I decided to keep going with my school supply themed activities for my speech therapy groups this week.  For me it’s easier to pick a theme and then create various activities around the theme.  I typically create/use different adapted books, games, crafts, and other activities related to the theme.  Then when I plan my sessions I have various materials to use and adapt to the different groups.  Especially when you have very large caseloads and kids with various needs it helps reduce planning time.   Here are some more school supply themed activities to add to the agenda.  School Supply Identification Board.  Click here for a FREE download of my school-supply-identification-board

Here is how I used the school supply identification board for therapy but there are other ways you can use it.  First I have the students find the number 1 on the board.  Then we point to all the school supply items in that row as we say the name of each item.  For example, “book, glue, pencil”.  For my verbal students I usually have them repeat the vocabulary terms and sometimes I have my students with AAC systems find the items on his/her device.  Then I give the students 1-2 step directions depending on his/her skill level.  For some students I give 1-step directions and I go in the order of the school supply items in that row.  For other students I give multi-step directions and vary the order of the items.

Simple directions for Row 1 – “Touch/Find the book….Color the book purple”.   “Touch the glue…..color the glue yellow.”  “Touch the pencil….color the pencil blue.”  For other students I combine the directions into multi-step commands, “Color the book purple” or “Color the book purple and the glue yellow.”  You can continue this way for rows 2, 3, and 4.

I model the school supply vocabulary terms multiple times throughout the session.  I usually review the item’s name and color after we finish each row.  For example, after we finish row 2 I point to the items again and say “pink eraser, green crayons, and brown scissors”.  The students can even say or point to the items with you.

If you wanted to make it even more challenging you could have the students identify the items by its feature or function.  For example: “Find the one you use to measure and color it orange.”  “Find the one you write in and color it grey”.

You can also ask various “wh” questions during the lesson such as “what do you use to cut paper?” or “what do you read?”  This identification board is just an easy activity to add into the session while still targeting some great receptive and expressive language skills.  Plus it allows you flexibility to change the level depending on your students’ language skills.

Here is another fun adapted school supply themed book I used with my students which Sasha created.  My students all really like this adapted book.  Count Color, & Name Wh-Question Adapted Book:  Back to School Edition 

Each page has 2 different sets of school supply items.  For each set of school supply items the students have to count how many items and select the number, find the correct color to match the items, and determine what the item is.
This book worked really well in small groups of 2-3 students.  For groups of 2 students, I would let each student get to do one set of the items on each page which worked out perfectly.  One student would count the scissors, find the color purple, and find the scissor picture to add to the book.  The other student did all 3 components for the backpacks.  For groups of 3 we either took turns on each set of items so one student did all 3 components of the school supply set and continued to rotate through the group.  Another option is I had each student complete one component for each school supply set.  For example one student counted the items, one student found the correct color, and one student selected the picture which represented the items.

You can also change the level of prompting for this book.  Some of my younger students can’t identify numbers yet so we would count the number of items together and I would just hand the student the correct number and have the student place it in the box.  Another option is to provide the student with a choice of 2 numbers and verbally say the numbers as you hold up the numbers.  For example after counting 2 books, we said “two” multiple times.  Then I would hold up the numbers 2 and 8 and verbally say “2” and “8” and the student would select the correct number.  You can also do this with the color pictures “orange” or “white” and have the student select from a visual field of 2 instead of multiple color choices.