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29 Terrific FREE Thanksgiving Speech Therapy Ideas for Teletherapy
I’ve rounded up 29 free Thanksgiving activities that are easy for you to share in teletherapy.
This year the search is on for activities to share online… no-prep or easy peasy low-prep activities to simplify your pre-Thanksgiving sessions. So 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.
If you’ve been hanging out with me for a while, you know I love literacy-based therapy, so let’s…
Start with at least one great Thanksgiving storybook
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.
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 in a comment.
Thanksgiving-Themed Books:
- Turkey Trouble by Wendy Silvano. This reading is by Storyline Online that 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.
Autumn-Themed Books:
- The Scarecrow by Beth Ferry and the Fan Brothers gives lots of repetition of /sk/ 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 couple online games:
- The Owlies by Happy Clicks is a wordless video with colorful cartoon Owls for littles. Talk about colors, sizes, night/dark and where did they go?
- Counting Crops Game by Toy Theatre is perfect for talking about different fruit 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.
- Thanksgiving Memory Game by Squigly’s Playhouse I like this game for vocabulary and articulation practice too.
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.
Mix it with Video Stories, Songs, and Movement Breaks:
- Thanksgiving Story for Kids by Kids Academy I like the slow pace of this story which makes it easy for you to pause and discuss.
- The Story of Thanksgiving by Zebtoonz 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 preschools 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 out 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 tooo hot of course!) Sing and dance with the video, then explore your hot potato. How does it feel? What can you do with it?
Find a whole list of great songs and fingerplays for preschool and kindergarten in this post: 14 Songs and Fingerplays for Fall in Preschool Speech Therapy
And add a dash of spice with free Boom Cards!
- Open-ended Turkey Race by the Speech Vine is a 2-player game. Use an online spinner or dice to see how many turkeys each player collects.
- Create a Scene Thanksgiving Dinner by The Artsy Teacher is great for giving and following directions. Have your kids place the items in the position you name: on, under, next to, between. Work on Where questions too: Where is the ___?
- Spot the Not Thanksgiving Cupcakes by Teacher Dada is a simple “spot the one that is different” activity.
- There was an Old Lady who Swallowed a Turkey Boom Cards by Cara Brennan, SLP Grab the book, read the story, and use this deck as you read. Your students choose the item that the old lady swallowed from a choice of three.
- Pumpkin Feelings by Autism Little Learners targets feelings words. Children look at the cute animated pumpkin’s expression, then find the matching expression/ feeling from a choice of three.
- Would You Rather by Speech Bop. Great for answering Why? questions and conversational articulation practice.
If you’re looking to stuff your sessions with more activities, check out these Thanksgiving favorites:
You can find these available to purchase in my Teachers pay teachers store:
Five Little Turkeys digital story
Five Little Turkeys pack includes an interactive story terrific for simple vocabulary practice, rhyme, and articulation of /k/, /f/, /v/ and /l/ with the repetition of “Five Little Turkeys.” You’ll also get printable activities many of which are easy to share on your teletherapy screen such as the “Where is Mr. Turkey?” pages targeting prepositions and questions, and the dot marker turkey for fun.
Pumpkin Speech Therapy Activities and Digital Story includes Pumpkin, Pumpkin Where Can You Be? another interactive digital story that focuses on Where? questions. There are no Halloween references, so you can use it for Thanksgiving too. Target plenty of additional goals with the printable (and many shareable) activities.
Thanksgiving Bingo Riddles are fabulously fun for kindergarten and up! Share a bingo board and read the rhyming riddle clues to play, while you target inferencing, vocabulary, and listening skills. Don’t forget to have the kids practice articulation along the way.
Bingo Riddles are my most popular resources and best-sellers on TpT because they are totally engaging and so versatile for any setting or group. This is a resource you’ll use every year for sure, so be sure to check this one out!
Thanksgiving Mixed Group Magic Activities includes plenty of BW pages to share. Use the dot to dot pages, color by number, or mystery dots with your annotation tools in teletherapy. I’ve included Thanksgiving-themed WH questions for you, or use them open-ended.
I hope you found some fun activities for your pre-Thanksgiving speech therapy sessions!
If you’re planning ahead for Christmas sessions like I am, Check out this post: 35 Terrific FREE Ideas for Speech Teletherapy.
This year, I’m especially thankful for you, and the blessing of you visiting to share my journey, my creations, and the speech therapy treasures I find along the way. Happy Thanksgiving!
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- Read more about: Preschool, Storybooks, Teletherapy, Themes
