Thanksgiving Speech Therapy Activities

When it comes to Thanksgiving speech therapy activities, I like to focus on themes of being thankful . . . and the FOOD! But in all seriousness, adding themed resources can liven things up right before a holiday.

Plus, students with early communication skills can benefit from working on simple vocabulary around the tradition of the Thanksgiving meal – from prepping to eating it!

Thanksgiving Speech Therapy Activities:

Thanksgiving Craft for Speech Therapy

I love a good craft – great for engaging students and getting in multiple trials! Plus, students love to show off a craft at home, which makes them great for carry-over.

If you are looking for a craft to keep your students’ hands busy while working on articulation or language goals, you could try this cute turkey craft! The corn pieces have articulation or language targets on them. Students can practice each target while they color, cut, and then glue to get more trials in!

Another great craft option is this lift-the-flap apple pie craft that targets both articulation and language. Perfect if you are focusing on food for the holiday!

Thanksgiving Speech Therapy Books

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Here are a few Thanksgiving Books you might enjoy using for speech-language therapy:

Thanksgiving Is for Giving Thanks by Margaret Sutherland: This simple book is great for preschoolers or other early language learners and focuses on things to be thankful for – all relatable to children.

Thanksgiving Is Here by Diane Goode: This book can be used for targeting vocabulary for food, furniture, and relatives. It also can work well with a sequencing task since it takes the student through the entire day of Thanksgiving for a large family gathering.

I Know an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Pie by Alison Jackson: This book from the popular series is great for working on Thanksgiving food vocabulary. It also rhymes and has lots of repetition!

“My Favorite Things about Thanksgiving” Booklet

Who doesn’t love talking about their favorite things? I like this Thanksgiving Favorite Things booklet because it is “errorless” and focuses on sharing opinions. (Just because there are no “right” answers, doesn’t mean there aren’t tons of opportunities to practice language skills – like social skills, fall vocabulary, turn-taking, etc.)

The booklet is a fun activity that encourages sharing opinions with peers for students who benefit from visual choices. (Plus, it can be differentiated, making it perfect for speech groups!)

Speech Therapy Cooking Activity: Pumpkin Pie

Cooking is always a fun group speech therapy activity (or for a speech/OT – “SPOT” group)! This is especially popular to do with students in a life-skills program or with students in a substantially separate classroom where you’ll have access to an oven and a refrigerator.

Cooking is such an important part of the Thanksgiving tradition, and there are plenty of simple recipes for the holiday. You can use a visual recipe to make the steps more accessible for students who benefit from the use of visuals – like this Pumpkin Pie Visual Recipe.

In a cooking group, you can target turn-taking, following directions, sequencing, requesting and so much more! Cooking is also great for sensory input – smells, textures, temperatures, etc. – and for teaching vocabulary related to those senses!

Thanksgiving Categories Sorting

You can target both Thanksgiving vocabulary and categorization skills with this Thanksgiving Categories Sorting activity. It includes sorting mats or print-and-go worksheets.

Thanksgiving-Themed Categories Included:

dinner foods
Thanksgiving activities
dessert
drinks
family
items on a table
fall clothes
farm
Thanksgiving decorations
cooking
football

Thanksgiving WH- Questions with Visual Choices

Do you feel like you are always targeting Wh- Questions? You can shake things up by using some Thanksgiving WH questions with your students!

I made these Thanksgiving WH- question cards that include lots of visuals to help your students with comprehension of both the question and of the answer choices.

Thanksgiving Following Directions Worksheets

Do your students love to color? It can be a calming activity for many students.

If you have students working on auditory comprehension skills/following directions goals, these Thanksgiving Following Directions Coloring Sheets are for you! They are print-and-go and feature 1-step and 2-step directions including temporal directions.

Thanksgiving Articulation Practice

Spice up typical articulation practice with a Thanksgiving-themed set of BOOM Cards where students “feed the (cute) monsters” to work on those articulation drills!