I haven’t had a ‘treasure chest’ of prizes for attending speech therapy in four years. I ditched that for non-tangible prizes in my school-aged speech room (like sitting in the teacher’s chair, lunch with me, etc.) For the last two years, I’ve worked in preschool and do inclusion. Most of my students can work without reinforcers or their reinforcer is being able to go back to an area of the classroom they love more than speech. I’m looking at you, Lego table. A few of my preschool friends are ones you likely know. They need reinforcers that are highly motivating and they need a behavior plan that changes about once every two months for the classroom. For speech time, I couldn’t handle three different teachers and three different behavior plans. I also fail at carrying clip charts and sticks and all that jazz. Instead, I found the perfect solution for traveling SLPs needing behavior plans.
Then I took a selfie with it so I could tell you about it.
Meet my pocket treasure chest. I found this little beauty at Goodwill. It’s about a 1 x 3 inch treasure chest. It says Disney inside so I’m sure it came with a toy set or something. It literally fits in my pocket.
Everyday, my little people have to finish speech time to find out what’s in the treasure chest! Somedays it is one Skittle. Somedays it is a little toy they can play with for 2 minutes (wind up toys fit great.) Sometimes it’s empty (because Ms. Jenna ate the Skittle) and they get to walk to the water fountain in the hall with me. Sometimes when it’s empty I let them tell me a topic and I make up a silly song for them. Literally, anything. They don’t care as long as it’s fun and something different.
You would NOT believe how hard little people work to see what is in the treasure chest. It’s magic and I don’t have to plan or carry a chart or anything!
You can get a similar tiny treasure box on Amazon at this affiliate link.
If you try it, come back and tell me about your tiny treasure box! I can’t wait to hear about it.
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This is a genius idea!!!! I can’t wait to try this!!!
Awesome, we have a mystery box here in our speech room.
With my school age kids, we have tied it into the Expanding
Expression Tool System.
It’s been so helpful for mastering classification skills!
Another great idea! Yes, I too did away with the sticker sheets and big treasure chest years ago. Thanks again for the inspiration and wonderful ideas!!
I am a 2nd generation SLP (my mom worked 1960-2005 as a School based SLP). She taught me to save cool tins/containers/boxes/bags- every activity I have is in a COOL container and my students cant wait to see what might be inside! I try to find containers that go with the theme as much as possible (Example I found a small box with a ribbon that plays the “Happy B-day song” when opened (our thrift store is amazing!). This precious box contains objects “presents” that the students can choose to give to the picture of the boy (him/his or girl her/hers) while wearing their very own party hat. We are an island community so I have an old cookie tin that has a ship on it with category sort items all related to boating and the sea, Ahh, it goes on and on, only us “Speechie types” truly understand the magical joys of special containers!!!
So true!!! I have a Birthday Cake container but it doesn’t have a lid!
This is a cute idea! I think I might try this out with my kiddos. Thanks
This seems like a great idea fir individuals…do you use this for groups? If so, could you explain?
I love this idea! Very creative and fun!