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What's in My Speech Therapy Bag?

It is October and time for another great idea to share with you to help your child with his or her speech and language skills. This part of the year is always fun for me because there is so much you can celebrate between a new season and many holidays! This month, My Speech Therapy Bag will be filled with..... Leaves!!! There are so many activities and learning opportunities you can use with Leaves!! Check out some of my favorite activities below! Like an idea... feel free to click on the affiliated link!


fall leaves

Language Activities

I love to target descriptive concepts and following directions with leaves. Go outside and collect a handful of leaves (can be random or precise pickings). For younger children, I like to sort the leaves by color or by shape. I'll use construction paper to indicate color sorting and plain white paper with various drawings of shapes of leaves to indicate targeted shapes. For older children, I like to play a compare and contrast activity. Take two leaves from your pile and talk about the similarities and the differences of each. This is great to include some sensory concepts, such as smell, feel, and sound. For following directions, I will use the same color and shape concepts for younger children (i.e. "Let's find a red leaf" and "Let's find an oval leaf"). I like to advance this skill with older children by adding spatial concepts (i.e. on, off, under, in, etc) and adding multi-steps.


Literacy Activities

Here is a small list of my favorite books to read about leaves. These books are great for identifying and labeling, story sequencing, targeting the sounds "l" and "f" in "leaf", and targeting repetitive lip retraction in the word "leaf".


Play Activities

Leaves are an easy and inexpensive object that works great in many play activities. Two activities I plan on using this month in therapy are:

  1. Hide and Seek- make a few small piles of leaves (either inside or outside). Have your child hide a small object under one of the piles while you count to 10. When hidden, go seek and find! Take turns hiding and seeking. This will be great for a variety of speech language targets (i.e. colors, numbers, categorical objects, and objects that target a specific sound or motor speech movement).

  2. Playdoh Leaf Fossils- Gather some leaves and some Playdoh. Roll the Playdoh out and press your leaf onto. Remove the leaf and check out it's fossil! This is great for compare and contrast or simple concepts.

  3. Leaf Rubbings-Gather some leaves and white paper. Place a leaf or two under the paper and rub a crayon over the top of the paper. Watch as your leaf transfers to your paper. Again, this is great for vocabulary concepts, following directions, and even functional communication (i.e. help, I want + color, look!).


Crafts

My blog would not be complete without some craft suggestions! I love crafts because there are so many speech and language benefits that are naturally present within crafts! Check out some of the ones I plan on doing this month!

  1. Make Leaf Animals- Gather some leaves, sticks, rocks, feathers, etc from outside that would be great to use to build an animal. Once you have gathered your items, arrange them in a fashion that represents an animal of choice. Glue your items onto cardstock (cardboard if you are using some heavy items) and add some eyes (googly eyes or draw them).

  2. Sponge Leaf Paint- Head to the dollar store and buy a couple sponges! Cut various leaf shapes out of the sponges. Dab the sponges into washable paint and transfer to large cardstock or paper. Make a collage of painted leaves!


Outside Activities

Check out some of these fun outside suggestions to get your children moving and having fun while at the same time using their speech and language skills!

  • Rake leaves together. Make small piles, big piles, and GIGANTIC piles!

  • Jump into the leaves! READY SET JUMP!!

  • Fill up those Halloween Leaf Bags! I loved these as a kid!

  • Make it rain leaves! Rake a bunch of leaves onto an old sheet. Once you have a good pile, every grabs a corner of the sheet and toss the leaves into the air! 1, 2, 3, GO!


kids jumping in leaves

Fall is my favorite season and I love the variety of activities you can use to celebrate while helping a child grow with his or her speech and language skills. I hope you all enjoy the activities above! Come back next month for some more great ideas I keep in My Speech Therapy Bag!!

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