In a post-holiday therapy slump? One way to fight the winter blues of cloudy days and indoor recess is to pull out unique activities and games for speech therapy!
There is an entire month between Christmas and Valentine’s Day. Why not enjoy it instead of rushing straight to the chocolate hearts and lace? Our students with language impairments need the extra exposure to vocabulary. Target it-again and again…and again! You can find a TON of non-Christmas themed winter activities on Pinterest and Teachers Pay Teachers. I particularly love polar bears and have put together this post of Polar Bear Activities to use in speech therapy for you!
After reading Polar Bear, Polar Bear my students were reciting it for days. My feed the animal activities have been a big hit the last couple of years, so I added to the collection with a Feed the Polar Bear and Penguin activity. I used the same “water” (blue rice) bin from my Feed the Brown Bear activity as a sensory bin with the fish.
You can try this tutorial that I found on Pinterest to dye the rice. The vinegar smell gets better as time passes. I promise! A few drops of essential oils helps too! I use a large plastic container to contain the rice. This one makes it easy to carry between campuses when I travel. (affiliate link)
The Polar Bear is easy to assemble.
Here is a picture tutorial on how to make him and his fish.
After you get the polar bear ready…
you have some options for creating the fish.
Use this activity to target every goal on your caseload!
Articulation
Language
Fluency
Social Skills
Here are a few more polar bear activities on Pinterest that would be great for speech and language skills:
Talk about why polar bears are white with this STEM activity from The OT Tool Box and this investigation activity from Still Playing School.
Work on positional language by using these polar bear finger puppets by I Heart Crafty Things.
Have students working on articulation goals? Use this polar bear race from Little Family Fun to keep them motivated during drill!
Some of my fellow SLPs have created these speech and language activities that are polar bear themed:
Mandi at Panda Speech is famous for her interactive Lift-A-Flap books. She has this Polar Bear themed one available in her store.
Laura from All Y’all Need has a Polar Bear Fact and Opinion activity available on Teachers Pay Teachers.
Amanda at A Perfect Blend has this comprehensive book companion for Polar Bear, Polar Bear.
Using Polar Bears as a theme will automatically create a way to target the winter vocabulary that your students need. These suggestions will create a few fun and engaging lessons to get you over to Valentine’s Day. I would love to hear about any creative ways you utilize the activities mentioned above in your speech therapy classroom!
To see more of my Feed the Animal activities, click here!
To see more of my Winter Themed activities, click here!
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