5 Under $5: St. Patrick's Day Must-Have Items for Your Therapy Room
Hoping to add some luck to your St. Patrick's Day 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 St. Patrick's Day!
FOAM SHAMROCKS
Mine came from Dollar Tree, but they are also available on Amazon*(though they're more expensive on Amazon.. If you want to stay under $5, visit your local dollar store!) The ones pictured are large enough to stick cards onto them. Then play a matching game, attach a magnet to one side and have a fishing game, or create a "field of clovers" on the floor and go on a clover-picking adventure. Play a following directions game if you have clovers of different sizes, shapes, or colors. If you have students with describing goals, have them each decorate a clover and describe it using the EET. These students may take their final creations home!
These gold coins (mine are from Dollar Tree, but are also available on Amazon*) are the perfect size for any fun 'feeding game'. I used this free printable from My Cute Graphics, laminated it, and cut out a hole for the mouth. I attached the face to a mini trash can (also available at Dollar Tree, or here on Amazon*). Feed a coin to the leprechaun for each correct production, work on verbs such as eat, or practice positions such as "in" and "out". These are also fun to hide around the room and practice giving positional clues to find them: "Look under the rug; Mine is behind something red; Look above the bookcase".
TIN BUCKETS
I have tin buckets that I use all year long. These are from Target but are also available on Amazon*. I prefer to get 3-4 in a variety of colors or patterns. This way, they can be used for sorting. Sometimes I will put labels on them (Food, Animals, School Supplies, Clothing) and have students sort cards or mini objects into the buckets. Other times, I give a bucket to each student to use as a way to hold beads or the gold coins, mentioned above, as a way to keep track of their reinforcements throughout the session. Then, at the end of the session, we count how many items we have in our buckets. You can also toss coins into the bucket from across the room for each correct production!
MINI LEPRECHAUN HATS
These mini-leprechaun hats (found at the Dollar Tree (5 for $1) or on Amazon* at a higher cost) have one very important use in my therapy room. I often use items such as these hats for practicing minimal pairs. Place two hats in front of the child. Hide a coin under one of the hats. Place the correct minimal pair card on top of the hat with the coin. Place the incorrect minimal pair card on top of the hat without the coin. Ask the child to guess which hat hides the coin. If the child makes an incorrect production and therefore chooses the hat without the coin, have the child guess again. Keep going until the child makes a correct production, or until you say "OH! You mean KEY! You were saying TEA, that's why I was confused! Let's look under the KEY hat!" Lo and behold-- there hides the coin. 😀 Another simple activity to use with these hats is a game of ring toss. Either throw the rings onto the leprechaun hats (if you are like me and already have rings from another game) OR toss the aforementioned coins into the hat for different amounts of points!
GIANT LEPRECHAUN FACE… OR NORMAL-SIZED
This leprechaun is too cool. It's is available at the Dollar Tree, and to be honest, I haven't seen one exactly like it anywhere else. If you can't find one like this, you can also download the one I mentioned earlier (this free printable from My Cute Graphics) and print it poster size. Cut out various mouths from construction paper-- happy, sad, angry, surprised, etc. Practice making the leprechaun feel different emotions by sticking different mouths on them-- and talk about what made them feel that way! Or, of course, you could cut their mouth out and have them eat articulation or language cards!
BONUS
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