Articulation Games Using Everyday Objects

5 Articulation Games Using Everyday Objects

Here are five quick articulation games you can play with your articulation students to elicit maximum productions while still having fun.

And the best part?

All of these games are using things you already have laying around your therapy room or home. After all, kids are really easy to please.



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Find a Penny, Pick it Up!

Children LOVE searching for things.

My son doesn’t even look up when he’s walking because he wants to find a coin on the ground.

This game is simple and it will elicit a lot of productions of your target sound. There are a few ways you can do this, depending on the amount of time you have.

The basic idea of the game is to hide pennies all around the therapy room.

As soon as they find one, they put it in a cup and say ten words. Then they get to search for another penny.

There are many ways to adapt this game…if the child/ren are working on more than one sound, you can tape different letters to each penny (or use letter stickers.)

So if they find a penny with an “L” on it, they will say ten /l/ words.

Another way to adapt this game is by printing pictures of pennies and cutting them out so you aren’t using real pennies.

You can have an ongoing game; these paper pennies can be saved up and used like real currency to “buy” prizes.

So they become even more motivated to find the pennies and say really good productions. 

Paper Clip Trains

Just like it sounds, this game is all about hooking paper clips together to make paper clip trains.

Who didn’t love doing this as a child?!

Put a large bowl of paper clips in front of your student/s and tell them that they can earn paperclips by saying 10 productions of their target.

It would be fun if you had paperclips that were colorful and variant, however regular paper clips will work fine as well.

This would be a good way to start each session, and you can have an ongoing game with your students to see how long their paper clip train can get within a certain time frame.

You can set a goal with the child that as soon as their paper clip train is 2 feet long, they get a special prize.


SEE ALSO: The Best Free App for Speech Therapy


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Simon Says

A simple game like “Simon Says” is really helpful to use in the therapy room because it not only gets them moving and their juices flowing, but it motivates them to use a lot of productions.

And it’s SIMPLE for you!

Tell the child/ren that they are going to get to play Simon Says, but they have to say ten productions before they get their “Simon Says” command.

So essentially they are learning the commands by doing speech.

This game can also be played with “Red Light Green Light” or any other fun childhood game that doesn’t require any materials.

You get lots of productions, and the child leaves your office bragging to their friends that all they do in therapy is play games.

Win win.

The Word Vault Pro app is really helpful when you are doing articulation games like this because all the word lists are at your fingertips, even for students with different articulation goals, and you can track their productions quickly with one tap of your finger.

Very useful when you are busy playing! :) 

Hang Man

Print the Hang Man page.

Choose a word (that’s a target word of course!) and make the appropriate number of spaces near your hang man.

Have the child practice their sounds in order to earn a guess at the letters. This game would be excellent to elicit a lot of target sounds, and it would also be good to print off a sheet that they can take home for homework (with a word list for parents).

Home Speech Home is your one stop resource for word lists...of course.

Decorate the Tree

For this activity you can use anything you want to decorate the tree… fruit loops, leaves collected outside, even scraps of colored paper.

Print this picture of a barren tree and place it in front of the child along with the objects used for decorating the tree and glue.

Have the child practice saying their words in order to earn the pieces to glue onto the tree. For every ten productions, they get to glue another piece to the tree.

If using colored paper scraps, you could even write target words on each piece before it gets glued on.

Then it becomes a great homework assignment when the child takes it home to show their parents. They can use each word in a sentence or say each word on the tree five times. 

Another way to use this barren tree printout is to cut out target words and just glue them all over the tree.

It becomes an /s/ tree or an /r/ tree or whatever sound the child is working on. 

I like getting the students involved with artwork because it is very motivating for them and a good outlet.

They will really enjoy coming to therapy when they get to move their bodies, play games, make artwork, and have a good time.

The more they look forward to seeing you, the better rapport you will build and the more success they will have.

I hope you like these simple yet effective articulation games!


SEE ALSO: The Best Books for Speech Therapy Practice

Speech therapy books for targeting multiple goals

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About the Author

Lindsey is an M.S. CCC-SLP from Salt Lake City, UT. She received both her B.S. and M.S. from Utah State University. When she's not chasing her 5 crazy kids around, she enjoys creating engaging speech therapy ideas and materials. Read More






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