5 Under $5: Christmas Must-Have Items for Your Therapy Room
Looking to add some flair to your Christmas therapy, but want to keep it affordable? Here are 5 must-have items, each under $5, to add to your toolbox for hands-on therapy this holiday season!
FOAM SNOWFLAKES
These foam shapes are nice for a variety of purposes. Write speech words on them (or stick pictures of speech targets in the middle of them) and hide them around the room for an articulation scavenger hunt. Practice prepositions by describing where the snowflakes are located. Let students take turns hiding them as well (it's always more fun when they get to feel in charge)! Give each child one snowflake to take home with a target word (or sound) written on it-- this makes home practice more exciting! These are especially great to use when practicing S-Blends! I found these are Dollar Tree, but I've also seen similar ones at Walmart and Michael's.
THEMED STICKERS
Stickers are always a crowd-pleaser. I've even found some that were shaped like ornaments, which were especially fun to use to decorate a Christmas Tree outline that we printed on green paper. You can easily practice following directions, listening for details, basic concepts, and articulation with these stickers! Print a holiday-themed picture (gingerbread house/man, Christmas tree, wreath, snowman, elf, etc.) and use stickers to decorate it!
WRAPPING PAPER
Wrapping paper is surprisingly engaging. It's one of my favorite items to use in crafts during the holiday season. Plus, it's super affordable, especially if you're just using your leftovers that are too small to wrap any more presents with!
MINI PRESENTS
These presents are so much fun to use in therapy, and they're super versatile as well. You can use them to teach concepts by placing them in/around/behind/between/beside/ over/under other objects. You can hide them around the room and make it a scavenger hunt where the student must use a prepositional phrase to tell you where they found the gift. You can also use these to target articulation by tossing them into a bucket- they're not going to break! Students can "earn" gifts for correct productions/attempts and can try to toss a gift in a bucket. These tiny presents are often readily available at your local dollar store.
TOY CATALOGS
Toy catalogs are an absolute MUST for December. If you want your students engaged during the week before break, this is what you need. Have students search through the catalog to find items containing their speech sounds, or practice categorizing toys based on an attribute. Use the EET in conjunction with a toy of choice or practice perspective-taking by creating gifts lists for people in their families. You can get free toy catalogs at most stores, or you can request a free Amazon toy catalog here! You can also ask your friends, family, or coworkers to save their toy catalogs for you after they're done using them.
BONUS RESOURCES UNDER $5
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