Speech Sprouts: Fresh Speech Therapy ideas for Spring: Read Sheep in a Shop

Are You Ready for Spring?

I have happily put away my winter speech therapy activities, I am so very ready for spring! How about you? I am linking with the Frenzied SLPs to share a fun spring activity, and I can't wait to see what everyone else has to share. e sure to check out each one, and you should get plenty of spring inspiration.

Fresh Spring Speech Therapy Ideas by Speech Sprouts www.speechsproutstherapy.com

The birds are chirping, my daffodils have bloomed, and there is a new baby horse in the field down the street. And yes, those narcissus in the picture are from my very own garden! If you are a bit north of here, you may not be seeing it yet, but it's on it's way, I promise.

Isn't he adorable?

March came in like the proverbial lion, and out like a lamb. We already had a 90 degree day in Texas, believe it or not. Lamb you say?

Time for a Spring Sheep Activity! Read Sheep in a Shop

I love the "Sheep" series by Margot Apple. We have read Sheep in a Jeep and Sheep on a Ship. They are sound-loaded with the "sh" phoneme of course, so we work on articulation of stridents. They also have a fun story line with rhyming text. Each story includes a silly mishap, and my children love it! This week we read Sheep in a Shop.

Speech therapy storybook fun with Sheep in a Shop plus a cute lamb craft for spring! Read this blog post by Speech Sprouts www.speechsproutstherapy.com

The sheep need to buy a birthday gift, so they head to the shop. But what to buy? They try out everything in the shop, wreaking havoc as they go. They finally make their decision, but not before making a stack of balls come tumbling down on them! The problem is, they don't have enough money to pay for their purchase. What to do? Why, shear each other and pay in wool of course!

Speech therapy targets you can address with Sheep in a Shop.

There are plenty of articulation and language opportunities in this story, especially:
1. The "sh" phoneme: sheep, shop, sheer
2. Regular plurals and final clusters: rackets, rockets, blocks, clocks, pockets, trains, planes
3. Rhyming words

An Easy Spring Sheep Craft

After reading the story, we had to make our own spring lamb. I always make a sample ahead of time with crafts, then have the children predict what they will need, make a request for each item, describe what they are doing (cutting, gluing), then re-tell what they did!

To make this sheep you will need:

1. A small paper plate or white construction paper circle about 5" in diameter
2. Cotton balls- I cut them in half to make them go further
3. Black construction paper- you will cut out one head and two legs. I pre-cut them for my pre-schoolers
4. Wiggle eyes
5. Ribbon for a bow.-you may want to pre-make these for young children.
6. White glue

Assembly is easy.

Glue the head and legs on in the back of the circle. Add a wiggle eye. Now it's time to add the cotton balls.

How to get plenty of repetitions of your speech therapy targets

You keep control of the cotton balls, and get additional practice opportunities by requiring the children to say one of their articulation words or other targets before giving them each cotton ball to glue. That's a lot of practice!

Here are a few of our sweet creations!