Tiny Objects

A fresh and fun activity that I have been doing in speech therapy is called Tiny Objects for Articulation. This is an activity that targets articulation development. Basically, each phoneme has a set of miniatures to use for articulation practice.

 

Although I created this activity for articulation therapy, I have also used it to practice fluency/stuttering strategies, syntax, categories, and EET. This game is flexible!

 

I have been putting together this activity for a while. I wanted to ensure that there were enough miniatures to make therapy sessions productive!  I had a storage container with small drawers that I found at a thrift store. But, these containers can be purchased at any hardware store. They are usually used to organize and store screws, nails, etc. Mine was a bit dingy, but some orange spray paint took care of that! 

 

Next, I used sticker letters from my scrapbooking stash on the front of each drawer to designate a space for the phonemes, and some blends. I then collected little things for each phoneme to store in these drawers. The objects are from Lego, Playmobile, bead shops, doll house websites, and our family toy collection. I always keep an eye out when I am shopping for things that will not only fit in the drawers, but also suit my needs for this activity.

These are the most popular items that the students love.

 

In (sort of) order: gumball machine, hippo, soldier, Batman, Ugg, fortune cookie, feather, cheese, swan, blow fish, mustard, plunger, Chinese food, french fries, train, Chinese checkers, chips, gingerbread house, sushi, dragon, flamingo, jar, cup, snail, clock, roller skate, scissors, teapot, bubbles, rose, orange juice, smoothie, Hello Kitty, princess, mermaid

Here is how I use it in therapy. Students are given a drawer with their target sound. During their turn, the student says each word so many times, or in a sentence, or a silly sentence with two words, etc. Then the next student goes. We go around and around until all the miniatures from the drawer are used for practice. This is a favorite in speech class! 

A goal that can be targeted during this activity might look like this:

By DATE, STUDENT will correctly produce PHONEME in the THERAPY/CLASSROOM/ETC setting at the WORD/PHRASE/CONVERSATIONAL/ETC level with 80% accuracy in 4/5 trials as measured by observation and data collection. CCSS ELA SL GRADE.1

or, with real words:

By 12/1/2015, Christy will correctly produce /s/ in the therapy setting at the word level with 80% accuracy in 4/5 trials as measured by observation and data collection. CCSS ELA SL 2.1

I hope you enjoy this idea!