Step Right Up!… Carnival Themed Activities for Speech Therapy

Step right up! Step right up!  Take a chance and improve your speech sounds!  Who doesn’t love the carnival? The laughing, the rides, the funnel cake, and most importantly the games.  Here are a few quick and easy ideas to bring a little bit of the carnival fun to your speech room.

1. Duck, Duck, Sound

We have all seen the game with all the little rubber ducks in a tub of water. Pick a duck and turn it over to see if you have won.  You can bring this classic game of chance to your speech room. First you need some little rubber duckies. I found these in the target dollar bin, score!  You can also find them at a baby store, like Buy Buy Baby.  Try and get at least four and make sure they are all the same color.  On the bottom of each duck take a permanent marker and write 5, 10, 15, and a star.  Put them in a bowl of water, big enough for them to float around ( and maybe put a towel under your bowl, just in case ).  Have the student pick a duck.  The number on the bottom of the duck stands for the amount times the students will  say their speech sound.  If they get the duck with the star they can do something special like color part of a page, take a turn on a game, etc.

2. BOZO Buckets

You will need some small bean bags, ping pong balls, even the little foam balls from a NERF gun will do and 4- 5 baskets/buckets.  You can get these at the dollar store, crafts stores ( I found mine at Michaels ), in the kids toy section, etc.  Line them up in a row and put artic cards, language cards, whatever you are targeting, in the buckets.  Each bucket gets a point value ( 1-5 ).  Students toss a ball in a bucket. If they say their sound correctly or answer the question correctly they earn the points.  The student with the most points wins.

3. Ring Toss

You will need  six bottles that are filled with water, rice, beans, etc, some bangle bracelets, and you’re ready to play.  After the student says their sounds or performs a task, they can take their turn to see how many bracelets they can get around the bottles.

Now, I usually don’t recommend using food in therapy since so many kids are on special diets or have food allergies. However,  if you have parent permission and are aware of any restrictions your students may have, you may want to pop some popcorn or get a bag or two or cotton candy ( you can get some from the dollar store or a party store ).