I’m starting the year by making another set of mini object boxes for therapy but this time I’m focusing on my students with Childhood Apraxia of Speech. I work with preschool-aged students and we get really tired of flashcards. Using mini objects instead is a super fun way to make repetitive therapy more engaging. Let me show you how I set up my boxes. I’ll write a follow-up post with some ideas for using the boxes once you’ve created them!
Step one is to gather mini-objects. What worked best for me was asking parents of my students and my own friends and family. All my classrooms use closed Facebook groups to communicate with families, so I put out a plea to parents asking for the “junk” at the bottom of their toy bins. I included a picture so they’d know I only wanted small toys and clarified no stuffed toys because they can’t be cleaned. I also put a post in my local buy/sell/trade group and some families collected bags for me! I put the same post on my personal page and a week later, I followed up asking for any other donators. I got about 10 families to donate little bags and that was enough. Plus, I keep the random things I find throughout the year in a drawer so I threw those in!
Step 2. Lay down in the madness and take a selfie. This step is not required but highly encouraged.
Except, then you will follow it up with step 3. Removing mini objects from curly hair.
OK, back to the serious stuff. Step 4! Lysol everything because, GERMS. And start sorting. I grabbed three bins and went hunting for CV, VC, and CVC bins first because a lot of my students are at that level. You can also sort by sound like I did with my articulation mini objects boxes (more info here).
Step 5. Label your storage container. I use this (aff. link) Recollection Photo Storage Container. You can use your Michael’s coupons and find it on sale! It holds 4×6 photo boxes inside. You can make bigger boxes, but you have to think about portability. These are super easy to be portable.
After I sorted CV, VC and CVC, I added CVCV, and CVCVC. Then you can go to blends or multisyllabics depending on where your students are. It gets hard to think of words, but I just look at the objects and think through them in my head, rather than looking for a specific item to match a word list. I had lots of extras that didn’t match my word structures so I just added them to my articulation boxes.
That’s it! What do you think? Do-able?
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