts. Still have the children say the words if they are attaching the cards. Tip! Try to use materials that contain the students’ target sounds. For how to use child-directed crafts in therapy, go here.

Send them as homework.

A block or page of mini artic cards is a quick low prep option to send home as homework. It will save you time and trees as you are not printing off pages and pages of artic cards.

You can also send “homework cards,” as seen here. This allows a parent to add new words for the student to practice at home slowly. If your privacy laws permit, send a card back with the student during school. Have the student show their card to specific staff members and say their words. At one of my schools, the principal would spend part of her day visiting with children and doing a quick check-in on their word. Tip! Send home words that the student is most successful at pronouncing.

Use in five-minute artic drills.

Instead of carrying around cards to do 5-minute drills, print off the mini artic cards into a book. Then flip to the page you need for your student and start practicing. You can also use the artic book to probe students’ articulation skills.

Use as stickers.

If you have students who insist on having a sticker at the end of the session, print off the mini artic cards and use them like stickers. That way, the students’ “reward” is practical.

If you would like a copy of the homework cards, go here. If you would like my version of mini artic cards, get them here.

Let me know if you use mini artic cards and how you use them.

Figure Out the Logistics

There are lots of logistics you need to think about before going out with a class. Find out

1. Are they staying on school grounds or going elsewhere?
2. If you are going elsewhere, how is the class getting there?
3. What is the plan when the classes are there?
4. What are the potential hazards for your students? Lakes? Rivers? Fires? Wildlife?  
5. What are the conditions that would cause the outdoor class to be cancelled?
6. Who will be there?
7. How will the children be dressed? Mitts? Snowpants? (can you tell I live in Canada?)

Answering these questions will help you plan more effective push-in therapy outdoors.

Keep it Simple

When planning your therapy, you want to keep it simple. It can be awkward to carry around a bunch of therapy materials. Try and use as much of the environment and the activities that you can. If you are out in nature, you can do a scavenger hunt or bingo looking around in your environment. Talk about the texture of different materials. If you are doing activities in your yard, then you can target prepositions or following directions on the playground. 

If the class is making s’mores, then with your students, you can go over the sequence on how to make them. You can practice your “or” or “sm” blend.  

If there is snow, there are almost endless goals you can target. For some suggestions, see a blog post, I wrote a couple of years ago about doing therapy out in the snow.  Click here.

Target the goals beforehand, if possible

I like to preteach/target the goals before we are outside. This allows the children some familiarity with the vocabulary, classroom expectations, and activities beforehand. This can help students understand the lessons more effectively. Artic therapy that targets words used can help a student feel more confident or more easily understood.  

These are three tips that can help you be more effective in push-in therapy outdoors. Do you or have you done therapy outside?

Use the green board to make a 100s board.

Have the students put the Plus Plus blocks on the board after they have said their word(s). If you have competitive students, then I will sometimes have them compete to see who had the most blocks on their board.

Use with smash mats.

Because of their size, they are great at working on smash mats for artic therapy. When the students have the smash mat covered, then they can build for a short time. These are from a CH artic and language activity. You can get it here.

Sequencing and following directions.

These blocks are surprisingly versatile when putting them together, so they are great to work on following directions and action words. Tell the student what blocks to use and how to use them. This is also great for students to describe how to put the blocks together.

Use to work on cooperation and negotiating skills.

This is something that I typically do with children in grade three and older. Have children work in pairs and have them work together to make an animal of their choosing. You can buy tubes of Plus Plus blocks that will make different creatures. I will give the students the directions and let them work together to put it together. 

These are some of my favourite activities to use Plus Plus blocks in speech therapy. If you are interested in other ideas for using literacy activities in speech therapy go here. Do you use these blocks, and what are your favourite activities?

Sorting by Syllables

Have a syllable sorting mat out, and after the child has said their sound put it on the corresponding part of the mat. Be careful with this one. If you have a child who already breaks up a word and has trouble blending them back together (for example, they pronounce “spot” as “s-pot”), I will not do this activity. It would only reinforce pronouncing the sounds separated from the rest of the word. I would also avoid onset rime activities.

Sort by where the target sound occurs in the word.

Once a student can pronounce their sound at the initial word level, I like to work on it in the middle and final position. Then I go up the hierarchy. Once they have said their word, then they place it on the sorting mat.

Alternatively, you can layout their artic cards. Name a location (e.g., beginning, middle, end), and then the student finds a word with their sound in that location.

Sort by the number of sounds in a word.

After the student has said their sound, have the student sound out the word, slowly separating the sounds of the word. When done, put the card on the sorting mat and then blend all the sounds back together again.

Make up silly words by replacing words with their sounds.

Making up words is usually good for a laugh but go through the words you make so that you don’t accidentally make up an inappropriate word. Show your student(s) different artic cards. Have them pick a card. Delete the beginning sound or ending sound of a word with their sound to make a new word. Sometimes for fun, I’ll have the students make up a definition for the new word.

The examples here were from my Lunch with CH product from my TpT store, but most of these sorting mats can be easily and quickly made or you can download a freebie.  For other speech therapy ideas go here.

What are your favourite ways to bring literacy activities into speech therapy?

Articulation

The Apple Pie Tree is loaded with /p,/ /b,/ and blends making it a great book to work on those sounds. Many also occur multiple times allowing children say their sounds many times.  Here is a list:

• /p/ sound:  pie, petals, papa, peel, picked, pan, pile, apple(s), open, top/
• b/ sound: bare, bee, but, building, buds, baby, birds,  big, bend, basket, Robin(s),
• Blends: grow, brown, spring, branch, tree, flower, break, blossoms, breeze, blow, ground, fly, strong, small, brim, sprinkle, smells, taste,

One idea is to have your child/student listen for a specific word, and each time they hear it, they tap the table. Then they say the word.  Similarly have the child listen for their sound and tap when they hear it.

Language

1. Plurals: There are many opportunities to work on plurals. E.g., Robin/Robins Look at the illustrations and talk about the pictures to work on plurals.

2. Verbs and verb tenses: The Apple Tree contains so many verbs.  It is a great book to work on both regular and irregular past tense.  Here are some of the verbs in the story: grow, watch, build, chirp, guard, open, break, cover, blow, fall, teach, fly, rain, visit, bend, cover, pick, help, cut, pile, sprinkle, cook, eat, smell, and taste.  A therapy ideas is to ask what is happening in the story or have the children act it out in play to build understanding and use of verbs.

3. Describing the illustrations:  Many of the pictures include items/ideas that are not talked about explicitly in the text.  For example, they talk about summer and show children playing in a sprinkler. Have your student tell you what’s in the picture.  How much detail do they give.  Do they tell you the main ideas of the picture or focus on the minute details? This would also be great to start to work on inferencing.

4. Sequencing: There are many great opportunities to describe sequences.  The book talks about the change in seasons.  It talks about the life cycle of Robins.  It talks about the life cycle of an apple, and it also shares a recipe for how to make apple pie.  Additionally, the back of the book has a section where they talk about how bees pollinate flowers.

Supplemental Activities

1. Sensory Bins:  Make a sensory bin out of oats, flour, apple pie spice, cinnamon sticks,  and real/fake/counting apples.  Add in measuring cups, measuring spoons, muffins tins, and spoons. Have children pretend to make apple pie.  Use some of the vocabulary from the book.  Note: if you have students that are gluten-free or are allergic to any ingredients from the sensory bin, please do not add them.

2. Make Apple Pie: There is an apple pie recipe at the back of the book that you can make with the students.  You can also use tart shells so that everyone’s dietary restrictions can be accommodated.  Talk about the steps you need to do to make the pie.  Focus on verbs, use many that are in the story.  When the pies are done, talk about the pie’s smell and the pie’s taste.

3. Make a large apple tree out of paper:  Hang it up on a wall and add apples for the children to pick.  Add different colour and size apples for children to work on following directions. Alternatively, go through the year with the tree starting with snow, then flowers, then leaves, then apples, then leaves falling.

4. Have children sort objects by seasons.  Sort a variety of objects by when you see them/use them during the different seasons.  For a season sorting file folder and class activity visit here.

5. Watch videos with time-lapsed video of a life cycle of an apple tree. Talk about what the children see.  Have the children answer questions about the video.

6. Have children plant apple seeds in a clear cup.  Look at the seeds and comment/describe what is changing.

These are some of my ideas. Form more ideas on using literacy in your sessions, go here  For ideas on how to use apples in push-in therapy, click here. How would you use The Apple Pie Tree in speech therapy?

How to Use a Woven Book:

How to Make the Woven Books:

Why?

1. Children are constantly exposed to animals in the books they read and often in the activities they are exposed to at school.
2. Children generally like animals.
3. It is so easy to make a game using figurines.  
4. They are more engaging than worksheets or even pictures of animals.  
5. Children need to manipulate toys.  
6. I feel that it helps children learn the language skills they are trying to learn.

Using Figurines in Speech Therapy

Building Vocabulary

Visuals for Songs

Categorization

Prepositions and Answering “Where” Questions

Teaching Basic Concepts

Conversation Starters

Describing Skills

Similarities and Differences

Retelling Stories