Speech Activities for the Holidays

I love Christmas! Especially in my speech room. The kids are having a great time with each activity/craft-ivity we are completing daily. The first activity I want to share with you is from Oriental Trading Company, my go-to for cheap/fun crafts. I found these advent calendar scratch-n-reveal Christmas trees and thought they would be so fun for my students. Think of a lottery ticket, same idea. Sadly, they are no longer selling them. Maybe next year. There is a chance I bought out their inventory. Sorry!

 

I used the tree in a variety of ways to target different types of speech goals. For students working on articulation, they said a target word as many times as the number on the ornament, and then could scratch off the green paint to reveal the holiday picture. For example, if they chose to do number 2, they said the target word 2-times. Or, when they chose number 25, they said the word 25-times. They got a lot of practice!

I have a student working on some beginning AAC skills, so he scratched off an ornament, and we talked about the picture that was revealed.

Students with social language, language, and fluency goals used the tree as a reinforcement after a response to a question or target of some sort with a picture card.

Another activity primarily for my students with articulation and vocabulary goals, is to make an ornament for my little tree. I pre-write target words on the ornament. For the students working on antonyms, they give me an opposite for the word on the ornament, and then color that words. For those with articulation goals, the student says the word a few times and once in a sentence, and then can color that word. Here are a few examples.

 Another articulation activity is a quick BINGO game for /r/ and /s/. I got it for free here from Communication Window on TPT. Cut, paste, laminate, and buy red and green M&Ms! So easy!
 

I made mulitple TPT purchases on Cyber Monday for social skills materials with a holiday theme. I got the HOHOHO! Social Pragmatics pack from the Dabbling Speechie. Included in this pack are a variety of activities including Santa & Rudolph Perspective Taking Activity, Stocking Stuffer Perspective Taking, HOHOHO Gift Giving Perspective Taking Activity, Christmas Gift Giving social story,  HOHOHO Tone of Voice Lesson, Candy Cane Madness game, and  real life photos to work on perspective taking. Here are a few images of this great Christmas pack. 

I also got the Big Problem, Little Problem Presents set from Lindsey Carol in her TPT store. This activity includes 60 situations in which students must determine if the problem is a big issue or a little one. Students can also provide a solution to the problem. Many of the scenarios have a holiday theme. Here is a picture of my printed set. 

The other purchase I made on Cyber Monday was the Holiday Social Language Activities set from Splashy Speech Stuff. This set has so many great stimulus cards, each related to the holidays and current best practice in social language instruction. Included in this social language packet are Social Problem Solving task cards, Expected vs. Unexpected task cards, Expected vs. Unexpected signs, Gift Giving Inferential scenarios, Gift Giving Matching board, Gift Giving Rubric, Identifying Emotions scenarios, Conversational Questions, and much more. Here is a picture of my set.

Students with language goals also had a lot of work to do these past few weeks. But, it was fun work! I made this Christmas Tree synonym game. Students find the three words that go together to build the trees. I found the idea here at the Speech Room News blog, and made my own set.

For those working on language memory and sequencing, we read 'Twas the Night Before Christmas and answer questions that I found here. I am always surprised at how many students have never heard this story!

This Holiday WH Question Mini Pack was a freebie on TPT from Sasha Hallagan. Students working on basic levels of question answering made these WH question books. Do you like the red snowman? Interesting interpretation...

 
I hope I have given you a few ideas for the rest of this week, or maybe for next year!

P.S. Sorry for the shiny pictures of lamination...