Penguins in Speech Therapy
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Penguins are a fun winter theme to use in speech therapy. The best way to help a child’s speech and language development is through play, literacy, and hands on activities. Here are 10 simple therapy ideas and activities that you can do in your therapy room this winter.
Penguin Hide & Seek
Receptive Language/ Expressive Language / Articulation Carryover
Take turns hiding a small stuffed penguin around the therapy room and giving each other directions on where to find the penguin. This version of hide and seek is a play-based way to incorporate positional concepts, vocabulary, expanding utterances, etc into therapy.
Penguin Eraser Toss
Open-ended
There’s something about simply tossing small objects to hit a target that gets students engaged and loving therapy. I use a muffin tin with points marked as 5, 10, or 20 depending on which spot the eraser lands in. Students get to toss a penguin eraser after practicing the desired number of trials or providing a correct response. Whoever has the most points at the end wins. (Sometimes, I have students try to beat their own personal record rather than comparing with peers’ scores. I like to keep a healthy balance of competitive and non-competitive games in my therapy room.)
Waddle Walk
Open-ended
This gross motor game is terrific for students who struggle to stay seated in therapy! Just prepare yourself for lots of smiles and giggles as students pretend to be penguins during this activity!
After completing the desired language target or speech trials, students must waddle from the start line to the finish line keeping a medium/large ball between their feet the whole time. If the ball comes out from between their feet, they don’t receive the point for that turn/lose a point (depending on how you want to play). If the child successfully completes his/her waddling journey across the ice, he/she receives a point. How many successful trips can your penguins (students) make?
Social Skills/ Open-ended
Tacky the Penguin is one of my favorite penguin books, and I especially enjoy using it to discuss individual differences, expected vs. unexpected behaviors and, perspective taking while working with social language groups.
Open-ended
Pengoloo is a wintertime favorite among students I’ve worked with over the years! The game is similar to Memory, and the object of the game is to collect the most penguins for your iceberg! Roll the dice to see which color egg you’re supposed to find and get the opportunity to check the egg underneath two penguins. I like playing this game as a fun way to strengthen early theory of mind skills with students on the spectrum.
Articulation / Language
Use play dough or cotton balls with these simple penguin activity mats. Click the picture for more information!
Articulation
Easy print-and-go penguin hats for articulation and a template to customize.
Who Stole the Fish? Story Game
Verbal Descriptions / Narrative Skills / Articulation Carryover / etc
Find a large template of a penguin. Each student designs a disguise for their penguin. (Like the popular Disguise a Turkey) After the students have cleverly decorated and disguised their penguins, the language activity begins!
The therapist goes first. Pretend you were a witness to a penguin stealing fish from the frozen pond in your backyard. The students in the group are the detectives. You start off setting the scene (looking out your kitchen window, for instance) and then seeing a penguin steal fish from the pond. You go on to describe the penguin you witnessed stealing the fish and the children have to put all of their penguins in a lineup to figure out who the guilty penguin is! With good descriptions, students are able to eliminate penguins from the group until they know which penguin stole the fish!
Example story from the therapist:
“I was drinking my morning coffee last weekend when I glanced out my kitchen window and saw something unusual! The small pond in my backyard had frozen over. Suddenly, a penguin waddled out onto the ice and dove in through a small hole! A couple of seconds later the penguin emerged with two fish in its beak. Before I could reach the penguin, it had waddled away as quickly as it had appeared. I yelled after the penguin, ‘STOP! Thief!’ “
“Maybe you can help me find the guilty penguin. It was wearing a disguise, but I was able to get a good look at it before it escaped!” *Now instruct students to line up all of the penguins while you mentally choose which penguin you will describe as the guilty party. Describe the penguin you selected using EET/ other description process.
Students then take turns describing a penguin they saw stealing fish from a pond until each student has had a turn describing.
Articulation
A print-and-go articulation activity for your early readers!
Expressive Language/ Narrative Skills/ Predictions/ Carryover/ etc
I have yet to meet an SLP who doesn’t LOVE wordless picture books. As a slightly penguin-obsessed therapist, I instantly fell in love with this book!
