Functional & Fun Fire Station Themed Therapy

NEE NAA NEE NAA NEE NAA! Fire truck coming through.  Make way!  

We are doing some fire station themed activities this week in speech therapy because it is Fire Prevention Week! Here are some pictures to show what we have been up to:

First of all, thanks to Jenn over at Crazy Speech World, we had these super cute firetruck cover up pages and die.This student is actually working on his initial /F/ sound in words so the pictures of the firetrucks and firefighters really came in handy! He also needs to work on how to count correctly to #10, so I simply had him roll his firetruck die and cover up the amount of firetrucks that were rolled. He was asked to count the firetrucks that he covered out loud.  He was also asked to count the total amount covered after he had rolled the firetruck die three and five times. Articulation was targeted by also asking for repeats of the /F/ sound on its own and in the word "fire" several times throughout the activity.  You can pick this fun activity up over at Jenn's Crazy Speech World's blog for FREE.  Thanks Jenn! You are so nice for sharing this freebie and creative too! 

And here's the best part.  We of course used the metal tokens so that he could pick up all of the tokens with his magnetic wand afterwards!  I have never met a kid who doesn't love using magnets in therapy! Did you know that you can buy Super Dupers Magnetic Wands and tokens separate instead of always stealing them from your Chipper Chat boxes?  I just recently bought some extras.  Here's a link to where you can buy them over at Super Duper Publications. 

Now I want to share how I continued to use these fun firetruck cover up sheets with another student.  This student is working on reducing his fronting phonological disorder.  He often turns his initial /K/ sound in words into a /T/.  For example: his cars are "tars" and his keys are "teas."  

It really helps him to see pictures of his targeted words on minimal pairs cards and so I pulled out Speech2U's Minimal Pairs: Fronting/Backing Packet in order to use her /t/ vs /k/ minimal pairs flashcards (shown in picture below). This packet is fantastic by the way!  It has pictures and activities for the common initial and final /t/ and /k/ substitution that I see so often, but also two other ones: /d/ and /g/ and /s/ and /sh/. Not only does she provide these clear and accurate pictures of minimal pairs in flashcard format in her packet, but she also includes a ton of activity suggestions on how to target them in fun therapy activities, minimal pairs sentences, rebus stories, homework pages and sorting mats.  It's a very professional and impressive packet. Click on the picture below to link to it if you don't already own it. It's only $7.00 over at Kelly's Speech2U TPT Store.  Personally, I think that is one of the most impressive documents that I've ever seen made available for sale over at Teachers Pay Teachers. 

 

Roll the firetruck die, say your minimal pairs = a fun time and increased auditory discrimination of a fronting error! 

And to finish up we added a craft and some grammar work into our sessions.  One student made a firefighter paper plate mask and both had the opportunity to increase their pronoun and preposition understanding by playing our fire station themed board game from our own fire station themed unit called: 

Fire Station Pronouns & Prepositions

This unit has 71 pages of fun and original pronoun and preposition targeted interactive activities, games, and worksheets for students in pre-K to third grade.  This year we updated the packet to include some additional black and white sheets, the paper plate mask craft, and some illustrated preposition flashcards that are both fire station themed and also general themed so that they can be used year round.  If you would like to pick it up this week during Fire Prevention Week you can save 40% off the cover price!  Yay!  Have a fun week in therapy friends! 

Be safe and don't forget this tip (just given to me by my kindergartner after a firefighter came to his class to talk about fire safety.) He told me, "Mom, we need to have a meeting place outside in case there's a fire in the house, and don't forget that we need to Stop, Drop and Roll when we are hot and on fire."  And after that he demonstrated how to do it on the kitchen floor!  He's so cute and is learning so much in school! 

Manda & Shanda