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Previous owner of Ariel’s Child for 22
years – a specialty toy store for school supplies, toys and materials for
children with special needs and speech pathologist for 38 years.
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Your kids will have so much fun playing and learning
they won’t realize they are working on their speech sounds and language
concepts! Listed below are some of my students’ favorite toys.
They maintain their interest and they don’t even realize they are
working. Each of these toys can be
used to work on language skills or
articulation and especially helpful when compiling a speech-language sample. They improve their ability to learn to
respond to Wh questions, increase mean length of utterance and/or initiate
pragmatic verbal turn-taking skills, to make requests, greet, comment and
label . Before the activity I write
down key words or phrases to target while the child is playing. Many of these
items I carried in my store for years and I still use today! Click on the title and it will link you to
Amazon.com. Visit my website at www.preschoolspeechie.com to connect to my TPT store and Pinterest site. There are lots and lots of fabulous
resources.
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1. Body Parts
& Clothing
Mr.& Mrs. Potato Head
 Playskool ($5.00
ea) and Magnet Dress up (boy-12.99, girls-17.19)are staple tools and there are many ways you can use them to
expand speech and language skills
Teach body parts, colors, basic concepts( top, bottom, on, under),
pronouns (he has, she has, his, her) , possession (mine, yours)     |
2.
Animals
The
Battat Farm Set is durable (33.99 ) and I would suggest getting
additional Farm Animals (7.49 US Toy) and Wild Animals (7.70 US Toy). It
increases the skills to teach, e.g. matching the same animals, concepts of
more, less, all, NOT, counting. Animal sounds are a great place to start
with little ones learning CV & VC combos, e.g. moo, baa.
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3.
Pretend Play Rooms of House, Friends & Family
The
doll house is for girls AND BOYS. Boys love to pretend play too. The Melissa
& Doug Fold & Go Dollhouse (35.48) is durable and mobile and it folds up for
easy storage or portability. I bought the Fisher Price Fold & Go
Doll House on e-bay because
I like the lightweight feature of
the plastic dollhouse. I purchased a
family (KidKraft) additional furniture (Le Toy Van Deluxe Starter Furniture
Set $45.55) and Fisher Price outdoor playground( 19.22). My students who are easily distracted can
maintain their attention with the doll house. This is the perfect situation
to work on following directions too – 1 step, 2 step, location words, and
work on critical elements e.g. big blue chair.) I have my list of words in advance to target
and am ready with paper and pen to get a speech & language sample of
phrases and/or speech sounds.
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4.
Cause & Effect
Wind up trains (12)
10.45 Fun Express, Push and Go Toys Kavaya 7.75 Emergency Vehicles Toysmith 12.80
Teach “Sabatoge” in a
fun way – when child can’t figure out how to make the toy go they can be
encouraged to request “help or go”, engage in eye contact and interact with
the adult.
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5. Vehicles
One of my most utilized
toys in therapy has been trains, cars and trucks for boys AND GIRLS. I made
the mistake once of only offering a doll to a little girl a long time ago- the mother proceeded to
inform me that she liked to play with her vehicles and did not like dolls.
Never assume! Viking City road set ( 19.29).Melissa and Doug Train set
22.91 Duplo My First Creative Car
Building Set 10552( 19.99) and PlayGo My City Car Park (25.85).
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6. Pretend
Play Provider
Another favorite - playing with baby dolls, especially if there
is a baby brother or sister in the family.
Here are the accessories which
I like using for encouraging basic sentence structures, e.g.
agent+action+object- I feeding baby, I brushing hair, etc. (Mommy & Me Doll Collection - Amazon.com $14.99) Choose a dolls that do not require
batteries . Two dolls are even better to engage in verbal turn-taking with a
peer or adult. I bought my dolls at
the Dollar Store believe it or not. Add a Battat medical kit (17.69) to the mix and watch the language take off. Include a favorite stuffed animal and you
now have a vet kit too!
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7.
Food
When
my little ones see the food coming their eyes light up. We set the table for mealtime and often
have the dolls out so we can feed them too. Teach food categories –
breakfast, lunch, dinner, hot foods, cold foods, dessert, fruit, vegetables,
etc. I also made sure I purchased food
sets that have food I can use for final consonant deletion and with
multisyllables, e.g. celery, strawberries, tomatoes, potatoes and use with
one of my pacing boards from TPT. (Step
2 101 food pieces 24.57 , Learning Resources Little Sprouts Breakfast 16.26 and Pretend and Play Sliceable velcro
fruits and vegies 13.77 are a few of my favorites. I found some great deals
on e-bay too.)
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8. Household
The dishes and pots go hand in hand
with the food. It complements the whole learning experience. Include a
tablecloth and have a “Teddy Bear Picnic.” Educational Insights Dishes 11.99
and Pots & Pans 13.99 are colorful and durable.
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9. Greetings
Teach greetings with Hi and Bye. Social
skills/pretend play: Your child can use the play phone to “practice social speech and language skills and “talk”
to mommy, daddy, friends, staff, etc. Grab yourself another play phone,
and have a conversation. This is the
basic foundation for turn taking! The
microphone is another tool to encourage children to talk and sing. I am an advocate of singing songs to
emphasize prosody and inflection. Most
of my sessions include a song or a rhyme!
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10. Balls
Big balls, little balls,
hard balls, soft balls, colored balls light up balls, bouncy balls. Concepts
of in, on, off, through, up, down, next to, in front, behind, top, bottom
(while using the balls in different activities and with other items like
basketball hoops, baskets, tunnels, cups, boxes, etc.) Engage in turn-taking
by using words to express request for an action, e.g. roll ball, throw,
catch, kick, bounce. This requires awareness on many levels: 1-Watch your friend 2-facial expressions, gestures) 3- Wait
patiently for your turn to 4-put
hands out to Catch the ball. Light up
molecule ball 5.38 Play Visions, Knobby balls 8” (5) 7.99, Melissa & Doug
Playground Ball 6.99 Ed Insights Shape
Beanbags 14.94
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11. Puzzles
Chunky puzzles have a dual purpose –
use as a puzzle or use during a pretend play activity. These are durable wood animal shapes which
can be used to sort animal categories, respond to “Where live” questions,
“Which animal lives in zoo?”, use for
teaching location words, e.g. put cow on the barn. Use
with other animals you are playing with, include the pets when playing with
the doll house or use as props when playing with the balls or bean bags.
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12. Playdough
I use playdough as a tool to work on the
child’s IEP objective and as a reinforcer. The goals are endless, but to name
a few , e.g. basic sentence patterns (I am, I made a color item
, Can I have?, turn-taking, speech sounds – SH, CH (push, make fish, sharks, choo choo), K, G (cut, make cookies, K, get, got, green), F (fork, knife, fish. face, 4,5) I laminated a place setting board
and face template so the child has a mat to play on. I have collected many playdough items over
the years, e.g. rollers, stamps, small cookie cutters, scissors. I
just bought a new kit from Play-Doh and added it to my collection -
Play-Doh:
Toolin' Around Playset
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Friday, November 28, 2014
12 Essential Preschool Toys For Your Speech-Language ToolBox 2014
Saturday, November 8, 2014
13+ Best Speech Games & Reinforcers
List created by Ricki Block, MS,CCC-SLP www.preschoolspeechie.com
Previous owner of Ariel’s Child for 22 years – a specialty toy store for school supplies, toys and materials for children with special needs
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Listed below are some of my students’
favorite motivational activities. They maintain their interest and they don’t
even realize they are working. Each of
these items can be used as a game to work on language skills or
articulation. Depending on the
student, I may use picture cards to collect data for minimum of 10 trials and
then use game as reinforcer. I find
key words or phrases to target while the child is playing. Many of these
items I carried in my store for years and I still use today! Click on the title and it will link you to
Amazon.com
Ned’s Head is a huge “feely box.” It has gross objects to find in his
head. I add my own objects too. When I pull Ned out of the box kids’ eyes
open wide – it’s a wow factor. Great for working on pronouns, He has, I am, I
got, this is, your turn, my turn. Play a describing game too. Kids pull out an
object and give 2 or 3 clues.
Fishing games are a classic. This happens to be magnetic
which is even better. Kids can fish and then put in a “pond” (use a coffee
can-wrap with blue paper – kids will love the sound of the fish dropping in to
the can.) You can hide fish around the room and kids get to “find” them. Great for working on irregular past, e.g. I
caught ,I found. Work on articulation too – K (caught, green, catch, crab), SH
(fish, shark, ocean) F (fish, find,
found)
  
I have been using frog hoppers for many years as a
reinforce. It has motivated many of my
kids to learnsounds- e.g. blends (frog, blue, green) , J (jump), G (I go). The
frogs come in a plastic bucket- perfect for teaching location words e.g. on,
off, in, out, up, next to.
Kids get a kick out of pushing out the tiles which makes a
clicking sound. They can match pictures
on their card. I scope the boards in
advance to concentrate on articulation. It is especially useful for final consonant
deletion. Nice first game for teaching
verbal turn-taking words, e.g. my turn, your turn.
Bowling captures the attention of the active child. I like
to tape pics of key pictures to the pin. Child says words on pins knocked down.
This is one of numerous types of bowling sets.
Wonderful companion to 5 Monkeys sitting in tree….along
comes Mr. crocodile you can’t catch me. Great activity for blends, e.g. tree,
green, blue, SNAP, crocodile. The kids
carefully put the monkeys on the tree which is strategically attached with a
magnet. It’s works as an enticing
reward.
Kids are intrigued by keys and doors,
so this toy is a real hit. It includes 12 different shapes. It also includes a set
of keys to release the shapes from the sorting chamber and the sorting house.
You can also hide small objects or pictures behind the doors too.
I recently discovered this game as I observed an SLP
colleague playing it with her student. I went online that night and bought it! It
is sooo cute. Spin the spinner, squeeze
the matching colored acorn with your Squirrel Squeezers, and place it into your
log. It’s a great game to have in your
tool box for S blends, e.g. sneaky, snacky, squirrel, spin, snatch.
You can stack &
sequence size, build towers, hide different fun toys like small shapes or toys
under-in the cups and play the “where is
it?” and following directions (1+ step
directions starting with simple give me,
put in the cup or put the little red cup on the big blue cup) . Magformers have square & triangle shapes
– fun way to work on SH -shape and TR-triangle sounds.
  
11. Art Supplies
dot paint 6-pack 14.99, Markers, Crayons, Paper, glue,
stickers, scissors –Crayola ultimate case with easel 13.71
, Melissa and Doug stamp sets 6.99
Art activities are often used as a process which creates
an end product which the child gets to take home. Some of my favorites with dot paint-e.g.
colors, P sd-paint, follow directions.
Stamps- e.g. ST sd-stamp, art kit-e.g. K-cut (scissors), G-glue
  
This is an oldie but goodie. It is outrageously expensive on Amazon.com ($149!!)The best place to shop for Cranium Cariboo is on ebay. You can purchase a used game for as low as
$19.99. I bought my game on ebay and all
pieces were intact. It is one of my
students’ favorite games. It has endless
possibilities and can be tied in to many goals. I have used it, e.g.
categories, action words(open, shut, find ), location (in, out)
13. Bubbles
Bubbles are the signature of an SLP. Not only is it one of the best reinforcers
....you can teach many concepts, especially labial sounds, (e.g. pop, bubble,
up, more, wow, my turn, big, blow),
concepts, counting.
   Have fun shopping!! |
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