It’s the last week of May and that means we have an ice cream theme in speech therapy all week long!!! When I was in the schools, we would make ice cream or have an ice cream party to celebrate the school year. As a traveling SLP, I can’t bring ice cream to the homes all week…major bummer! But we still have lots of fun! I am sharing all the resources, books and toys that I use in my sessions during ice cream week.
Ice Cream Books for Speech Therapy
I have two books that I use during ice cream week. If I have a client that is not able to focus, I may use an interactive book from my TpT store. I will get into those later! The first book I really like for my preschoolers. We can use it to work on increased MLU as well as many other targets.
“Just One More” is an easy to read story about Ruby who is always asking for just one more! One more minute of sleep, one more sip of mom’s coffee and one more scoop of ice cream…until it happens! Her ice cream is too tall and falls over, splattering all over the concrete! The simple text allows for this book to be turned into a repetitive story. I have my clients repeat “Just one more” at each page to help with increasing their MLU. We were able to talk about the pictures and I could target different “wh” questions with visual cues.
For my older school age clients, I like to use this Curious George book. Kindergarten and up are familiar with Curious George and all the trouble he gets into! I like this book since it does fit with the typical story grammar-characters, setting, problem, resolution, etc. With all of my clients, I drive home the “good choice vs. bad choice” concept to remind them there are consequences for their actions! If you don’t want to add the book to your collection, there are several “read alouds” on YouTube. Here is one I found!
Ice Cream Resources for Speech Therapy
Since articulation is the easiest, we’ll start there. I created a resource packet that is all ice cream and articulation. It contains an open-ended sheet that you can add markers, crayons or dot paints. May I recommend the ice cream scented dot paints?!
This resource has three activities that span over 30 pages. As I mentioned earlier, it does have an open ended sheet at the beginning. This can be easily used for teletherapy or distance learning. Use your annotation tool instead of crayons. There are also playdough mats that address each sound in all 3 positions of words. If you wish, you could always use red pompoms or a red dry erase marker. The last activity in this set targets only initial position of words (well at least at the time of this blog post being written). Each sound has 5 scoops the child can practice saying before they place it on their cone.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, I used the open ended sheet, the playdough mats and this handy activity from Once Upon a Speech Room!
Now let’s talk language goals. Of course, I read one of the books above to address the client’s goals. I have a made quick resource to address spatial concept. Spatial concepts are so much fun to address during an ice cream theme! Another resource I use during my ice cream theme to help with social skills came from Smart Mouth SLP .(She’s my go to for all social skills activities!) Here is one more great activity to work on topic maintenance and turn taking from Expressively Speaking.
Again, we were all forced to conduct therapy online during COVID-19, I used this fun pronoun activity from Speech Tent.
Ice Cream Toys to Use in Speech Therapy
Melissa and Doug all the way for this theme! I own this playset and I love to use it!!! We can target turn-taking, spatial concepts, requesting, asking questions, colors, as well as articulation!
Another fun activity is to use REAL ICE CREAM! When I was a school based SLP, we made ice cream one year. Another year, we went simple and the kids had to pretend to be at an ice cream shop and place their order.
Need some cheap, easy to make activities? Check out this post!
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