Such and Such Saturday and Sunday: Use what you have!

When I was a graduate student in the school, I had no money for materials. So, I used a lot of items from home. I did a laundry unit with my ID classroom and so I brought my laundry basket, a variety of clothes , hangers, detergent and softener sheets to school one day!

The students LOVED being able to sort actual clothing items and to be able to look at the items while answering laundry questions! I encourage you to utilize actual items in your therapy sessions and bring in a functional component to therapy in your classrooms! Therapy activities DO NOT have to be expensive because you can use everyday items that are right in front of your nose!

Another idea is to save all of your bottles and stock your therapy room shelves! You can have the students name words on the containers or have them organize the bottles- alphabetical order, sort by color or shape! There are so many options! Start off easy with bottles that have the labeled pealed off of them!

Then go into a comparing and contrasting activity!

I have also used laundry bottles like this for comparing and contrasting! Have the students compare the bottles (by color, size, shape, type of lid!) Then have the students contrast the bottles (name, color, HD vs regular, sewer safe vs not sewer safe)

It was a great exercise for functional reading as well. Of course, your students need to be old enough to read to to do the last part! You don't just have to stop with laundry bottles either! Bring in any containers from your house! Pringles containers vs a Lays's Stax!

Compare: The are both tall and skinny. The both hold chips and are portable. They are about the same size and shape. They both are labeled for "original" flavored chips!

Contrast: The Pringles label extends the entire container and the Stax does not. The Pringles container is made of cardboard and the Stax container is made of plastic. You can see through the lid on the Pringles container, but not the Stax container. The containers are different colors. They are made by different companies.

You could use this idea with a few different containers AFTER you teach an easier lesson on comparing/contrasting to show students that there is an application to what they are learning in speech!

I hope you learned a little today about how I incorporate functional learning into my speech sessions! I have another post coming up that will focus on how I use business cards, flyers and brochures in my therapy sessions!