A couple of weeks ago, I did a train craft for speech therapy.  The boys loved it!  I am not sure what it is about boys and trains.  But I have discovered that anything train related is an absolute YES with my speech therapy clients!!  It helps that this was a simple craft too!

This train was RIDICULOUSLY easy to make.  I am going to share how I used it with articulation and language clients!

Prepping the Materials for Speech Therapy

Each child needs:

1 sheet of black construction

1 big rectangle, 1 square, 2 triangles, 5 small circles, 1 small rectangle

(cut one triangle in half and use 1 half for the front)

thin strips to stretch across the wheels

1-2 cotton balls (for engine smoke)

I told my kiddos to pick what colors they wanted everything to be   (HINT:  They had to use descriptive words then!  Such as “I want a blue triangle”)  I was able to work on shapes and colors with the little ones.

Articulation Therapy

I wrote target words on each piece of the train.    Each time they produced a word correctly 5x, I gave them that piece to glue on the black construction paper.  Easy enough, right?!  Once it was completed, they had a cute train craft that also doubled as a homework assignment…SCORE!

Language Therapy

I see mostly preschoolers for language therapy.  Some are working on increasing their MLU while others are working on following directions, simple descriptives (like big and little), simple spatial concepts (like on, in), shapes and colors.  This craft allowed me to address all of this!  Kids first had to request the piece they needed by saying “I want the blue square.”  Then we practiced understanding the of “on” or “under,” talked about what shape/color it was and if it was big or little.

See our week with trains plus another craft here!