Jill's Bag of Tricks: speech and language games

Speech and language games

As SLP's, we sometimes need very specialized tools to do our jobs well- video fluoroscopy machines for swallowing evaluations, specific sound stimuli for articulation therapy, or eye-gaze AAC devices for clients. Sometimes, though, we need items that can help us target the goals for the maximum amount of students/clients/patients on our caseload. Hence, my list of go-to games for maximum engagement! Whether you work in the schools or in a medical setting, these games are sure to be a hit! 
​Affiliate links included for your convenience. 

• Chipper Chat by Super Duper Inc. This game is always a hit! The articulation version includes pages for /s, r, l, f, k, g/, s blends, r blends, l blends, ch, sh, and voiced/voiceless th. They also have holidays, vocabulary, and grammar versions. Intended for PreK and up, but my middle school students love it too! They especially like to see who can make the longest chains of chips that still stick to the "magic wand"- our record is 9! Click the name above or picture below to find it on Amazon (affiliate link)

• Rory's Story Cubes: These are a classic, and for good reason! They are simple dice-sized blocks with pictures on all sides, which you roll and then make a story about the pictures that you end up with. Very engaging, and perfect for working on story grammar, sequencing, and vocabulary.  Danielle from Sublime Speech has a great, FREE template pack for organizing your stories. The cubes are intended for students age 8 and older (3rd grade or older)

• Sneaky Snacky Squirrel: from Educational Insights, a fantastic company. Players must spin a spinner and match acorns to their color-coded "tree trunks". But watch out- the spinner might land on the Sneaky Squirrel, which gives the player the power to steal other players' acorns; or wind, which means the player loses all of their acorns. Intended for players age 3 and up, but if you pair it with The Dabbling Speechie's "I'm A Nut: Squirrel Gathering Language Game" cards from TeachersPayTeachers, you can use it to target lots of language skills with students up to 3rd grade or higher. 

• Zingo- Bingo with a Zing game from Think Fun. Players use the fun "Zinger device" to release two tiles that they match to their boards. The boards come in different difficulty levels and are perfect for targeting final consonant deletion, vocabulary, and turn-taking skills! Activity Tailor has an excellent post on how to "Hack Your Zingo" to target even more skills, including a packet for articulation (perfect for those mixed groups!)

There you go- my favorite speech and language games to use for (almost) everyone on your caseload! Do you have any other favorites? Let me know in the comments!