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St. Patrick’s Day Sensory Bin for Preschool Speech Therapy

Do you use a St. Patrick’s Day theme with your preschoolers? Keep reading for ideas on how to use ONE sensory bin to address a variety of goals!

I first put this bin together a few years ago, challenged myself to use it for as many goals as possible, and found it was easier than I initially thought! I bought all my materials from Hobby Lobby except the plain gold coins, which I bought a few years prior at Dollar Tree.

Following Directions:

Start with an empty bin and give directions for what you need to fill it- ie “We need 1 big shamrock and 2 small pom poms.”

If they can’t count yet, do one at a time (ie “Give me a big shamrock and a small shamrock” or “Give me a coin and a rainbow”).

Front/Back Concepts:

Place a mini pot at the front of the bin and one at the back of the bin. (My pots were from Hobby Lobby, but I’ve seen them at Target some years, too.)

Target front and back concepts by giving directions like, “Put a shamrock (e.g. the stickers) in the pot that’s in front” or “Put a rainbow in the front pot and a coin in the back pot.”

Describing:

If your students are working on using descriptors in their utterances, have them ask for big or small shamrocks or pom poms, sparkly coins vs plain coins, sparkly pom poms vs plain poms poms to put in the bin.

Take individual photos of the bin fillers you have and make them into picture icons for your pre-verbal students to comment or request.

Quantitative concepts: more, most, few, empty, full

-Place poms poms in each hand. Ask your students to “Get pom poms from the hand that has MORE“

-“Make one pot FULL of pom poms” then, “Which pot is full? Which one is empty?”

-“Fill up one pot and put just a few in the other”

Pronouns:

Start with a full bin for this one.
Optional: Use a leprechaun ornament from Hobby Lobby to pull out an item from the bin.

Go to mycutegraphics.com and copy/paste a boy and girl dressed for St. Patrick’s Day, side by side into a Word doc or Powerpoint slide, to print on a half sheet of paper each.

Place the pictures in front of the bin, and when the leprechaun picked something out, we worked on “Give it to HER/HIM” or “HE/SHE wants a gold coin” etc… and gave items from the bin to the boy and girl.

You give the directions if you’re working on it receptively. If you’re targeting it expressively, take turns giving the instructions to each other!

Targeting Speech Sounds:

Sounds and words to target with this sensory bin:

/m/: more, pom pom (final position)
/p/: pom pom, (say ‘pom pom’ and get 1 to put in the bin), pot (“Are you going to put this in the POT or in the BIN?” or they fill in “pot” when you say “Drop it in the….” as you hold an object over the pot to drop in)
/b/: big, bin
Target both /p/ and /b/ at the same time by having them ask for a pom pom, and ask them questions like,
“Is the pom pom BIG or small?”
“Are you going to put this in the POT or in the BIN?”

/l/: leprechaun, like; Use the sentence, “The leprechaun likes the ___” as they pull items out of the bin using the leprechaun ornament if you have it, OR, give items to a printed picture of a leprechaun as you pull items out.

‘sh’: shamrocks (Students can ask for little shamrocks/big shamrocks)

s-blends: have them request coins and pom poms based on descriptors like sparkly and small

other: Drop a mini rainbow eraser in the pot for each trial you do. How many will it take to fill up each pot?


Mixed Groups:


Idea 1: If you have kids with articulation goals you can’t target naturally within the context, have them put in a picture card of their target and something else to build the bin while the other students work on following directions and basic concepts.

Idea 2: Another option for mixed language goal groups is to use my No Prep Language sheets with the bin. I made these sheets originally to use with various types of eggs with bingo chips inside them, but have been able to adapt it to a bunch of other themes, too, like St. Patrick’s Day!

Choose the 4 items you want to fill your bin with, and place 1 of each at the top of each column. Pull an item out of the bin, match it to the right column, pick a target in that column to practice, then cover it up!

INTERACTIVE BOOK PIECES

Another fun thing I like to do is stick in the interactive book pieces from my St. Patrick’s Farm interactive book. As we read each clue, they get to find the picture from the bin to pull out and match to the page.

There you have it- many ways to use one sensory bin for lots of different goals! Are there any other ideas you would add to the list?

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  1. St. Patrick’s Day “Party” Theme says:
    March 14, 2022 at 8:03 pm

    […] sensory bin fillers are in the craft stores right now! One of the fillers I added last year to my St. Patrick’s Day sensory bin were sparkly green top hats.  I ended up pulling them out of the bin this year to use for another […]

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Is this book in your ocean themed collection yet? Is this book in your ocean themed collection yet? I *finally* checked it out this summer and I’ve been using it with almost everyone!

This book works great for…

⭐️sp and sw blends (repeated lines “I spy” and “Swim away”)

⭐️long a sound (“way” is repeated on every page) and I used “hey!” instead of “hello!” on each page

⭐️ Bilabials: I seem to always have 1-2 kids these last few years working on bilabials! “Me” is on every page, and you can use “bye” instead of “see ya later” on each page, too. The last page has tons of bilabials! (up up up, deep, mama (x3), me)

⭐️initial /d/ if you have a backer (down and deep are repeated on each page)

⭐️CV words “hi” and “me” (and “bye” if you use that instead of see ya later

⭐️Core words: down, in, I, see, look, me, go (when I pair with a sensory bin, I also use “like” “get” and “out”

⭐️Repetitive Lines: Makes it more engaging when the kids can chime in and “read” it with you!

⭐️Verbs: I love a book that has actions to act out on each page! Movement always helps keep my kids’ attention in sessions and especially at circle time in a bigger group!

⭐️Describing the ocean animals

⭐️Comparing and Contrasting ocean animals

Literacy based therapy is the easiest way to structure therapy sessions- centering it around a book always sparks ideas for play activities to use with and after the book to work on goals, too!
A Camping Spree with Mr Magee is always one of my A Camping Spree with Mr Magee is always one of my go-to books for a camping theme! 

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⭐️ Lots of opportunities for pronoun + be verb + -ing verb structure sentences, and regular past tense verbs, too!

⭐️ Lots of AAC core word modeling opportunities

⭐️ Multiple opportunities for “why” questions which aren’t always easy to come by!

⭐️ Rhyming text that has a great flow to it— especially love this during whole group!

⭐️ annnnd they make s’mores in the book, which is *obviously* a necessity in any camping theme 😂

Take a look at the mini unit with printables you can use for circle time and small group therapy- I just updated it so redownload from TPT if you already own it! I added ingredient icons and sequencing/retell pictures for the science experiment, 3 sets of Cariboo cards, and basic concept play dough mats for this unit to help you have even more of your goals covered with super easy planning!

We “packed the camper” at circle time this week and it was a hit! Easily adaptable for different language skills, too— Target receptive id or identifying based on descriptors like function, appearance, location, etc! 

Find it on TPT with the link in profile ➡️ @rockchalkspeechtalk
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Tell me if you’re using this book this summer, too!
Take a peek inside my ice cream themed bin! 🍦 Take a peek inside my ice cream themed bin! 🍦 

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Story props are a great way to increase engagement during book reading, and using props is a research-based strategy, too, for aiding in comprehension. Win-win! 

Tell me below 👇🏼 what your favorite ice cream toy or book is!
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The book is also chock-full of s-blends— and isn’t anything loaded with s-blends an SLP staple? 😂 I even made lists for you of all the s blend words (and other frequently occurring sound targets within the book) so you know what words you can target if you’re seeing kids in mixed groups. 

Swipe through to see all the fun hands-on activities you’ll get to work on themed vocabulary with your students— through labeling objects, verbs, object functions, and basic concepts.  Easily target multiple goals at once with activities that target different goal areas simultaneously.

Feeling like your brain is mush by this point in the year and just want someone to give you some other play activity ideas for your theme without having to search allll the places? Gotcha covered ✅  You’ll also get a list of some extra play activities with goal ideas to target within them!

Music creates some of the best connections— and it’s one of the best ways to start out your circle times/push in lessons… but you probably don’t have time to search and find the good garden and bug related songs on YouTube, right? 

Well, good news— You’re covered on that front, too, with a separate pdf just for links to different songs WITH Target goal ideas for each song, too! Download to your iPad and go!

I’ll leave this companion on sale for the next 24 hours (through Friday night) so you can still grab it at a discount for next year even if you’re done with this theme (your future self will thank you 😉)

Link in profile! ➡️ @rockchalkspeechtalk
If you’re looking to add some diversity to your If you’re looking to add some diversity to your bookshelf with May’s garden + bug themes, check out these 4 garden books featuring black or Hispanic characters!

1- “Plants Feed Me” - Short and simple text to explain where fruits and veggies come from and the different parts of the plants we eat.

Kids work together to take care of the garden (pick, water, dig, plant, etc.. great for verbs!) No main character, but features kids who are Black, white and Hispanic.

2- Lola Plants a Garden:  Lola wants to plant a flower garden. Her mom helps her through the planning steps. Lola reads books about gardens, chooses her favorite flowers, makes a list, buys seeds, then plants them. She waits and waits, then finally her plants grow! 

This book lends itself to activities that target sequencing, gardening verbs, and object functions. Lola makes a flower book while she waits for her real ones, so art supplies AND gardening tools are depicted in this book— perfect for object function targets!

3- Miguel’s Community Farm: Great book for comparing/contrasting!Miguel is looking for sunflowers, so the book starts off describing all the features of a sunflower.

On each page, Miguel sees a plant that shares a feature of a sunflower and wonders if he’s found them. However, the book then describes one way the plants are different, too (Sunflowers have yellow petals.  Artichokes have petals, too (similarity), but they’re green, not yellow (difference).

Miguel has 2 dads, who aren’t a prominent part of the book but are part of the 1st and last page illustrations.  The last page also depicts a garden party with Miguel’s friends, who are of varying ethnic backgrounds and physical abilities. 

4- Amara’s Farm: Same author/illustrator as Miguel’s Community Garden (featuring the same friends at the end!), and another compare/contrast book in the same format. 

Amara is searching for pumpkins on the farm, but this could fit into a Spring garden theme since it compares/contrasts produce. There’s also a lot of bugs in the illustrations, making it easy to fit into a bug and garden combo theme, too!

Did you find any new books to check out? If you did, share w/ another SLP/teacher friend!
Sharing a super easy sensory bin the kids helped m Sharing a super easy sensory bin the kids helped me make for our sessions last week! We used it with an Earth Day book but it’s perfect for all of your upcoming garden themes, too! 

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My grandpa actually used to do gardening work for people after he retired. He gave me a plant after we moved to our first house and told me it would always remind me of him bc it would long outlive him. He underestimated my ability to kill even the heartiest of plants and was appalled when he found out it died 😂😅 

Do you have a green thumb 👍🏻 or do plants not stand a chance 🚫 at your house like me?
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Is this book on your shelf yet? Let me know what your favorite rainy day book is!

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