Ocean Theme Therapy

The last week of school was spent under the sea! For our last theme this year we learned about the ocean and animals that live in the ocean. I see kiddos in pre-K through 5th grade with a variety of communication and developmental delays so I like to have a wide variety of materials.  One of the questions I get asked the most is how do you do all that in one week?  The answer is I don't, we pick and choose activities/books depending on what the kids seem interested in or what best fits the skills they are working on. Since I see the same kids for multiple years I may do one activity one year and then a different one the next so that we are always keeping things interesting. Here's a collection of  books, games, printables and activities we used.

The last few sensory bins (bugs and outer space) have been a HUGE hit so I put together an ocean-themed bin with things I already had.  I used blue crinkle paper left over from my boy's Easter baskets, then added some ocean animals, gold coins and a treasure box that came with some kinetic sand. 

If you've been following me for a while you know I love Paper Bag Games!  They are perfect to make and play during therapy and then send home for home practice.

We didn't get out the summer playdough mats this year but we did last year.  They are great for naming and identifying seasonal vocabulary while also sneaking in playdough too.

My younger articulation groups enjoy making Dot Art and this week we made beach balls!

In my 50 Trials Articulation file I have a set of whales so a few groups took the challenge this week!

We have finally been able to start playing some games again in therapy and we brought out our collection of ocean-themed games for this week.  Sophies Seashells was new this year and it was similar to Sneaky Snacky Squirrel.  I love that it focuses on patterns as a new way to describe! 

My older groups asked to play our Shark Bite dice game, we used pretend "buried treasure" to play this time! 

I just found these Floss & Rock magnetic scenes when I was looking for outer space materials and they are so fun!  They come with a built-in stand but we've also put them on our whiteboard when we have more than one working on them at a time. 

Of course we have a variety of Boom Cards too!  These are my go-to for teletherapy and we used them with the Smart Board in person too! 

I have a few themes that I will be making some materials for this summer that I didn't get to use this school year (like dinosaurs, camping, pets, etc.) that I may switch out for a different theme next year so those will hopefully be coming soon!