It’s officially winter in my speech room. I’m popping in to share some recommended toys for speech therapy. Just like my fall list, this list is meant to give you ideas for bringing PLAY to your therapy sessions.
What are the benefits of using winter toys and games for speech and language therapy? Great questions! Kids learn through PLAY! Instead of a flashcard set, grab your toys and target any speech or language goal that your students may have!
Types of Winter Toys and Games for Speech Therapy:
- Play Materials (animals, play food, etc)
- Actions Toys (poppers)
- Games (cooperative or competitive games)
- Puzzles
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Little People toys are some of my very favorite! Children learn through play. You can target vocabulary, social routines, following directions, positional concepts, function, categories, attributes, and more. I could go on and on!
Little People Christmas Village: This set includes little houses in the Christmas town!
‘Twas the Night Before Christmas: Santa’s reindeer are pretty much the cutest thing ever!
Little People North Pole Cottage: Santa and Mrs. Claus invite you to their cottage!
Little People Hanukkah: This set is actually retired but you might be able to snag it on ebay or at a garage sale. This Amazon listing will give you the idea, although you certainly shouldn’t pay $200 for it!
Learning Resources Polar Animals This set is very cute for play! The arctic animals are perfect to use in other sensory bins or pretend play plus you can use them like finger puppets.
Don’t Break the Ice is a childhood favorite. It’s perfect for winter time!
Cranium Polar Bear A-B-C Welcome to the iceberg! You pick one word card, and you take turns fishing for letters. After you catch a letter, you determine if it was in the word you were trying to spell. If it is, you place it on the word card. If not, it goes into the cast out pond. Everyone playing takes turn fishing for letters for the same word. The winner is the person who places the last letter on the word. The winner then get to put the polar bear in the ice pond for a swim. This game works best for 3-5 year olds!
Polar Mama and Baby Puzzle: I love this one for simple CVCV words and matching!
Arctic Toob: These adorable little figurines are a great way to PLAY and talk about arctic animals.
Don’t Rock the Boat: A game I use in pirate week and for our winter theme! Tip: if the boat is tipping over too easily, glue a quarter on the blue mountain to rest the boat on.
Cookie Sheet Magnetic Math: When you’re busy talking about holiday goodies sneak in some language concepts! Use these magnetic sheets to talk about more/all/some/one/less, positional concepts, and following directions.
Snowman Popper Toy: These are great to kids up and moving or as an easy reinforcer for high trial practice.
Snowball Emotions: These are super fun and you can target some Social Emotional Learning while you play!
Penguin Wiggle Stix – This is a wiggling little penguin who you flip up and down! Great for your younger learners.
Polar Animals Nesting Dolls: This set is super cute and great for size words and core vocab.
Felt Brownie Set: I’m so very into cooking and playing with felt items. These homemade toys are a great way to work on sequencing, social routines, and language.
Santa’s Baking Set Play Felt Food: How adorable are these cookie cutters? Act out the sequence of baking cookies with these felt toys. I love supporting small business owners on Etsy!
Slice and Bake Cookie Set: A great way to play in the kitchen for the holidays and you can always find these on Amazon if you don’t want to wait for an Etsy order!
Dress up Santa: Speaking of Melissa and Doug Toys, this dress the Santa toy would be a perfect way to work on clothing vocabulary and body parts.
Frozen Roller Toys: Break out a frozen toy and you’re sure to get a burst of language! I love these roller toys so much! You can roll Olaf, Elsa, and Anna and then describe where they wind up! Seriously FUN!!!
Frozen Matching: There are several ‘game’ version of Frozen available now. I happen to like the Frozen Matching the best because it’s so simple that I can continue to target other skills while keeping the kiddos engaged.
If you’re interested in more winter themed materials for Speech and Language Therapy, check out these resources from Speech Room News.
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Thanks for the tip on “Don’t Rock the Boat”. I’m definitely going to have to glue a quarter on it!
Wow! I’m so excited to see Polar Bear ABC and Don’t Rock the Boat! I’ve been using these for years now, but haven’t heard of other SLPs using them. I’m thrilled to try the quarter trick for DRTB, the quick tip over has always been my hesitation when my students choose this game. I’m not sure I could survive without Don’t Break the Ice either! Thanks for the list, I’m going to check out a few others!