Favorite Games for Final Consonant Deletion

As SLPs, many of us use games as general reinforcers while working on a variety of speech/language targets.  A lot of times, the games may have nothing to do with the target we're working on.  Some games & activities I've been using this school year with my phono kids, though, have turned out to have great opportunities to work on specific words pertinent to their targets AND to the game. Preschoolers learn a lot through play, so when I have the opportunity to use meaningful target words for artic rather than the drill/take a turn/drill/take a turn method, I take it! The following games/activities are my favorites to use when targeting the phonological process of Final Consonant Deletion:

1.  First up is this cookie jar game I made.  The cookie jar image comes from MyCuteGraphics, and is just pasted into a Word doc, stretched out, printed, and attached to a tissue box with a hole cut out of the middle.  The cookies are just circles cut from brown construction paper with black marker dots on them for chocolate chips.  So. Simple.  But my prek students LOVE it!

Words to target for FCD: eat, hot, out, plate, in, on, gone, time, scoop, chip, bake, take, make

2.  Honey Bee Tree game:

This one is played just like Kerplunk, but has leaves/bees/honeypot in a tree rather than just sticks and marbles. 

Words to target for FCD: in (putting leaves in, putting bees in), out (pulling leaves out, bees falling out, taking bees out), drop (dropping bees in) down (bees fell down), turn (my turn/your turn), buzz, bees, gone, come/home (one of my kiddos liked to make the bees buzz away for a second, and I would have to tell them to "come" and then she would have them fly "home" for each turn)

3.  Potato Head

This should come as no surprise, but there is an abundance of great words to target for FCD with everyone's favorite spud!

Words to target for FCD:

final t: hat, foot/feet, out, put

final n/m: in, arm

final s/z: eyes, nose, toes, purse, any other plurals

final f: off, 

final p: top, hop

final k: take

4.  Don't Break the Ice:

Words to target for FCD: turn (my turn/your turn), in (work on as you set up and put ice blocks in), gone (all the blocks have been knocked out), hit, out, knock, break, ice

Do you have any specific games you use for particular speech or language targets? I'd love to hear about them if you do!

Potato Head Play

Mr. Potato Head is a toy that many of us SLPs have used in therapy with little ones.  It's always been toted as a "must-have" for anyone working with early intervention/prek.  I love my potato heads (I scored a big tub full of heads and accessories at a yard sale last year!), but I'll admit- there was a point in time when I first began my career, where I wondered how I could *really* use it in a variety ways besides the very basics like labeling body parts and requesting.

If any of you new to the field/new to this population have wondered the same thing, or maybe if you're a more seasoned SLP just looking for new ideas for this toy... Here are some other ways I've been targeting many other speech & language goals through potato head play with my preschoolers!

1.  Pronouns:  I have pieces that let me work on both "he" and "she" during play.  I have eyes with eyeshadow and big eyelashes, earrings, big red lips, purses, etc... so I can not only work on "Mister" potato head but also his female counterpart :)  I model a lot of "HE has green shoes on today" and "SHE has a pretty yellow purse"  and try to slightly emphasize the different pronouns.

2.  Basic Concepts:  I model comments like "He has a BIG nose and LITTLE shoes" "Here's his hat! It goes on top!"  "I'm putting her eyes ABOVE her nose"  Or, if I want to check understanding of concepts, I can say things like, "I have his shoes! Do the shoes go on the top or on the bottom?"

3.  Final consonants:  Purse, nose, arm, feet, eyes, hat, top, put, on, in, take, out-- all great words to model and practice with final consonants during play.  I like to sometimes hide the pieces in a sensory bin (ie my box of beans!) so they dig for parts and then we name the item and do short phrases like "Put on ___"     "___ on top"   and   "___ goes in"

4.  Plurals:  Talk about all the pairs your potato head has! Model plurals by talking about the potato head's two ears, two eyes, two shoes, two feet, two hands, two arms, two earrings, glasses, etc!

5.  Action words/-ING verbs:  Make your potato heads do all kinds of silly actions! "He is running" "She is shopping"  "He is dancing" etc...


What other ways do you play with potato heads?