Keep your students motivated with this hands-on reinforcement activity.  This quick and easy candy cane craft can be used with any goal and can be enjoyed by students of all ages.

What you need:

• candy cane craft page provided, printed on white cardstock (one page for every three students)
• red paper or cardstock
• glue stick
• scissors

What to do:

1. Cut out the white paper candy canes.
2. Cut the red paper into small strips, creating ten for each student.
3. Give each student a paper candy cane.
4. After each turn or answer, give the student a red strip of paper.  This continues until all ten of his or her strips have been earned.
5. The student can then glue one red stripe onto his or her candy cane for each of the next ten turns.
6. Trim the extra red off of the sides of the candy canes and have the students write their names and the year on the back.

Have fun!

Getting Started

First the students trace their hands on pieces of paper.  Next, they draw the legs and feet at the bottom and add a beak and wattle to the thumb.  You can either have them draw an eye or glue a googly eye on the thumb.  Depending on which goals you are targeting, you may want the students to make multiple turkeys, or maybe even a flock of turkeys!

Making it Work

Now that your students have made their turkeys, what can you target?  Just about anything!  Try out some of these ideas or come up with your own.

Have your students…

• write a Thanksgiving word that contains their target sound on each finger.  They can practice the word on the first finger one time, the word on the second finger twice, etc.  This can also serve as a take home practice page.
• write a main word (e.g., turkey) on the palm and descriptive words or a sentence on each finger (e.g., It’s a bird, It has a wattle, etc.).
• write what they are thankful for on each finger.
• follow directions for coloring their turkey (e.g., Put three orange stripes on the first finger.)

As a free bonus, here is a list of Thanksgiving words for you to use for discussing vocabulary or as stimulus words for articulation.  Keep it handy when you’re trying to think of seasonal words to use in your sessions.

Pick up a box of Valentine’s cards! They can be turned into customized therapy materials in just a matter of minutes! And did I mention how inexpensive they are? I found boxes of cards with licensed characters on them at the dollar store!

Here are some ideas of what you can do with them…

• Make matching sets to work on “same” and “different”.

• Create stimulus cards to use in your sessions. You can write words on them for articulation practice or language activities (e.g., antonyms or multiple meaning words). Fold them in half and let the students pick them out of a bag, bowl, or small box.

• Add numbers to the cards to tell the students how many responses to give, spaces they move, or points they earn.  More specific instructions for this activity can be found at the last link below.

Some other Valentine’s Day ideas I’ve posted can be found through these links…

Valentine’s Day Activities for Speech Therapy

Here are Some “Sweet” Valentine’s Day Therapy Materials

Quick and Easy Valentine’s Therapy Activity

If you have a Valentine’s Day activity to share with us, please comment below. We’d all “love” to hear about it!

Becky Wanca

Materials:

• 2 paper plates per child
• black crayons for coloring the pot
• scissors tape or stapler
• paper coins – Here is a page of coins for you to print out or you can use a circle paper punch. You can use colored paper or color it yellow or gold yourself.

Preparation:

• Gather the materials.
• Cut a part off the top side of one paper plate to make it resemble an open pot.
• Cut out the coins and decide what the targets are going to be (i.e., sounds, antonyms, etc.).
• Attach the plates together if you want to have this done ahead of time.

Activity:

1. Have the child color the back of the cut plate and the top part of the other plate black. If working with a group, the children can color while waiting for their turns.
2. Tape or staple the plates together so that they create a pocket.
3. Spread the coins out on the table or put them in a bag or bowl for the children to pick from.
4. Have the child pick a coin, practice the targeted activity, and then put it in his pot.
5. If there is time, review the stimuli in the child’s pot.

Again, for a printable page of coins to use in this activity, click here.

What you need:

• Valentine cards (I used my son’s left over ones)
• Marker or pen
• Candy hearts, stickers, or other treat (optional)

On the inside of the Valentine cards, write a 1, 2, or 3. I put six 1s, four 2s, and two 3s. You can also add a card with a sticker on it as a “pick again” card. Fold the Valentine cards in half so the numbers don’t show, and place them in a bag, bowl, or small box.

When the students respond to their stimuli, let them pick out a card. The numbers written on the inside of the cards can be how many treats they get, spaces they move, or points they earn. (You can choose whether you want the students to put the cards back in or keep them out.)

Have fun!
Becky Wanca

To make your own, go to http://www.cryptogram.com/hearts/

I’ve made some pages of “r” and “l” Valentine’s Day words on hearts for you to print.

L Valentine’s Day words on hearts

R Valentine’s Day words on hearts

Enjoy your week!
Becky

What goes into the eggs?

Depending on the child or group you are working with, you can change the stimuli (pictures, words, directions to follow, etc.) and prizes that go into the plastic eggs.  For example, for young children, I cut out stickers to put in some of the eggs.  For older students, I put papers in the eggs that say “pick again”, “candy”, or “extra point”.

What do you do with the eggs?

Here are a few different ways that you can use the eggs in your sessions.

1. Egg Hunt – Before the session begins, hide the eggs around the room.  Have the child or children hunt for the eggs and put them in a bowl.  When all the eggs have been found, they open the eggs one at a time, saying the target word or following the directions on the paper inside the egg.  Finding prizes in random eggs keeps it fun and exciting.  If time allows, let the child(ren) hide the eggs for the next group or client.

2. Pick a Good Egg – Have the clients take turns picking eggs from a big bowl or basket.  They say the target word or sentence or get a prize like in the Egg Hunt game.

3. Up, Down, and All Around – Plastic eggs can also be used for working on prepositions.  For a receptive task, place a few eggs relative to an object (e.g., on, in, next to) and have the child point to the one that is in the place you describe.  For an expressive task, place one egg relative to an object, and have the child tell you where the egg is (e.g., “in the basket”).

Lucky Number
Buy plastic gold coins or make some out of paper. Number each coin and select one number to be the secret “lucky number”.  Create a numbered list for your therapy objective.  For example, for articulation practice, have a numbered list of target words or sentences.  For vocabulary building, have a numbered list of words for practicing synonyms or antonyms.  You can use the same coins for various activities by simply changing the list of numbered items.

A student picks a gold coin out of a container and tells you its number.  Have him practice the item that corresponds to that number on the list.  When a student picks the “lucky number”, he can trade it in for an incentive (e.g., sticker, candy, prize).

Variation
Hide the numbered coins around the room and have the students find them.  The students practice the items for the numbered coins that they found.

Stack ‘Em Up
Have a pile of conversation hearts on the table in front of each child’s seat.  Give 30 seconds for the children to stack them as high as possible.  Once the time is up, have them count how many they have stacked.  Use that number to determine how many times they must practice their sound or skill they are working on.  (If someone’s stack fell or wasn’t very high, you can assign a minimum number.)  Let them eat the candies in their pile or take them home in a zip-top bag.

Hearts a Plenty
Write words on cut-out paper hearts and hide them around the room before the group arrives.  Have the children find as many hearts as they can and then take a seat.  Each child then takes a turn saying the word on one of his hearts.  If you want, the child can then trade his paper heart for a candy heart, or you can keep track of “points” for some other incentive.  Here are some examples of how you can use this activity…

For articulation – Write words that contain the sound(s) the children are working on.  If the children are working on different sounds, color code the hearts.  For example, have the children working on /s/ look for pink hearts, and the children working on /r/ look for red ones.

To work on describing – Put nouns on the hearts, and have the students give at least three attributes of the words they have found.

For multiple meaning words – Put words with homonyms on the hearts and have the students try to give two different meanings for the word.