PRESCHOOL SPEECH ACTIVITIES: SENSORY BINS, NO COOK PLAY DOH, AND MORE!

January 2016 Kristine Deworocki

Hey everyone! I know it has been a little while since I write a blog post but I hope to make up for it right now! I absolutely love all the feedback and questions I receive on my in class and pull out speech session activities. I love working with the preschool population AND I love that I can use so many of these activities with my son Landon. Hopefully I can give you some more insight AND answer all of your questions in this post. So let’s get started on a round up of the Fall and beginning Winter speech activities that I’ve been doing with my preschoolers. I hope they inspire you.

Your students will love these preschool speech therapy activities including sensory bins, no cook playdough, and more.

I want to start with answering the #1 question I get all the time….”What is your Play-Doh recipe?!” This may seem crazy but if you work in a school or clinic and don’t have access to heat sources (oven, microwave, etc.) and are limited on time then you NEED this quick and easy recipe! So here it is…

NO COOK PLAY-DOH
4 CUPS FLOUR
1 1/2 CUP SALT
3 TABLESPOONS VEGETABLE OIL
1 CUP WATER

The most important thing when making this recipe is to mix your dry ingredients in one bowl and your liquids in another.

*You may need to add slightly more water or flour after mixing this all together…if it’s super sticky, add more flour, if it’s very dry, add more liquid…SIMPLE!*

This basic recipe can be adapted for basically any season or holiday you want! Just remember to add your food coloring (I use gel food coloring for a brighter color) to the liquids before adding it to the dry ingredients!! This makes “mixing” MUCH EASIER!

PLAY DOH FOR EVERY SEASON OR HOLIDAY

Now that you have the recipe from above, all you need is food coloring in various colors and different spices/extracts! For Pumpkin, use orange food coloring and pumpkin pie spice! Your students will love the smell as much as you do and you can even make “pumpkins” out of the play-doh using cookie cutters! For Gingerbread, use ground ginger, cinnamon, and cloves. You won’t need any food coloring because with that many spices your play-doh will become the perfect “brown” color. Don’t forget to use some gingerbread boy or girl cookie cutters for added fun! For Peppermint, I like to make two batches or divide one batch into two. I use red food coloring in half and keep the other half white. Add some peppermint extract (YUM!) and there you go! It’s fun to mix the red and white together which gives it a “marbled” look or make some candy canes by twisting the two colors together. I hve lots of other Play Doh ideas that I’ll be sharing in the next few months!

SENSORY BINS FOR EVERY SEASON

I can not get enough of Pinterest and the amazing Sensory Bin ideas out there. My preschoolers absolutely love doing hands on therapy. This also allows me to work on just about every single one of their speech/language goals.

Be sure to check out all the sensory bin ideas on Pinterest.

Here’s how I created my super simple Sensory Bin….Start with a “base”, this can easily be changed depending on what season/holiday you are planning to use it for. For example, I often keep dried beans in mine because it works for a variety of holidays/themes. The beans could act as “dirt” for your spring, bug, garden, or halloween sensory bin. Right now I’m using “cotton balls” to act as “snow” for all of my winter activities. I’ve hid flashcards and snowflakes in there. Soon I will be using “arctic figurines”! What preschooler (or any age student for that matter) wouldn’t love getting there hands in there and digging around for hidden items?! There are tons of opportunities to work on articulation, following directions, vocabulary, prepositions, verbs, requesting, describing, and MORE!

WINTER TREATS AND CRAFTS

We kicked off the holiday season with the easiest, most amazing smelling food craft…Cinnamon Ornaments! Not only did they turn out adorable, they are ridiculously EASY to make.

These cinnamon ornaments were not only fun but super easy for my students to create.

We kicked off the holiday season with the easiest, most amazing smelling food craft…Cinnamon Ornaments! Not only did they turn out adorable, they are ridiculously EASY to make. Here’s what you need, 1 cup cinnamon, 3/4 cup applesauce, and cookie cutters. Mixing the cinnamon and applesauce together will give you a “dough” like consistency. Roll it out, use the cookie cutters, poke a hole at the top, and allow them to dry overnight. I’m not kidding when I tell you your speech room or classroom will smell wonderful for at least a week!

Marshmallow snowman crafts are a huge hit and help your students practice those important fine motor skills.

Recently I shared two Marshmallow Snowmen crafts I did with my preschoolers. The first was during in class group speech. Here’s what we used: Large marshmallows, M&Ms, some vanilla icing, and pretzel sticks. We worked on prepositions, following directions, vocabulary, and more. The second craft involved mini marshmallows, pretzel sticks, and some creativity! I drew the circles for the snowmen ahead of time to make life easier. My students were able to request the “glue”, “more marshmallows”, work on top/bottom, prepositions, and more.

I hope you enjoyed this post and I’ve answered some of your questions about my favorite speech activities! I would love to hear some of YOUR favorite crafts, recipes, etc. for group speech. As always, thank you for your constant support. I love being an SLP and being inspired by all of you!