Todays post is a little challenge for all you fabulous SLP’s! I obviously like to make therapy fun. If it takes a little extra prep from me to keep them engaged each week, that’s fine with me! Even though we’re having a blast in The Speech Room, we’re getting a lot done too. I challenge myself to get many trials each day and now I’m challenging my students as well. That’s how I came up with the idea for the Dollar Challenge for students working on articulation goals. 
This is the Dollar Challenge! I had these giant money posters that I took from the ‘give away pile’ at school. They inspired me to create something new for the kids! To beat the dollar challenge, the students must complete 100 repetitions of their target sound (in words) in one therapy session! 100 pennies equals a dollar and 100 speech sounds does too! 
This is the printable I made to go along with the challenge. Some days when we’re working on teaching strategies, oral placement and development of the sounds – we might only get 20 actual words said! On Dollar Challenge days, we’re working strictly on drill. At the beginning of the session I tell the kids it’s a dollar day and they know what they need to get done. It’s funny how fast their side conversations and stalling tactics fall away! They ‘sush’ each other so they can get more words done and don’t hesitate to remind me that they are in a hurry if it takes me too long to write data. I use my sound packets in the pocket chart for this activity, so the kids have plenty of words on hand and can independently chose targets to say. If they meet the dollar challenge, the students get to place their name on a dollar and place it onto the board. Once a week I am doing a drawing from those names. The winner gets to visit the prize box. Grab that download here! Can you beat the challenge twice in one session for 200?! How else do you motivate your students to complete large numbers of repetition? Stay tuned for my language idea that uses a similar strategy! Another Quick Tip **Smart Apps for kids is a website I use to find great apps for our speech/language students. They are giving away 4 ipads right now. Go check it out! If you still haven’t joined the craze this could be your chance!
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Fabulous! What a creative idea! I’m looking forward to your language idea!
Thanks Brea!
That IS fantastic!! Two questions: 1.What kinds of goodies do you have in your prize box? (this is my first year in K-6 and I feel like I’m lame in the prize box area) 2. What reinforcers do you do daily to earn prizes? (stickers? stamps? what do they look like?)
Thanks. Check out this post on how I do stickers. 10 stickers=prize box visit. http://speechroomnews.blogspot.com/2012/02/you-asked-i-answer.html
My prize box has a mix of everything. I usually buy one holiday pack from the dollar tree or wal-mart every season. Like snowman puzzle things or heart shaped boxes or something that is like 10 for a buck. The other stuff is random pencils, happy meal toys and treasures I pick up along the way. My most requested item? Mechanical Pencils. haha – don’t know why they love them so much!
This is great! I have done something similar in the past…every kid has their own chart and if they meet or beat their # from the session before they get a ticket and so many = prize. I also do this for homework. I use a 1 or 2 minute timer to keep us on task. 🙂
OO katie I love that idea!! Maybe I will have kids write their #’s on their dollar too so we can see how much they improve!
Such a great idea!! Money is motivating to all! Great way to get them drilling the entire time!!
Jenna you should totally have them write their # on the $$!! I bet the combo of the $$ and the #’s will be AWESOME! 😀
awesome!! This is the time of year it gets REALLY challenging to keep those kiddos engaged. I’m SO going to do this…. I can’t wait for your language idea!!
I bought a tally counter and the kids love just being able to click it as they say their words. It’s a fun way to count their productions. I’ve also used the Tally Counter app.
My students earn “speech dollars” by following the ABC rules (Always do your best, Best respectful, Cheer each other on). Then they use their group dollars to buy ice cream or popcorn parties. 🙂 Returned HW (on the rare occasion that happens) gets automatic $2!
I love the ABC rule CC!
I love this idea, not only to challenge my students but also to challenge myself! Sometimes in my groups it seems students are lucky to get even 20 trials during a session. One question…are you concerned if the trials are correct or incorrect? I don’t want my students to be practicing 100 incorrect /r/ words 🙁 Do you wait until they’ve reached a certain accuracy level before pulling this out?
Hi Abby – Yea I wait. I’d say once they are at greater than 50% accuracy as a group I do this. I don’t use is all in some groups because we always seem to have one kiddo really lagging behind on their sound. If they say the sound wrong I make them attempt it again once. If they STILL don’t get it we move on but I write it on a post-it to address later.
I love this idea! I made companion graphs to help the students count up to 100 on their goal behaviors (http://slpity.blogspot.com/2012/08/100-dollar-challenge.html) I can’t wait to see how many Challenge Dollars are on the bulletin board in May! Thanks for sharing this idea!
Made a homework page for my “dollar challenge days” for articulation: http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Dollar-Challenge-Homework-for-Articulation. Again, thanks for the inspiration…My students like to ask when the next dollar challenge day is coming!