Sound Buckets

When I first started I had absolutely no materials.  I knew the basics of what I needed, but as far as games, books etc. that was all on me to purchase.  I wanted containers full of objects that were organized by sound.  When I realized that would take not only loads of money, but time too, I had to give up the dream.  Until.....one day I was snooping around our book closet and came across these alphabet tubs. 

*Lakeshore Learning Alphabet Sounds Teaching Tubs

Oh my goodness, you should have seen me high tail it out of there to the secretary and call dibs on it.

I use these ALL THE TIME.

Articulation:
Well I'd say it's pretty obvious how great they are to use with articulation therapy. 
-Each kid gets their bucket of sounds and has to tell me what each item is.
-Dump a bunch of buckets in the middle of the floor and the kids have to find the items with their sound in it.  
-If you have a kid that's working on several sounds, you can work on them all at once by having them sort out the objects into the corresponding bucket. 
-Hide the items around the room and then they have to say "I found the _____."
-Use them as game pieces "I'm moving the ____ 4 spaces."


Language:
-Use them to categorize
-Use them to work on prepositions. "I found the sun on top of the table."
-There are so many different objects that I often use them as props for different stories. 
-Use them to target function of objects.
-Use them to work on describing features. 
-Expanding utterances (see last two suggestions for articulation).
-If they are younger, you could use it as a teamwork exercise.  They have to work together to sort all the objects in the right bucket. 

Next on my wishlist:

*Lakeshore Learning Alphabet Sounds Teaching Tubs

Blends and Digraphs!

It will be a sad day when I have to hand these back over.

* Click on pictures to get to Lakeshore links.