I am always looking for new games to use in my speech therapy sessions. The creative minds at Blue Oranges games have designed several, wonderful games that will engage your students and get them talking. I am excited to share two of their great games with you, Ooga Booga and Flapz, even the names are fun! Another bonus with the games is that they are completely portable! I can easily fit both games in my purse and take them to school.
Ooga Booga
First up, Ooga Booga. This 54 card, game is housed in a cute and sturdy tin tough enough to stand up to my kids. The object is to be the first player to run out of cards. It uses non-sense words to engage your kids and get them giggling at the silly combinations. This game can be used to target memory, phonemic awareness, articulation, and can also be used to work with students with mild apraxia.
How to Play:
Everyone is dealt a hand of cards. The first student takes a card, says the word on it followed by ‘ha’ and places it face up in the middle of the table. The next student takes a card, places it on top on the one in the middle covering the word. Then, they say words in order from both cards, continuing the word chain, and finish with ‘ha’. Continue playing until someone forgets or stumbles up. That person gets all the cards.
Watch out for action cards that will add some wiggles to the chain. The student who gets rid of all their cards, recites the word chain successfully, and shouts ‘Ooga Booga’ wins! I can see this game being a big hit with all my kids especially my older ones who can be hard to engage sometimes. The words are fun to say and will get your kids laughing while practicing their speech and language skills.
Flapz!
I loved this game! It brought me back to Jr. High, making paper ‘fortune tellers’ or ‘cootie catchers’, and playing with my friends. Flapz takes that classic past-time of adolescents and turns it into a fun game with 96 challenges that target memory, creative thinking, rhyming, story-telling, and more! This would also be great for students working on articulation at sentence or conversational level as well as fluency since many of the challenges require oral responses.
Here is how to play:
– Student A asks Student B to pick a number 1-12. That number is how many times the game is folded and unfolded.
– Then Student A asks Student B to choose a colored dot from the 4 being shown. Student A unfolds the game and then counts out loud the number that was previously chosen, starting at the color Student B chosen.
– Once the student stops counting, they open the flap of the color they land on and read the challenge to Student B.
Now I know what you’re thinking, “This game is so awesome! It will get used all the time and fall to pieces right away.” Do not worry. This game is actually made with Tyvek, the soft but sturdy house wrap, so that means it is durable.
Click HERE to see a video of this game in action. The challenges are fun and different so your students will be anxiously awaiting their turn to see what they will get to do. If you want to add this awesome activities to your speech room you can go to the Blue Orange Games website or use their Store Locator feature and find out what stores near you have these fun games in stock.
* Disclaimer: The activities discussed were provided for the purpose of completing this review, no other form of compensation was provided. The opinions and thoughts are my own.
