Valentine Speech and Language Activities

Valentine’s Day is coming up next week but these early intervention and preschool speech and language activities can be used any time!

Preschool books for February

I often use inspiration from books that I have and Love, Friendship, Celebrations and Valentine’s Day are themes that I have plenty of books for! Even if you don’t have the books personally, make sure to visit your local library or get on YouTube for tons of read-aloud books.

Some books that I love this time of year are shown in this video (posted on my Instagram)….

One of the books that I use each February is “The Day it Rained Hearts” by Felicia Bond (link to YouTube Read aloud here).

With this story and the other Valentine Books I use some engaging language activities with my speech and language students.

1) CREATE A VALENTINE SENSORY BIN: Targets can include core words and phrases like “find the ____, I found it, Where is ____, see ____” and expanding vocabulary by matching pictures in the book to pictures that they find. Kids love to put the treasures into the plastic containers and we work on phrases, “in the heart” and “in the box”. Pictures can be added to sensory bins that target specific speech sounds that the child is working on as well,

I use a plastic container and fill it with like colors. I add pictures of items throughout the books that we read. I added plastic heart containers, sparkly hearts, gems, colored balls, cut up silver straws, red yarn, felt cup cakes and pom poms to this bin (I got everything at the Dollar Store). As we read the story, kids take out the pictures with plastic tongs (also working on those fine motor skills).

2) HIDE AND FIND VALENTINE LETTER ACTIVITIES: This one is easy prep for you and kids love to see what is inside the envelopes. I put either valentines inside envelopes or some felt hearts and I add the amount of hearts on the outside of the envelope to work on some counting skills also. You could also add Valentines with your child’s targets in them (i.e. if a child is working on the velar /k/, add valentines with cats inside the envelopes).

I hide the envelopes around the room and the children find them, open them up and talk about where there envelope was (working on prepositions and location) and describe what is inside the envelope (working on descriptors).

Simply fill envelopes with hearts or commercial valentines and add the same amount of hearts to the outside of the envelope with corresponding number. Hide them around the room and have the children find them.

3) DROP ITEMS INTO A TUNNEL: I happened to get a Valentine Cat Tunnel at my local Aldi’s last week for my sister’s new puppy (it was way to small, but perfect for a Valentine Drop!). We dropped articulation pictures down into the tunnel after the kids said them which was really motivating! I also used this activity with children with emerging expressive language targeting words like “in, down, go and uhoh” and phrases, “go down, see it, go heart”.

I also used it with a student with Childhood Apraxia of Speech (CAS) who was working on the /f/ sound plus a vowel and this activity facilitated her elongating the /f/ sound rather than stopping it before the vowel.

Use a tunnel turned upright to drop articulation cards, objects, and letters into.

Check out my Celebration book companions including “The Day it Rained Hearts” for activities and items to add to sensory bins!