Halloween

Halloween is just around the corner.  Here are some ideas of how to incorporate the holiday into your articulation and language therapy. 

Articulation:Use a trick or treating basket and have the kids pull cards that target their speech sounds.

Pumpkin craft
I got the idea and template from this website.  I of course had to tweek it to fit my therapy needs.  The kids glue Halloween words that have their speech sound on each side of the 3-D pumpkin. It was a fun activity that even my 3-year olds could do. 

Ghost scavenger hunt

Tape string around your room (my goal was to make it look like a spider web) and paperclip sound cards on it.  Each child makes a ghost out of a white lunch sack and black crayon.  Then the scavenger hunt begins.  They use their ghost's mouth to grab the cards off of the web and bring it back to the table where they have to tell me what they found. 

(Warning: Making this web is very time consuming.  Might I suggest having your fluency group help you while you chat about life and work on those fluency strategies?!?)

Candy corn sound blending activity:  I found this image through clip art and copy and pasted it into BoardMaker.  I then added letters to each section of the candy corn.  The kids can play around with their sounds at the beginning and ending of words with different vowels in the middle. 

Language:

Sequencing book/social story for trick or treating. 
Page 1 
Page 2 
Page 3
(you must have BoardMaker to download these files)


Sequence how a pumpkin grows. “It’s Pumpkin Time” is a great book for sequencing how a pumpkin grows from a seed to a jack-o-lantern. 

Describe a pumpkin:  I print off a bunch of describing words beforehand and have the kids shout out what words describe a pumpkin. If they have trouble you can let them choose between the pictures. The best way to do this is to actually have a real pumpkin that the kids can touch and see. 

Bulletin Board Ideas:
"Look At What Sounds We're Brewing Up"

Some lovely teaching assistants made all these circles (bubbles) for me. The kids brainstorm words that go along with Halloween.  Then, depending on what level they're at, the child:
A. draws a picture and writes a word that has their speech sound in it.
B. Writes a sentence with one of the words in it.
C. Writes a scary story that they have to read to the group and use their best speech sounds while they read it.   

Can you tell I love Halloween? This nice fall weather is really getting my brain rolling with ideas on how to get outside during speech therapy.  This speech lady is in desperate need of fresh air!