Thanksgiving Speech Therapy Activities for Kids
Thanksgiving comes up so quickly after Halloween this year, and we all need quick, engaging activities to use in therapy that don’t require a ton of prep work, right? Here are some activities you can create today for tomorrow’s sessions! Whether you’re looking to target articulation, language, or even social skills, I’ve got you covered with some easy Thanksgiving-inspired ideas that keep kids engaged, practicing, and learning.
Thanksgiving comes up so quickly after Halloween this year, and we all need quick, engaging activities to use in therapy that don’t require a ton of prep work, right? Here are some activities you can create today for tomorrow’s sessions! Whether you’re looking to target articulation, language, or even social skills, I’ve got you covered with some easy Thanksgiving-inspired ideas that keep kids engaged, practicing, and learning. Let’s dive in!
1. Play-Based Language Activities Around Thanksgiving Dinner
What you’ll need: A play kitchen, some play food, or laminated Thanksgiving food pieces (check out my Thanksgiving Dinner Activity Set for easy printables!).
Set up a play kitchen and let kids “prepare” a Thanksgiving feast! This activity is fantastic for working on vocabulary, pronouns, and prepositions. Here’s how to make it interactive and packed with language practice:
Label Foods: Talk about each food item as kids place it on plates. (“That’s turkey! These are peas!”)
Pronouns: Use phrases like, “This is his plate,” “You have my mac and cheese,” or “Here is your milk.”
Prepositions: Practice positional concepts: “The turkey is next to the potatoes,” or “The pie is on the plate.”
Negation: “Uh-oh! I do not like green beans!”
With minimal setup, kids get tons of functional language practice—and they love taking on the “chef” or “server” role. Bon appétit!
2. Turkey Thanksgiving Articulation Craft
What you’ll need: Turkey cutouts, feathers with target sound pictures (or use my Thanksgiving Articulation Craft!).
Have a naked turkey ready for some colorful feathers! Each feather holds a word with your target sound, and kids can earn feathers by practicing each word. For variety, this craft doubles as a smash mat—just add play dough to each target spot for kids to press down as they say their words. This activity encourages repetition and reinforces sounds in a fun, creative way.
Colander Turkey
3. Colander Turkey Feathers for Spatial Concepts and Articulation Practice
What you’ll need: A turkey cutout, an upside-down colander, and craft feathers.
Tape your turkey cutout onto an upside-down colander and push real feathers into the holes. Each feather can represent a sound or phrase for practice, making it an ideal way to get tons of articulation trials. Plus, you can target spatial concepts like “on the side” or “in back” as they place each feather. It’s also a fine motor workout as kids practice their pincer grasp while pushing the feathers into the colander!
Thanksgiving Sensory Bin
4. Thanksgiving Sensory Bin
What you’ll need: Dried black beans or cereal for the base, laminated food items (find these in my Thanksgiving Visuals Set!), plus mini utensils, napkins, or small cups.
For my sensory bin fans out there (you knew this was coming, right?), here’s a Thanksgiving bin setup that’s simple yet effective. Toss in some dried beans, play food items, and a few extras like salt packets, napkins, or small cups. This bin invites language-rich play and helps kids explore textures, vocabulary, and functional language skills as they “serve” their Thanksgiving meal.
5. Turkey Farm Activities
What you’ll need: A play barn and, optionally, the book Turkey Goes to School by Wendi Silvano.
Farm activities are a great theme for November, and you can use them to act out scenarios around a farm or even “search” for turkeys hiding in the barn! Turkey Goes to School is a perfect companion—follow a turkey’s attempts to blend in with other animals so he can attend school. Kids can help act out the story and practice storytelling, sequencing, and imaginative play.
6. Recommended Thanksgiving Books
Nothing completes a session like a seasonal story, and these Thanksgiving and turkey-themed books bring language practice to life. Each is perfect for engaging little ones, enhancing vocabulary, and sparking conversation:
There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Turkey by Lucille Colandro
Bear Says Thanks by Karma Wilson
Turkey Trouble by Wendi Silvano
Thank You, Thanksgiving by David Milgrim
10 Hungry Turkeys by SpeechieTrish
Turkey Goes to School by Wendi Silvano
These stories are packed with repetition, humor, and Thanksgiving themes that resonate with kids of all ages. (These books are affiliate links. I only recommend books, toys, and activities that I love and use in my own practice!)
Wrapping It Up: Quick Reference
For those who skimmed to the end, here’s the quick version of the activities above:
Turkey Articulation Craft (or smash mat)
Colander Turkey Feathers Activity
Thanksgiving Sensory Bin
Turkey Farm Pretend Play
Recommended Thanksgiving Books (each book linked above)
May your sessions be as smooth as pumpkin pie!
Fall October Speech Therapy Activities for Young Children
October is one of my favorite months for speech therapy sessions! The crisp fall air, colorful leaves, big chunky sweaters and the excitement of Halloween make it the perfect time to introduce engaging and seasonal activities that help build speech and language skills.
Over the years, I’ve found some go-to activities that my students look forward to each autumn. Here are a few of my favorites that have helped my students work on speech and language goals while having tons of fall fun!
October is one of my favorite months for speech therapy sessions! The crisp fall air, colorful leaves, big chunky sweaters and the excitement of Halloween make it the perfect time to introduce engaging and seasonal activities that help build speech and language skills.
Over the years, I’ve found some go-to activities that my students look forward to each autumn. Here are a few of my favorites that have helped my students work on speech and language goals while having tons of fall fun!
Fall Speech Therapy Activities That I Love 🍂
1. Pumpkin Play dough Smash Mats
I can’t get through a fall season without these! I like to use themed smash mats (such as pumpkins, apples, or leaves) with playdough. These mats are great for working on target sounds, following directions, and sentence expansion. Students can “smash” a playdough ball when they find a picture or word that matches their sound or language goal. It’s always a hit, and it’s a tactile way to reinforce skills while having fun.
2. Fall-Themed “I Spy” Activities
I love creating and using fall-themed “I Spy” sheets! These are great for working on expressive and receptive vocabulary. Students take turns describing what they see, practicing prepositions like “under the pumpkin” or “next to the witch’s hat,” and making inferences. They also help with visual scanning and attention.
3. Sensory Bins with Fall Elements
Sensory bins filled with dried leaves, acorns, mini pumpkins, and little fall-themed objects provide a hands-on way for students to explore fall vocabulary. I often hide small toys or pictures related to our books, and we “hunt” for them while practicing articulation words or using target phrases like “I found a…” or “It’s hiding under…”
Halloween-Themed Activities 🎃
Halloween is such an exciting time for students, so I love incorporating a bit of Halloween magic into speech therapy sessions. Here are a few activities that have worked wonders in my sessions:
1. Haunted House from a Box
One of my favorite activities is creating a haunted house out of an Amazon box (we all have a spare box handy!). I cut out doors and windows and then use it alongside the book Inside a House that is Haunted. As we read, students place corresponding pictures or objects in different areas of the house, working on spatial concepts like “inside the window,” “through the door,” and “up on the roof.” It’s a fun, hands-on way to reinforce spatial language while tying into a Halloween story!
2. Trick-or-Treating Scenarios
We take our haunted house activity a step further by acting out trick-or-treating scenarios! Students take turns sticking their heads inside the box and “knocking” on the door. We practice social language skills by saying, “Trick or Treat,” “Happy Halloween,” and “Thank you.” This simple but effective role-playing game helps students with greetings, requests, and polite language in a context they love.
3. Digital Halloween Activities
For no prep digital activities “Who is Knocking on My Door” is a fun activity to target answering and asking “who” questions while also working on Fall vocabulary. A way to target the following sounds: B, P, T, D, K, G, F, V, S, Z, L, R , TH, DG, CH, SH is with the Pumpkin Articulation Match game for your computer or tablet! Kids LOVE competing with this fall match activity!
4. Spiders and Monsters for Non-Halloween Themes
If Halloween isn’t your cup of tea, don’t worry! I often turn to spider and monster themes, which are just as fun. My students love making “spider eggs” by wrapping small plastic spiders in playdough and hiding them inside. Then we take turns unwrapping the “eggs” to see who can find the spider. This activity is perfect for targeting core words like “in,” “out,” “look,” and “see” as well as phrases such as, “Find it,” “Not there,” and “It’s scary.” For those working on speech sound targets, we sneak in some /sp/ blends with words like spider, spy, and spooky.
5. Monster Blobs with Playdough
For a fun fine motor and language activity, we make “Monster Blobs” by pushing googly eyes into playdough. This activity strengthens pointing skills and can be adapted to work on speech sounds. Students practice producing correct sounds before they get to push an eye into the monster, which adds a playful and tactile twist to articulation practice.
Wrapping Up October with Fun and Learning
With the right mix of fall-themed books and interactive activities, October can be a time of both learning and fun in speech therapy sessions. My goal is always to keep students engaged and motivated, and bringing in seasonal elements helps make each session feel new and exciting.
Favorite Fall-Themed Books 🍁
The Leaf Thief: This fun and engaging story is about a squirrel who’s convinced one of his leaves has gone missing. With help from his friend Bird, they set off to solve the mystery of the missing leaf. The playful language and vibrant illustrations keep my students engaged, making it perfect for working on problem-solving, sequencing, and expressive language. I love to have my students guess who might be the leaf thief, and it always leads to fun discussions.
We’re Going on a Leaf Hunt: If you’re familiar with We’re Going on a Bear Hunt, this fall-themed version is a wonderful choice for early learners. It’s about three friends who venture through the forest, collecting leaves and encountering fun obstacles along the way. The rhyming text and repetitive patterns are perfect for targeting early language skills, and my students love chiming in with the sound effects. We often go on our own “leaf hunts” around the classroom or outside, finding different shapes and colors of leaves, which opens up opportunities to expand vocabulary and descriptive language.
Leaves, Leaves Falling from a Tree: This interactive book is such a gem because it lets students get involved in the story. I use printable leaves that students can move around during the story to “catch” or “fall” as we read. It’s ideal for following directions, matching, and describing what happens to the leaves as they fall from the tree. This story is also available as a no-prep digital version, which I sometimes use for teletherapy or for a change of pace. The interactive elements make it easy to turn the story into a game—students love pretending to catch falling leaves or finding leaves that match certain descriptions.
(affiliate links included. I earn a small amount of money from Amazon links and only recommend books and activities that I use personally)
Engaging Preschoolers with Interactive Storytime: Using Books, Props, and Play
Using props during storytime can make stories more meaningful and memorable for children. Props can include pictures, stuffed animals, and toys that children can hold and move as the story progresses.
As a speech-language pathologist, I often use books in my therapy sessions to create engaging and interactive themes that help target communication goals. Using books with young children encourages receptive and expressive language skills, facilitates “reading” and listening comprehension, expands vocabulary and syntactic skills, and promotes a love of reading.
As a speech-language pathologist, I often use books in my therapy sessions to create engaging and interactive themes that help target communication goals. Using books with young children encourages receptive and expressive language skills, facilitates “reading” and listening comprehension, expands vocabulary and syntactic skills, and promotes a love of reading.
“Language and literacy develop concurrently and influence one another. What children learn from listening and talking contributes to their ability to read and write and vice versa. For example, young children's phonological awareness (ability to identify and make oral rhymes, identify and work with syllables in spoken words, and the ability to hear, identify, and manipulate the individual sounds—phonemes—in spoken words) is an important indicator of their potential success in learning to decode print,” according to a Preschool Policy Brief by the National Institute for Early Education Research (NIEER) at Rutgers University, April 2006.
Research tells us that children who fall behind in oral language and literacy development before formal schooling are less likely to become successful readers, and their achievement lag is likely to persist throughout primary grades and beyond. Therefore, it is crucial for SLPs, teachers, and parents to make reading and literacy fun and engaging. It’s not about sitting down to read or listen to an entire book; it’s about engaging children in the story, the pictures, and the words. We can do this by giving kids a “part” in the story with their words, sounds, movements, or props.
Engaging Children with Props:
Using props during storytime can make stories more meaningful and memorable for children. Props can include pictures, stuffed animals, and toys that children can hold and move as the story progresses. For example, books like "5 Little Ducks," "The Gingerbread Baby," and "Tip Tip Dig Dig" are perfect for incorporating props to engage children. I have a variety of book companions ready-made in my store that include props and activities to use in speech therapy, the classroom, and at home.
Types of Books That Engage Children
Books with Repetitive Text: Repetitive text helps children comprehend and remember the story due to repeat phrasing. "The Pout Pout Fish," "5 Little Ducks," and "It’s Mine" are excellent examples of books with repetitive text included in my water-themed companions.
Books That Encourage Movement: Movement helps children attend to longer stories and builds imitation skills and memory. Books like "Tip Tip Dig Dig," "The Napping House," and "Dinosaurumpus" are great for incorporating actions such as stirring, pouring, and whisking, using real-life objects. Click here for Movement themed book companions
To grab the bundle of book companions for year-round props and activities, including books with incorporated movement, repetitive text, lift-the-flap books, and interactive books, click below.
Want to know more about the types of books that best engage preschoolers?
Click to see this blog post, Top Children’s Books for Speech and Language Development. I’ve highlighted the top children’s books, linked all of the books and categorized them by type.
By using books, props, and play, we can create interactive and engaging storytimes that not only make reading fun but also support the speech and language development of young children.
Happy reading!