The summer sun is yielding, and pumpkins have begun their descent into all foods, beverages and entryway decor. Fall is upon us. Each year we reach out to friends and colleagues to find favorite fall speech therapy activities. We decided to start this landing page of great fall speech therapy activities so that we can add new activities and make sure the old-but-good ones are not forgotten. This page also gives us a chance to showcase some of the great work being put together on the internet by other SLPs.
Fall Speech Therapy Activity Children’s Books
Here is a link to the best children’s books with a fall/autumn theme. Too Many Pumpkins is one of Scott’s all time favorite books. It can be used to address many language goals, but primarily, he loves the theme of community building and reaching out to other people. Phuong is fanatic about of Big Pumpkin, a repetitive tale about friends trying to pull on oversized pumpkin off the vine. Spoiler alert! They get the task done. And with all great life events, the efforts culminate in consumption of pumpkin pie.
A Season of Change: 20 Mighty Girl Books Celebrating Fall
Favorite Children’s Books for Fall
Science and Math Fall Speech Therapy Activities
There is nothing like using the magic of science to make things fizzle, change or EXPLODE!
20 Must-Try Fall Science Experiments
How Wee Learn: Fabulous Fall Activities
Amazon Search for Fall Speech Therapy Activities
Amazon Search for Fall Speech Therapy ActivitiesImmigrants + Thanksgiving: Here are some books I found on Amazon when I searched for “Immigrant + Thanksgiving + children’s.” The Thanksgiving Door is wonderful book that also focuses on inclusion and building a community at Thanksgiving. And also:
Speech Therapy Fall Activities on Pinterest
Speech Therapy Fall Activities on PinterestSpeech Therapy Fall Activities
Speech Therapy Fall Activity Ideas with Instructions
Curriculum-based Speech Therapy Activities: Pre-K/K: English & Spanish Edition (Volumes 1&2)
Vocabulary and Following Directions
Thanksgiving Family and Food Related Ideas
Let’s Take a Walk
Go outside and take a walk. Let your five senses guide your stroll. See the leaves changing colors. Listen to the wind or the final calls of the birds before they migrate for winter. Hear the crunch-crunch-crunch of the leaves under your shoes. First, embrace the change in setting. Then, begin to incorporate your communications goals. Describe the walk, create an adventure story, practice speech sounds with the things you observe, talk about how stuttering feels, tackle Core Vocabulary words on communication devices and add Fringe Vocabulary about autumn.
Fall into Humor
What do you get when you drop a pumpkin?! A Squash!!! Get it. Get it??!! We will end with some jabs to our funny bone. Bring seasonal humor into your speechy days. It’s geeky, language fun. Here are some sites that will bring chuckles.
Another really fun activity that I have done is more of a sensory activity coupled with low language for severe to profound minimally verbal students. I took a large black cauldron and bought all sorts of Halloween themed toys. They can be added to or taken away from the pot with some pre-cooked spaghetti noodles. You can either have the students verbally or with pictures choose which object they would like to put in the pot or have them dig around in it and find something. They are then prompted to say “I want, I see or I found…” again with a verbal and/or picture. For my lower non-verbal students, I use an app on my iPad called Go Talk Now and make a simple 5 icon board with pictures of the items in the pot. Then the students can essentially match object to picture and press button to indicate what they found. This is great fun and good sensory too! Our OT loves doing this with us!
I love so much for your comment! You are pulling in Core Vocabulary and collaboration (with the OT) and holiday fun. Amazing! Thank you for sharing.
Thanks for these fantastic fall activities! Similar to the previous post, my favorite fall activity is cutting off the top of a real pumpkin and putting objects inside related to a story and/or the child’s targets. It prompts some great language use and some disgusting, gooey fun! This activity pairs well with the book “Pumpkin Jack” or the other pumpkin books mentioned (Big Pumpkin & Too Many Pumpkins). Happy fall!
Thanks for sharing, Meagan!