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Thanksgiving is crust around the corner! To help you prepare, check out these easy, hands-on speech and language activities with a festive theme. From a floating cranberry water bin to pumpkin pie scented play dough, your Thanksgiving will be full of turkey AND language.
Week of Thanksgiving Speech Language Themed Ideas
Each summer I pick nine different themes. Each theme is broken down by day of the week. Then every day has a focused activity to encourage vocabulary development, language in natural contexts, and create hands-on experiences. Here is the daily schedule we followed for the entire summer regardless of the theme! We have continued the fun into the school year this fall!
- Make It Monday
- Take A Trip Tuesday
- Water Wednesday
- Thinking Thursday
- Foodie Friday
- Scavenger Hunt Saturday
- Sensory Sunday
Too many other things going on this fall? Don’t stress! Pick only a couple of activities, or do it all. Incorporating vocabulary and language into even just one activity can help increase your child’s retention and application of concepts. Most importantly, just have fun together! For all the SLPs out there, these activities can call be modified to target a variety of goals!
Make It Monday
I love this Thanksgiving activity for both home and school. On fall colored strips of paper, I had my speech and language students write or dictate what they are grateful for then make a paper chain. Since I see close to 60 students, my speech office was quickly decorated with a very long paper chain!
It is always so heartwarming to hear from students what they value and care about in their lives. Plus this was a great language activity to target reciprocal conversation between students, expanding utterances, and describing familiar/loved items.
At home, Mandy and I asked our four year olds what they are thankful for…always a gamble with preschoolers as you never know what they might say. However, their answers were sweet and appropriate! 😅
Mandy’s daughter said she was grateful for her family, her stuffed animals, books, and donuts. (Donuts are high on my list too so no judgement there!)
When I asked my son, he said he was grateful for his best friend Conor (who goes to preschool with him), his family, our dog Luna, and his vast collection of LEGOs. We made a grateful chain at home too as a reminder for the upcoming season of thanks!
Take A Trip Tuesday
To continue with the Thanksgiving theme of thankfulness, this week’s take a trip Tuesday was a bit of a no brainer. While my school participates in various food drives throughout the school year, I wanted to be sure to include my son in an act of service this season too.
I searched our local food pantry’s high needed items list and jotted a few down on my weekly shopping list. When at the store, I had my son pick out some oatmeal, laundry detergent, and toothpaste while explaining the purpose. He was very excited to donate these items!
At school, several students on my caseload often utilize supportive services within the community. For example, my building begins to accept items for a holiday gift drive to help provide necessities to families. This is a great time of year to reach out to families within your school district to offer assistance.
Regardless of whether you teach in a lower socioeconomic area or a more affluent community, having a conversation with your own kiddos about giving always a great learning experience!
Water Wednesday
Want the world’s easiest water activity ever? Well, here you go! All you need are some fresh cranberries, a plastic bin of about 4-5 inches of water, and any kid friendly kitchen utensils. I threw in a whisk, slotted spoon, and a couple of small plastic drinking cups.
My son LOVED this activity! Since the cranberries float, he enjoyed pushing them down, moving them around, and playing in the water. We even cut a cranberry in half so we could see what it looked like inside! Just cover your sensory bin with a lid to keep the festivities going through your entire Thanksgiving break. Seriously hours of entertainment!
At school, I did a modified version of our homemade cranberry bog. I just used a small bin and slightly less water. My speech and language students loved this Thanksgiving themed activity. This was a super awesome activity to pair with AAC devices as it targeted many core words!
Check out some of the functional phrases I was able to model and my students were able to produce during our Thanksgiving speech and language sessions.
- “Fill cup.”
- “Pour water.”
- “More berry.”
- “Spoon in.”
- “Stir fast.”
Thinking Thursday
For our Thanksgiving themed book, we choose Turkey Trouble by Wendi J Silvano. You have probably seen this is a super popular book around this time and for good reason! There are so many awesome Thanksgiving themed speech and language activities to pair with this super cute story about a clever turkey.
Look no feather! We have just the speech and language activity to go with this Thanksgiving story too…and for FREE!!! Have students dress up their turkeys, identify turkeys from a short description, and complete a no prep reinforcing worksheet. There are even four sentence strips to help students expand utterances while reading the story or disguising their turkeys.
Foodie Friday
Are your kids not fans of traditional Thanksgiving food? Worry not! We are bringing all the sugar your way for a fun, but festive treat. My son loved making these turkey donuts inspired by Messy Little Monster. Grab some mini glazed donuts, fruit loops, toothpicks, white frosting, and chocolate chips!
Stick four toothpicks in the donut then stack fruit loops onto each. Once you have made the feathers, place two dots of white frosting as eyes. Let it harder slightly then add chocolate chips to finish the eyes. Use a toothpick to cut two small slits in the front of the donut. Push a yellow and fruit loop into place as the beak and gobbler! So yummy and so cute!
We love simple recipes for our own kids and caseload. Following recipes not only supports life skills and independence, but also gives natural opportunities to try different textures, smells, and flavors! We hope you try out this Thanksgiving recipe in your speech and language sessions.
Scavenger Hunt Saturday
We have another fun vocabulary scavenger hunt to target Thanksgiving language themed concepts! These vocabulary hunts are perfect for a variety of hands-on ideas for your speech and language sessions.
First, send home the checklist for students to locate items at home or during their holiday break. Second, print the colorful scene to search for Thanksgiving food items during your small group speech sessions. Third, project the colorful scene onto the Smartboard to search for items during large group activities. Lastly, hide the vocabulary cards around the speech office or classroom to go on a fun turkey adventure!
Also Read: 5 Tips For Planning A Productive Large Speech & Language Group
Sensory Sunday
Similar to our apple themed week’s apple pie scented play dough, this week we made pumpkin pie scented play dough! Simply mix all of the ingredients below in a medium sized sauce pan until no longer sticky. Once cool, knead to desired shape and away you go!
- 1 1/2 c. flour
- 3/4 c. salt
- 1 1/2 tps. cream of tartar
- 1 tbs. pumpkin pie spice
- 1 1/2 c. water
- 1 tbs. vegetable oil
- 10 drops orange food coloring
This yummy pumpkin pie scented play dough is the best companion for smash mats. Slide our Fall Phonological Processes Smash Mats into a page protector and give each student a small amount of play dough. Once they practice their target speech sound, they can smash play dough on each picture. They will love the fun smell and hands-on activity.
P.S…my 2nd and 3rd grade boys geeked out over this pumpkin pie scented play dough. They were all so excited that it was homemade and kept saying it smelled like desserts they have during the Thanksgiving holidays. They even asked me to paste in the recipe into their speech and language notebooks so they could make it at home!
Also Read: 7 Apple Themed Activities & Ideas
We are so grateful you have joined us in our fun week of Thanksgiving speech and language ideas and activities! Be sure to follow us on Instagram and Pinterest as we will be posting all of these activities in action this coming week. Share one of the images below to help out a fellow SLP plan their Thanksgiving sessions too!
Happy Thanksgiving, SLPs!
Talking Mama Bears