3 Speech Therapy Activities
for Getting to Know You

You may be gearing up for the new school year or you may have already begun.

Either way...

Have you decided how you are going to get to know your students?

How will you get them talking so you can get a baseline on their speech and language skills?

How are you going to help your students remember their goals and why they are in therapy?

Here are a couple of ideas to get you started this year…

...and if you have any, holler at us!

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“Me in a Bag” Activity

Give all of your students a paper bag with this cute poem on it (free download). All you have to do is cut (if you have time, plain bags are great too).

Share your “Me” bag and talk about how each item represents you before explaining the activity.

Just to give you an idea, the last time I did this I included soap (love bubble baths), a mini guitar (like to sing/play music), picture of my family (obvious), a spaghetti noodle (love spaghetti), and tape (give me some tape and cardboard and I’ll make you anything).

Have the students take their bags home to fill and decorate.

Then have them take turns talking about their “Me” bags during speech.

You can stretch this out over a few weeks to use as reinforcement or just do them all in one session.

You and the students will have so much fun learning about each other and getting a moment in the spotlight. It will help set the tone of acceptance and creativity in your class for the rest of the year.

“Getting to Know You” Worksheet

Getting to Know You - Speech Therapy Activity

Luke put this worksheet (free download) together to get to know some of his students at a detention center.

I really, *really, like it because it asks if the student thinks he/she needs speech therapy and what would help him/her the most in therapy.

This helps the student learn the purpose and goals of speech therapy right from the start. You could print these out and have the students complete them the first day.

This would give you time to have an individual conversation with each of them about his/her goals and purpose of being there.

The worksheet also has the student create a question that he/she could ask to get to know someone else so you can incorporate this into the session as well.

“Conversation Starters” Game

Conversation Starters - Speech Therapy Activity

Print out the 43 conversation starters from our free word lists page and cut them into individual strips of paper.

Hang them from paperclips strung from the ceiling so the students have to jump to get one.

Just kidding, but you can if you want!

Luke actually did this during grad school with one of his very active clients.

My craziest idea in grad school was to stick cards all around the room using sticky tack, turn the lights off, and give the child a flashlight to find the words and say them.

Needless to say, both ideas worked very well!

Another idea is to hide the slips of paper around the room (let the kids do it if you want) and work on prepositions, following directions, and social skills all at the same time.

Give directions or have a child direct another child to find a hidden question and answer it.

If you’re not up for that much preparation time (hint: we haven’t done the first two since grad school either), just put them in a bag or box and take turns answering questions.

You could either have everyone answer their own question from the bag or choose someone to answer the question before they pick it out of the bag.

Then have him/her ask the question to work on some social skills too.

And for even less preparation time, just get our Word Vault App where the conversation starters are listed on your ipad or iphone to be used at the touch of your finger.

It is just one of the many word lists included in the app so you don’t have to use your time on prep or carrying and finding supplies for each activity.

We hope these ideas inspire you.

Let’s kick the school year off to a great start together.

*Poem courtesy of http://24-7teacher.blogspot.com/

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Homepage > Activities > 3 Speech Therapy Activities for Getting to Know You

Hi! We're Luke and Hollie.

We are both MS CCC-SLPs and fell in love while studying for our degrees. Since then we have done everything together - graduated, worked, and started a family. We spend most of our time with our family and the rest making this site for you.

3 Speech Therapy Activities
for Getting to Know You