We’ve all seen the beautiful blogs posts about picture prefect therapy sessions go for that one speech therapist. Let’s be honest…not all speech therapy sessions are smooth and picture perfect. You may see 6 kids in a mixed group in which you need to address everything from articulation to grammar in 30 minutes. Maybe you see kids individually (like me) and feel like a cat herder. Trying to keep little hands busy can be tough! Sensory bins are great to keep the hands busy but you want to make sure sure you are able to address the goals you need. That’s where my quick drill cards come in! I plan on using these to start out my session as a quick warm-up. You can also use these at the end of the session as a review.
TO PREP FOR SPEECH THERAPY
I am going to keep this super easy for you. If you follow any SLPs on Instagram, you know about the famous set of photo boxes from Michael’s. I like them because I need things that can be easily transported from house to house. I also need to keep things compact since I carry all of my materials in my backpack.
So now that you have your photo box set, pick one of those cute little 4×6 boxes out to start your first quick drill box. We are going with an apple theme since it’s September when I am writing this. Find you some shredded paper at the dollar store…you know that stuff you stick in gift baskets as filler. I used green so that it resembles tree leaves. Then I threw in my mini erasers that are red and yellow apples. If you don’t have mini erasers, use small red and yellow pompoms or buttons. BOOM…you’re done with prep.
TO USE IN SPEECH THERAPY
Now you’re all ready to start quick drilling! You can either use my set of quick drill cards or you can use your own set of cards. If you are using the set from my TpT store, just print, laminate and place on a binder ring. Flip to the card you need. If you are working on artic, each time the children say s a word correctly 5x he can take an apple from the box and put it on his card. If you are addressing language, have the child complete a task. Then he can place an apple on the card.
MORE IDEAS
The point is to keep this cheap. Raid your local dollar store for different colors of shredded paper. White can be used for snow or clouds. Brown can be used for dirt. Blue could be the sky or water. I have one in the works that uses black paper (night sky) and colored stars. As for the objects, you can use mini erasers, buttons, pompoms, beads or even miniatures. You can dye bow tie pasta black for bats or crows.
Have fun with these while still targeting your client’s goals! If you work with a group, you could make bigger sensory bin with bigger objects or cards.