Winter Sports Theme in Speech Therapy
We’re back this week to talk about another versatile winter therapy theme: Winter Sports! In colder parts of the world, the arrival of snow brings opportunities for new adventures and trying new things; which means, it opens up lots of chances to bring this theme to life in therapy. What sports do you think of when you think of “winter sports?” For me the first that come to mind are skiing, snowboarding, sledding and ice skating, but there are so many other amazing activities to teach our students about and learn about with them! Here are some ideas to target winter sports in speech-therapy:
Olympics:
Anyone out there a huge Olympic fan?! When I think of the Summer Olympics the general vibe is “how fast can you swim, run, bike, etc?” But the Winter Olympics… it’s more like “how many times can you spin around in the air while throwing yourself down a steep, icy, mountainside and still land perfectly on your feet?” It's a different feeling for sure. Which makes winter sports so exciting to learn about!
Have you ever done a research activity on the history and origins of different winter sports? It would make a great reading and writing task! Students could select different winter sports and present on their findings. There are also lots of different videos on the history of the Winter Games, like this one here, that give a nice introduction.
Create a Poll: Have your students ever surveyed people in their class or school? Create a poll or survey about the Winter Olympics and put different pragmatic language skills to use! It could be as simple as asking people about their favorite Winter Olympics game? Or do they prefer the Winter Olympics or the Summer Olympics? Practice initiating conversations, interrupting, maintaining a topic, expected non-verbal communication, eye-contact, and more! Then you can spend some time analyzing the data for your students to share with their teachers or classmates.
Host Your Own Olympics! Sometimes I feel like a broken record with this, but I LOVE getting my students up and moving during speech! And what better way to do that than by hosting your own Olympics. Events could vary based on your students goals and students can earn points towards medals throughout different tasks. My caseloads have always loved games, and it’s so much fun to watch them really get into the spirit of the competition and show off their accomplishments at the end! Here are some different activities/games you could incorporate into your Winter Olympics:
- Charades: Act out different winter sports or activities; the team that guesses the most correctly wins some points. Can target: following directions, verbs, verb phrases, non-verbal communication, executive functioning skills, expanding phrases, labeling, articulation, etc.
- Figure Skating Following Directions: Incorporate some gross motor movements into therapy. Give your students different directions based on their target level, and incorporate different figure skating moves into them like spinning, jumping, crouching down low, arabesques to target balance, skating backwards, and more. You could even have them create their own moves!
- Skiing: Set up “flags” that your students have to ski around just like they would in the real events. Use the flags to target different goals such as synonyms and antonyms, articulation or phonological processes, “wh” questions, and more. Give out points to students who can make it to the finish line with the most number of correct targets.
Most of these ideas could be down both virtually and in person with a little bit of flexibility and creativity. Another fun virtual Winter Olympic ideas could be making paper plate ice skates for carpeted areas. Have your students step on paper plates and skate around their rugs or carpets while answering different speech-language targets. Ask parents to let students borrow a laundry basket and pretend to bobsled down a course! Share your screen while you play this bobsledding video from the point of view of a real Olympian (actual start on the course happens around :38 seconds) and pause occasionally to have your students complete different speech-language targets. Use a separate timer to see how long it takes different students or groups to reach the bottom while completing a set number of questions or targets.
If you have students targeting commenting, expanding utterances and phrases, verb use, answering “wh” questions or just increasing general expressive language (or if you’re just feeling the stress of this school year and need a pick-me-up), check out this adorable video of babies competing in the winter olympics to see what your students think and what language they produce while watching it!
Have you ever hosted a Winter Olympics?! I would love to hear different event ideas, so please make sure to share them below!
Here are some other fun Winter Sports Point of View videos that could be a fun way to target expressive language during therapy.
Sledding: Have your students use that same laundry basket, or spend time creating a sled from items they have around their house! Yoga mats, sleeping bags, blankets, storage container lids, and more could make fun imaginary sleds. See your student’s creativity soar!
Skiing: (I like to watch this on mute so my students and I can hear each other throughout) Pretend to ski down a mountain! Practice commenting, exclaiming, giving directives and more.
Dog Sledding: Have your students ever been dog sledding?! Pretend to travel through the snowy countryside in this point of view video. Talk about what you need to stay warm on a dog sled, maybe students have dog toys or stuffed animals at home they could get while they prepare their sled. Target increasing overall expressive language by commenting, exclaiming, answering/asking “wh” questions, expanding phrases, grammatical structures, and more!
Learn about the history of skis and snowshoes! Skis and snowshoes were not always used for recreation, and were necessary for survival. Archeologists found remnants of ski-like objects dated as early as 6000 BCE. WHAT?! For anyone with older students, this would make another great research activity to target reading and writing skills. Learn about where skis and snowshoes were invented, different varieties of them, how they have evolved with newer, modern materials and more. You could also look up information about going skiing or snowshoeing in your area. Practice pragmatic language skills by having students call different rental companies to ask about pricing, rentals available, hours of operation and more. Making phone calls can be a difficult skill for many of our students, but it’s such an important one to practice!
I like to use my Ultimate Thematic Winter Unit for this theme too. The Sensory Bin/Story Prop pictures targeting winter activities/sports makes a great memory game! I like to print two copies of the pictures on cardstock (generally sturdier, but also harder to see through for some of my more “competitive” students) and laminate them before we play. How have you used these sensory bin pictures?! Share your ideas below!
I am also loving this Core Vocabulary Winter Themed Boom Deck. It has so many different winter sports themed activities all while targeting core vocab and repetition that is so, so important for students with language delays.
Here are some books that go along with a Winter Sports theme:
Learning to Ski with Mr. Magee by Chris Van Dusen
Angelina Ice Skates by Katharine Holabird
Tacky and the Winter Games by Helen Lester
Just One Goal by Robert Munsch
Check out these other Winter Sports Freebies:
Design Your Own Winter Sport: Allow your students to showcase their creativity and imagination by creating their own winter sport! See if it is something you could really play together in therapy.
Winter Sport Dot Pages: Use these open-ended coloring/dot pages to complete as many targets as possible during therapy!
Winter Sports Idioms: Match the sports idiom to its meaning in this hockey game.
Molly of Denali Winter Snowboard
Abby Seasons Spinner: Select Winter as your season to go sledding and help pick clothes for Abby’s snowman.
