I’ve rounded up 29 free Thanksgiving speech therapy ideas that are easy for you to share in teletherapy or in your speech therapy room. 

Do you love no-prep digital activities for easy peasy planning?  Then you’ll love these suggestions for your pre-Thanksgiving speech therapy sessions.  I’ve gathered some fresh ideas for you, with an emphasis on engaging activities that are quick and easy to share online with your preschool and elementary teletherapy students, that work great in-person too.

Start with at least one great Thanksgiving storybook

If you’ve been hanging out with me for a while, you know that I love literacy-based therapy. Here are my favorite picture books for preschool and early grades. I highly recommend you get a copy of the book to share. In teletherapy, you can show it with your document camera (you can use your iPhone for this in Zoom), or an Osmo.

Having a printed copy of the book makes it easy to have a more interactive story-book reading at your own pace. 

But… in case you can’t find a hard copy, I’m linking some read-alouds on YouTube for you. Keep in mind, these links are working as I write this, but if you find one that doesn’t work later on, please let me know.

Thanksgiving Books for Speech Therapy

• Turkey Trouble by Wendy Silvano.  This reading is by Storyline Online, which includes subtitles.

• Bear Gives Thanks by Karma Wilson

• Twas the Night Before Thanksgiving by Dave Pilky

• A Plump and Perky Turkey by Teresa Bateman

• There was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Turkey by Lucille Collandro

Head over to this post to read more about these books and how to use them in therapy:

Five Best-ever Thanksgiving Books for Preschool Speech Therapy

Food-Themed Books:

• Yummy Yucky by Leslie Patricelli is perfect for categorization of food/ not food and initial /j/ because yummy and yucky repeat.

• Llama Llama Yum Yum Yum by Anna Dewdney has lots of food vocabulary to talk about. This reading includes picture symbols, too.

• The Scarecrow by Beth Ferry and the Fan Brothers provides plenty of repetition of the  /sk/ blend and is a sweet story about friendship.

• When the Leaf Blew In by Steve Metzger is fun for cause and effect, sequencing, and /l/ and l-blends.

• Leaf Trouble by Caitlyn Griffiths is a story about a little squirrel who is worried about the leaves falling. It’s great for answering “What happened?,  the concept of “down”, and color words.

 

Add a few online games:

• The Owlies by Happy Clicks is a wordless video with colorful cartoon Owls for little ones. Talk about colors, sizes, night/dark, and “where did they go?”

• Counting Crops Game by Toy Theatre is perfect for talking about different fruits and vegetables. Describe them, categorize them, count them, and then have fun watching the tractor “pop” them as it gathers them up.
• Thanksgiving Crossword Puzzle by ABCya is great to play online and then talk about Thanksgiving day vocabulary.
• Arthur- an Elwood City Thanksgiving by PBS Kids introduces four different families and talks about how people celebrate Thanksgiving differently: with different traditions and gatherings.  Kids can click items in each of the four family scenes to interactively bake a cake, make a thankfulness poster, fill the plates, pour iced tea, read a book, and take a family photo of the characters after clicking them to change their expressions. There are lots of language opportunities here!

 

Just for Fun Motivational Games

Let your kids play a round of a fun fall game after they’ve answered their questions or practiced their words. These are fun if you can give kids control of the mouse on your teletherapy platform.

 

• Corn Maze Craze Game by PBS Kids

• Going Nuts Game  by Toy Theatre

• Fruit Fall Game by Toy Theatre: Help the farmer catch the apples.

More Thanksgiving speech therapy ideas: mix it up with Video Stories, Songs, and Movement Breaks:

 

• The Story of Thanksgiving by Zebtoonz is a cartoon retelling of the first Thanksgiving as told by the main character, “Plymouth Rock.” There are mentions of God in this video, so check with your school’s policies on religious references in your lessons.

• Thanksgiving Feast by the Learning Station is a nice, slow-paced song to the tune of Frere Jacque that your preschoolers can sing along with lots of food vocabulary.

• A Turkey Dance by the Learning Station will get your elementary kids up for a movement break!

• Scarecrow Song by The Learning Station is a movement break song that’s sung to the tune of Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear, Turn Around. It starts slow and speeds up, so with preschoolers, you may only want to do the first 2-3 repetitions. Work on body parts, s-blends, final ch, and r-blends (It repeats scarecrow, touch, and ground).
• Hot Potato by Dance ‘n Beats Lab is a fun dance movement break for little ones. It would be extra fun to have your parents pop a potato in the microwave 10 minutes before this break. (Not too hot, of course!) Sing and dance with the video, then explore your hot potato. How does it feel? What can you do with it?
• Thanksgiving This or That Fall Brain Break by GoNoodle asks students to choose which of 2 Thanksgiving items they like better, then do a dance, exercise, or play a game. This would be a great way to start your November sessions, watching only one or two this-or-that questions each session!

And add a dash of spice with free Boom Cards!

Five Little Turkeys digital story