halloween speech therapy activities for toddlers

81+ FREE Speech Therapy Halloween Activities

Are you looking for speech therapy halloween activities? 

If so you’ve come to the right place with over 80 free speech therapy halloween activities divided by skill area for easy access to any speech therapy halloween resources you might want.

Speech Therapy Halloween

This free list of speech therapy halloween activities includes 15 different skill areas of focus.

1. Articulation: R, L, S, Z, SH, CH, TH, J, F, V, T, D, K, G, H, Y, W

2. Phonology

3. Reinforcement

4. Following Directions

5. Social Skills

6. Language Skills

7. WH – Questions

9. Sequencing

10. Vocabulary

11. Categories

12. Pronouns

13. Describing

14. Synonyms

15. Multiple Meaning Words

1. Articulation: Speech Therapy Halloween Activities

Click the links below and download the free speech therapy halloween freebie of your choice.

• Halloween Fortunes for Speech Therapy by Speech Therapy by Courtney Gragg is a highly rated origami freebie for elementary aged students. This freebie targets vocalic /r/ with 8 halloween themed origami print outs – instructions on how to fold included! 
• Halloween Vocalic R What’s Wrong Picture Scene by Two Sisters Therapy – Nicole Absher is a highly rated, no print, no prep halloween scene that is interactively used on smart devices! Students love this halloween themed articulation practice.
• Halloween Sound Loaded Short Story with “WH” ? by Miss Chris’s Peech Room is a great resource to use with group work! The passages are engaging and there are 10 questions for every passage.
• Halloween Articulation Word Searches – R and S Sounds by Communication Window is a set of engaging, Halloween themed word searches that are ready to print and go! 
• Halloween Mad Labs for Speech by Super Power Speech is a fun set of Mad Libs with a halloween theme for students to target articulation goals and language goals! These are engaging and a student favorite.
• FREE NO PRINT Articulation SAMPLE by The Busy Speech Mom is a free, no print and interactive game for students to practice articulation! 
• Halloween Sound Loaded Pictures ~~J~~ by Miss Chris’ Peech Room is a highly rated, no prep activity that is great for Halloween articulation practice.
• Distance Learning Games FREEBIE! Pirate Theme SAMPLE  by The Busy Speech Mom is both interactive and printable. This is a fun and engaging pirate themed board game!
• Zombie Hunt – Halloween Speech Therapy FREEBIE – Low Prep Games is an easy to prep game (just cut the zombies out) that involves gross motor breaks and will be so fun and engaging for your students! Hide the zombies around the room and have students say target articulation words to trap the zombies!
• Spooky Speech: Halloween Articulation Word Lists and Activities by Sublime Speech is a compilation of fun Halloween themed activities that target articulation practice. These activities are low prep and very engaging!
• Articulation Vocabulary Books: Halloween Freebie by Speech is Sweet are engaging articulation books that are great for younger students! Have students practice at both word and sentence level. 
• Halloween Articulation Dice Game by Nicole Raventine is a highly rated articulation dice game with a fun Halloween theme! This freebie is minimal prep and students love to practice multiple sound targets in pairs or teams!

2. Phonology: Speech Therapy Halloween

• Monster Freebie- What Begins with ‘M”? Phonological Awareness by Speech Sprouts is a freebie that helps practice identification and isolation of initial sounds and phonological awareness of initial ‘M’. It is highly rated and easy to print and go!
• Blend & Color: Halloween Multisyllabic Words – Phonemic Awareness Activity by Bluebird Speech is a engaging and fun halloween activity that can be used interactively or can be printed. Students practice articulation as they blend 2-4 syllable words.
• Ghost Talk Blog Hop: The Ghost That Wasn’t Spooky Articulation Phonology by Sparklle SLP Speech Therapy is a great freebie to practice articulation and phonology with younger students.

3. Reinforcement: Speech Therapy Halloween Activities

• Halloween Speech Therapy Game Activity | FREE by Sparklle SLP Speech Therapy is a highly rated reinforcement activity with a Halloween/Fall theme. Students will roll dice then pick a themed items to add to their tree while they practice their drill practice of any kind.
• Halloween Spider Stack Mat A Mini Eraser Game Companion! by Sparkley Speechie is a no prep spider stack mat perfect for halloween themed erasers. Use this mat to practice multiple different target skills.
• 100 Trials Candy Corn Challenge is a 100 repetition challenge by Peachie Speechie! Designed to be used with real candy corn, you can adapt this activity to reach pretty much any repetition speech goal.
• Halloween 50 Articulation Trials by Ashley Rossi is a no prep activity that can be used for groups or individually!

4. Following Directions: Speech Therapy Halloween

• Halloween Following Directions by The Speech Ladder are printable color to number coloring sheets for students to practice following directions! The pages are costume themed.
• Halloween Following Directions with Prepositions by The Cheap Path SpeechPath are Halloween themed picture scenes that prompt students to follow directions. Pro- tip: Place velcro on target areas to help prompt students where the witch should go!
• Haunted House Following Directions and Expressive Vocabulary by Queen’s Speech is a print and go activity with varying levels of directions. This freebie prompts students to place different items in a haunted house. This freebie is highly rated!
• Halloween Print-n-Go Following Directions by Practically Speeching is a pack of 4 printable worksheets with one and two step directions. this set is great for younger elementary students and is ready to print and go!
• Halloween Play Dough Mats for Following Directions by the Digital SLP is a great set of play dough mats for pre-k and kindergarten! Print these sheets and have students follow directions such as “Give the cat a bow tie!” as they play with play dough.

5. Social Skills: Speech Therapy Halloween Activities

• Halloween Idiom Monster Match-Ghosts and Goblins by SLP Madness is a set of worksheets and task cards to help reinforce idioms and figurative language. There are 16 pairs of idioms and task cards and a blank template as well!
• What Are They Thinking: A Social Skills Halloween Activity by Speech Paths is a great resource to use with students who are working on social pragmatic scenarios for Halloween. A cartoon scene and short story guide students through interactions including facial expressions and gestures, perspective taking, supporting friends, and respecting others.
• Halloween Idioms by LindseySLP is a fun way to practice idioms with a Halloween theme! Students can practice at both sentence and short story level!
• Halloween Exit Slip Freebie for Articulation, Language and Social Skills by Creative Speech Lab is a fun and engaging set of Exit Slips that focus on articulation and social skills! Easily print, cut and place in a jar for your students.
• Halloween Social Narrative and Disability Awareness Card by TLC Talk Shop – Tamantha Cauckwell includes a social narrative to help prepare students for Halloween night and also clear Disability Awareness Cards to use while trick or treating.
• Should or Shouldn’t I – Behaviors for Trick or Treating by Speechy Musings is a social skills freebie that prompts students to sort “should” behaviors and “should not” behaviors. Simply print the resource which has options for both writing, or cutting and pasting pictures to the right category.
• Good Witch vs. Bad Witch by Speech Time Fun is a great resource to practice social pragmatics involving Halloween! Students sort the good witch and the bad witch into the right category.

6. Language Skills: Speech Therapy Halloween

• Halloween Expanding Sentences | Real Photos by Language Speech and Literacy is a highly rated, interactive resources that includes 10 real photo scenes with WH question visuals for teaching pronouns, verbs, WH questions, expanding sentences, basic concepts, prepositions, and writing.
• Receptive Identification Photos by Alison Fors is an activity that focuses on listening comprehension. Students will identify a described picture, or have the students describe the picture to practice descriptors, pronouns, and verbs in a sentence.
• Finger plays: Halloween, spatial concepts, expressive language by Speech2u is an engaging activity for younger students that uses Finger Plays to go with the rhyme 5 Little Pumpkins and an original by the author.
• Halloween Inferencing: Who Am I? Guessing Game by SLP Speech Nerd is a great inferencing activity for early elementary with 12 photo cards, PCS visuals, and 12 question cards. Simply print, laminate and re-use!
• The Ghost That Wasn’t Spooky: Speech and Language Halloween Ghost Talk Blog Hop by The Pedi Speechie is an engaging story to print, cut and assemble with your students!
• Halloween Main Idea and Details by Just Speechie SLP is a highly rated language packet that includes 12 Halloween stories, a main idea and details template, and a double-wide board game. Topics include how to make a halloween costume, trick or treating, haunted houses etc!
• Bigger; Smaller; Clothespins; Center Kindergarten; Autism by Amanda Butt Sanderson is a great language activity for younger students to practice 1 on 1 with teachers, or at centers. Simply print, laminate and re-use!
• Spooky Clues: Halloween Inferencing by Peachie Speechie is a great inferencing activity that gives clues to students and has them guess the Halloween themed item. There is a print or a no prep option!

7. WH-Questions: Speech Therapy Halloween Activities

• Halloween Wh-Question Cards FREEBIE by The Talking Owl is a clear, engaging set of 24 wh-questions cards. Print one sheet to drill, or two to play memory!
• Halloween Sound Loaded Short Story with “WH” ? by Miss Chris’ Peech Room is an engaging set of short stories that are accompanied by 10 Wh- Questions. This is a great resource to use in small groups!
• Halloween BINGO, wh- questions by The OG SLP is a fun game with 8 bingo sets and 24 Wh-Question calling cards to engage the students in the board game! This set is easy to print and play and is highly rated.
• Halloween Wh-questions! by Speechy Days is a fun, Halloween themed set that prompts students to practice answering and asking questions.
• Room on the Broom “WH’ Question Match by Miss Chris’ Peech room is an updated and revised version of a fun, Halloween themed activity that prompts students to answer Wh- Questions based on a fun book!
• Halloween Stories With Basic WH- Questions by Speechtacular Resources is a fun and engaging set of Halloween themed short stories that are accompanied by WH- Questions. This is a great activity for small groups!
• Wh- Questions Halloween Bingo by Easy Speechie 123 is a highly rated bingo board set designed for younger elementary to practice answering WH Questions. Clear directions and answer key are included!
• Candy Corn “WH” Questions by the Speech Nook is a set of 48 candy corn themed WH- Question cards for younger elementary students! There is a color and black and white version available.
• Candy Corn Question Cards by Speech Time Fun is a fun way for young elementary aged students to practice WH- Questions with a fall/Halloween theme set of cards. This freebie is engaging and highly rated!

8. Crafts: Speech Therapy Halloween

• Halloween Craft FREEBIE by Fun in Speech is a fun fall themed speech therapy activity that can be used simply as a craft that targets practicing articulation and language. This is a great craft to use as decoration on a bulletin board too!
• Halloween Speech Therapy Craft: Pop Up by Texas Speech Mom is a fun and engaging pop up craft that targets articulation practice.
• Speech & Language Halloween Activity – Build A Face by Speech Therapy Plans is a highly rated, low prep craft for your students that targets articulation and language practice.
• Free Bat Craft for Speech and Language Therapy by Texas Speech Mom is a class favorite, funny, quick and easy craft that will get your students laughing and engaged! Check our the authors TPT story for a companion packet that targets 8 different areas of speech.
• Crow Speech Therapy Craft FREE by Speech Dreams is a highly rated fall/Halloween themed craft that targets articulation and language. Students love this cut and glue activity and often take it home for more practice!
• Halloween Craft FREE Monster by Speech Dreams is a great craft to pair with any monster themed book! This activity is cut and glue for younger students and always so fun and engaging.

9. Sequencing: Speech Therapy Halloween Activities

• Sequencing Mini-books for Halloween Fun FREEBIE! by Activity Tailor is a highly rated mini book to practice sequencing at 3 different levels. The books are easily folded from one sheet of paper.
• Trick or Treat Sequencing cards / Social Story by Miss V’s Speech World is a packet of 9 sequencing cards that tell a social story about trick or treating! This is great for social stories or scripts too!
• Legend of Sleepy Hollow Retell and sequencing activity by Wildcat SLPA is a great activity for older students to practice sequencing events in an engaging, Halloween themed way!
• The Ghost That Wasn’t Spooky: Sequencing by The Speech Attic is an engaging story with an easy to print sequencing activity! This is part of a blog hop, so you can use this same story for different speech therapy goals.
• How to Carve a Jack-O-Lantern Sequencing FREEBIE by Speak Up Speech is a great, simple activity for younger elementary that targets sequencing and how to telling. This freebie is highly rated and easy to print and go!
• Puking Pumpkins Science Activity for Inference, Sequence and Recall by Detig Dialect – Tricia Detig SLP is a great activity that is hands on for older students. Checl the supplies list, then have students practie inferencing and sequencing with this fun Halloween themed project!

10. Vocabulary: Speech Therapy Halloween

• FREE Halloween File Folder Game, Beginning Sounds Cut and Paste Worksheets by Promoting Success is a download of one free file folder game that targets Halloween vocabulary and beginning sounds. This is great for Kindergarteners!
• Halloween Freebie for Vocabulary by The Pedi Speechie is a set of sheets that target the vocabulary use with multiple meaning words, homonyms and synonyms. Print the color version, laminate and use with dough or chips over and over and print the black adn white version to use with daubers, crayons, stickers etc.

11. Categories: Speech Therapy Halloween Activities

• Candy Categories: FREE Halloween Activity by A Space to Speak is a halloween themed set of worksheets that focus on categories. Each worksheet has candy corn pieces that have three words written on them. Read the words, determine the class/feature/function.
• Category Freebie- Monster Faces No Prep by The SLT Scrapbook is a set of no prep work sheets that target naming items from a written list, visual list and from a category. This is highly rated and the monster theme is engaging and fun for halloween or all year.

12. Pronouns: Speech Therapy Halloween

• Halloween Pronoun Freebie by Speechie Days is a 5 star rated packet with 24 target goals to label he/she and picture items on a fun, Halloween themed picture board!
• Halloween Pronouns: Free Grammar Activity by Jenna Rayburn Kirk is an engaging activity that has you label pronouns on a sentence strip as you feed your monster!
• HALLOWEEN PRONOUNS by Speedie Speechie Supplies is a simple activity that prompts students to cut out the Halloween/ dress up themed characters, glue them under the appropriate pronoun, and then color their picture! This is a great print and go activity.

13. Describing: Speech Therapy Halloween Activities

• Who or What Am I? Halloween Identification Describing Game by Jennifer Callaway is a free four page set for drilling or games! Listen to clues, make inferences, and identify objects from a description in this fun Halloween themed freebie.
• Halloween Attributes; Describing by The Speech and Language Backpack is a set of 5 pictures and attributes that students with cut out and glue to the matching picture to practice describing goals!
• Halloween Activity Cards by Speech Rocks is a set of 36 Halloween themed vocabulary cards to be used in describing games! This set is clear, engaging, and highly rated!

14. Synonyms: Speech Therapy Halloween

• Halloween Synonyms Worksheet by Activity Tailor is a worksheets that prompts students to read Halloween themed sentences and then choose synonyms from a word bank. This is a great print and go activity.
• Halloween Synonyms by Stress Free SLP is a set of 28 cards that students can use to practice synonyms while drilling, matching, playing Go Fish etc!

15. Multiple Meaning Words: Speech Therapy Halloween

• FREE: Batty for Multiple Meaning Words – a Halloween Activity by Big Hair SPeech Therapy is a pack with 10 multiple meaning words with a Halloween theme. This pack includes 3 levels of differentiation and a fun solve the riddle worksheet.
• Multiple Meanings – Halloween by Hanna Gelfand is a halloween themed set of cards. Have students read their card and tell you two different meanings for the word.

<< CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE ENTIRE HALLOWEEN FREEBIE LIST >>

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More Free Speech Therapy

Be sure to check out the following topics for more ideas!

• All-in-one interactive PDF around the theme of Nature.
• 261+ ideas for digital therapy that are all FREE
• 35 FREE Speech Therapy Data Sheets Roundup
• How to use PDFs in Speech Therapy
• Free Articulation Games for Speech Therapy Online  
• 917 best free Boom Cards for Speech Therapy

Tuesday 18th of October 2022

Jennifer Pelham

Tuesday 11th of October 2022

Love all of your materials and resources!!

THANK YOU!!

Janice Hughes

Tuesday 27th of September 2022

Love me some Bootiful Freebies!

Halloween Activities & Freebies for Speech Therapy

Updated: Nov 9, 2023

This blog post has all things monsters, witches, mummies, haunted houses, and more! Check out some of the awesome Halloween themed digital and printable activities and freebies for speech therapy!

> Fun Activities

> Digital Freebies

> TPT Freebies

> Crafts

Spookley the Square Pumpkin

Christopher Pumpkin

The Hallo-wiener

How to Catch a Witch

There was an Old Mummy Who Swallowed a Spider

Too Many Pumpkins

Check out even more fun Halloween books over in my YouTube read aloud playlist !

👻 FUN ACTIVITIES

Spookley the Square Pumpkin Book Companion Boom Cards

Trick or Treating with Gifs Boom Cards

Turkey Trick or Treat Printable Book Companion

Halloween Who What Where Sentence Builder

Halloween Build a Scene Boom Cards

Build a BUNDLE Boom Cards

More Book Companions

👻 DIGITAL FREEBIES

Monster Themed 50 Trials Boom Cards

Halloween 50 Trials Boom Cards

Feed the Monster Boom Cards

Sequencing Story

Inferences & Predictions

Build a Witch Potato Head

Articulation /s/ and /z/

Feed the Skeleton /l/ and /l/ Blends

CVC Pumpkin Bowling

Scavenger Hunt

Make a Witches Brew

ABC Ya Pumpkin Carving

ABC Ya Make a Pumpkin

The Giant Flying Fox Live Cam

👻 PRINTABLE FREEBIES

October Vocabulary Freebie for Speech and Language Therapy

Yes & No Questions

WH Questions

Spooky Synonyms

Prepositions

Articulation Word Lists and Activities

Monster Snacks Pronouns

Following Spatial Directions

Multiple Meaning Words

Multisyllabic Words - Phonemic Awareness

Interactive Song and Circle Time Activities

Sentence Scramble

Crafts are a fun, hands on way to target a variety of skills like sequencing, sentence formulation, retell, past tense verbs (e.g. cut, glued, wrote, colored), temporal concepts (e.g. first, then, last), and spatial concepts (e.g. on, next to, under).

50+ Halloween Crafts for Kids

Halloween Bulletin Board Craft Writing Activities Qtip Skeleton

Ghost Craft

Ghost Name Craft

Halloween Speech Therapy Pop Up Craft: Articulation and Language

Have a wonderful week! 🎃

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10 Halloween Activities for Speech Therapy

By Meredith Avren

October is here 🎃

And i’ve got a list of festive activities for your speech therapy sessions.

I hope you like these suggestions for a festive, spooky October in speech therapy! Be sure to follow me on Instagram @thepeachiespeechie and tag me if you post any of these - I’d love to see them in use! 

Xoxo, Meredith 

Thanks for reading the Peachie Speechie blog! Subscribe to our newsletter at the bottom of the page so we can keep in touch. 💌

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Halloween Speech Activities for Toddlers You Can Do at Home

One of the most popular holidays is finally here. Halloween! If you’re still looking for a costume, you still have some time left. While it may also seem like there will never be an end in sight as far as treats go (we love them too!), but are you concerned about your child getting wrapped up in the holiday and not making progress in speech speech therapy? Don’t worry a–our spooky speech therapists at Therapy Works Together have some great ideas when it comes time to put together speech therapy activities for toddlers at home.

Don’t get scared! I’m sure you can tell by the way we LOVE HALLOWEEN that this month is one of our favorites. Stay calm and work on speech therapy at home as you prepare for Halloween.

Are you concerned about your child having a speech or language issue. Most importantly –  Don’t panic. With the help of a speech language pathologist and parents who are ready to help at home children make great progress with these speech or language issues.

You can start dealing with speech issues at home with some support from speech therapists and learning their strategies and techniques used to use during Halloween as therapy games.

Speech therapy is important for every child to improve their speech and language skills. Speech pathologists can help with the fun ways you may be able to help your child at home, as well as identifying any concerns about progress or regression that warrant seeing a speech language pathologist.

Speech Therapy at Home on Halloween Eve

Halloween is the perfect opportunity to start targeting goals for speech including for kids who are late talking toddlers, kids with Apraxia of speech , or other kids with speech language disorders. While many children may have a hard time sitting for speech therapy drills, Halloween themed activities will make it fun and interest your child to learn with these speech therapy activities for toddlers at home.

These tips for improving your child’s speech will come in handy no even if you work with a speech therapist at home. Speech language therapists usually assign homework,  but some speech therapists give it as rewards or challenges so be sure to ask!

The games and exercises are all related to Halloween which makes them extra fun because everyone loves this spooky holiday- especially kids!

Speech Therapy in Disguise

We’ve found some great educational games that don’t cost parents anything and don’t require a lot of preparation – just Halloween-related things around the house and your spooky imagination . There is everything here from activities for articulation (such as “ rhotacism”  or difficulty pronouncing the “r” sound ), language issues kids might have in grammar school (such as working on parts of speech), and targeting facial expressions and emotions for kids with Autism Spectrum Disorder who may have social communication issues .

Activities with Pumpkins

Here are some games with pumpkins that will keep your child interested in (hidden) speech therapy activities at home and also produce some good results.

Learning to Describe

Try passing small pumpkin from one person to another and each person takes a turn describing each one of theirs or someone else’s. The goal is to describe and use different adjectives:

• “My pumpkin is heavy.”
• “Her pumpkin is green and orange .”
• “Your pumpkin is small.”

Learn Superlative/Comparative Adjectives

A superlative adjective describes “the most,” “the b est ,” or “the high est. ” In this Halloween game, you’ll need a few pumpkins. You will also need prizes, like candies or even coins that you can give a prize or reward to each pumpkin depending on it’s characteristics. Tell your child that there will be contest for the pumpkins and you can both reward them:

• Superlatives: Parents can model saying the superlative: “Which pumpkin is the biggest/smallest,” and so on. Your child can find the right pumpkin and give it the reward.
• Comparatives: Modify the game and use comparative adjectives (“light er ” than or “ heavier ” than). Invite your child to compare pumpkins.
• Encourage your child to use more varied and interesting adjectives depending on their language and developmental level.

Use Your Candies

Your child definitely made out with a lot of Halloween candies and the speech language therapists at Therapy Works Together always invite their little clients to bring the candies they got to the speech therapy online session. These candies that can be used for pleasure and more useful purposes. Here are several games that are good for different ages.

Sort the Colors

Give your child a pile of different candies and let them sort into categories. You can do this by color, shape or type! If they’re too young for the sorting game try using names like “round sweets,” instead when you ask what kind it is in order to make things easier on their little brains 🙂

Explore Candy Quality

With an older child, there are two criteria you can use to sort sweets. For the first game they’ll have candies in different piles such as “like” and “dislike.” The next time parents play it might be based on more complicated types such as chocolates or lollipops instead!

Candy Wh- Game

This type of game helps develop sharing and social communication and not only speech skills. Get several child or people from the house to play this game.

What you do is give some sweets to each player and tell them that everyone needs to ask for candy and explain why they are choosing it. For example:

“I want this candy because it is orange flavor, I love orange. I think this candy is very yummy.”

Parents can also ask their child leading questions to help them along, such as:

• Why do you choose this candy?
• Why do you like it better than others?
• What is the tastiest candy?

Spoooky Books to Use for Speech Therapy at Home

Leading up to Halloween and on the holiday itself, don’t forget to pick up Halloween books. Invite your kid and they neighborhood to get into the mood by reading together, and then parents can ask questions about the story and perhaps what will happen on Halloween eve that is related to the story.

Speech therapy activities for toddlers at home you can work on include:

• Asking a child what a new word means
• Story retell (by memory or by looking at the pictures)
• Articulation (target “s” sounds: spooky, stinky, slimy)

Here are some Halloween theme books that our speech therapists love:

• It’s Pumpkin Day, Mouse
• Mouse First Halloween
• Room on the Broom

Work on Speech During Halloween

Halloween is a great time to work on speech therapy. It won’t take much prep.  Spend this holiday having fun with your child’s speech language development by helping them learn more words as they explore their costumes, decorations or activities.

From the speech therapists at Therapy Works Together: Have an awesome, safe and healthy Halloween families! And don’t forget about speech therapy online to help you get your child to the next level in their speech skills.

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Halloween Themed Activities and Resources for Speech and Language Therapy

Halloween is my favorite holiday and I love pulling in Halloween-themed resources into our sessions! Again, I think it goes back to the enjoyment of dressing up and being silly. Halloween definitely brings out my inner child and the laughter of my students makes my day!

For full disclosure, as an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases for my favorite books or games listed below. I have them linked below in case you are interested in expanding your resources for this theme. Other links, to freebies, songs, videos, and online games are not affiliated links. Below you will find my favorite Halloween-themed resources and activities to incorporate into my own therapy sessions. Hopefully, by sharing with you, you will find some additional tools for your speech toolbelt.

HALLOWEEN THEMED BOOKS for LITERACY-BASED THERAPY:

• Turkey Trick or Treat by Wendi Silvano
• Bone Soup by Alyssa Satin Capucilli
• The Hallo-Weiner by Dav Pilkey
• Room on the Broom by Julia Donaldson
• Big Pumpkin by Erica Silverman
• Skeleton Hiccups by Margery Cuyler
• Click, Clack, Boo by Doreen Cronin and Besy Lewin
• Inside a House that is Haunted by Alyssa Satin Capucilli
• There Was an Old Lady that Swallowed a Ghost by Lucille Colandro
• Where’s My Mummy by Carolyn Crimi

Check out this blog post with three other Halloween Books that you may be interested in! Halloween Books for Speech Therapy

HALLOWEEN THEMED RESOURCES:

• Spooktacular: No Prep Speech & Language-  Target the most common articulation errors in all word positions and in mixed pages, and language skills such as functions, verbs, synonyms, and categories using dice and spinner games.
• Halloween Articulation Mystery Pictures-  Target articulation in all word positions and with mixed positions pages while practicing fine motor skills. This resource is perfect with mixed groups, extra practice at home, or as a resource within your speech and language station.
• Halloween Language Builder-  This resource targets vocabulary, recalling sentences and details, answering wh-questions, following 1-3 step directions, descriptive concepts, inferencing, and more!
• Find Articulation and Follow Directions: Halloween- Target articulation skills by searching for hidden words scattered in the pictured scenes using a magnifying glass, follow 2 step temporal directions, and answer wh-questions about the pictured scenes. There is also additional information on ways that you can use this resource to target additional goals.
• Bundled Ghosts: Speech and Language Crafts –  Target articulation, language, phonology, and apraxia goals with cute ghost crafts that can be used to decorate the speech room and later sent home for practice.
• Halloween: Map, Mash, & Mark Conversational Exchange-   Map out conversation based by common interests, what you know of your audience, and track your conversational exchange.
• Halloween: Open-Ended Games –  Great way to reinforce student behavior and engagement while targeting skills.
• Prepositions & Pronouns in Halloween Town-   Target these skills using bingo games, no prep dauber pages, dice games, and manipulative mats with sentence strips.

HALLOWEEN THEMED SONGS:

• Down by the Spooky Bay by Super Simple Songs
• Knock Knock, Trick or Treat by Super Simple Songs
• This is the Way on Halloween by Bounce Patrol
• Halloween Stomp by The Singing Walrus
• Five Creepy Spiders by Super Simple Songs
• Five Little Ghosts by Super Simple Songs

HALLOWEEN THEMED VIDEOS:

• Halloween Trivia for Kids by Homeschool Pop
• Where did Halloween Come From by Colossal Cranium
• Why do We Celebrate Halloween by Hey! Guess What
• Halloween Facts for Kids by Homeschool Pop
• Halloween Around the World by Educational Videos for Students

HALLOWEEN THEMED BOARD GAMES (BG) and ONLINE GAMES (O):

• Max Fun Inflatable Witch Hat and Spider Ring Toss by the Max Fun Store
• Halloween Bean Bag Toss by ThinkMax Store
• Pin the Spider on the Web by the Funnlot Store
• Halloween Foam Bowling Set by JOYin Store
• Halloween Charades by Anton Publications (BG)
• Arthur’s Trick or Treats by PBS Kids (O)
• Halloween Story Game by Yad.com (O)
• Halloween Breaker by CBC (O)
• Trick or Trait by RoomRecess.com (O)
• Scooby Doo Haunted House by Game Kid Game (O)
• Zombilliards by Game Kid Game (not for younger kids) (O)

HALLOWEEN THEMED FREEBIES:

• Halloween Verbs by WhitneySLP
• Halloween Open-Ended Boom Cards Game by Mia McDaniel
• Halloween Social Narrative & Awareness Cards by me
• Halloween Grammar Boom Cards by Miss B SLP
• Would You Rather Halloween Boom Cards by SpeechBop
• Halloween Riddles by Major Speech Minor Girl
• Halloween Exit Slips for Articulation, Language, and Social Language by Creative Speech Lab
• 10 Halloween Freebies by TLC Talk SLP
• 10 MORE Halloween Freebies by TLC Talk SLP
• Halloween Books for Literacy-based Learning with Cheat Sheet
• Read more about: Facilitate Speech and Language , Freebie , Halloween , Improving SLP Services , Lesson Plans , SLPs on TpT , Teletherapy , Therapy Ideas

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I am excited that this year is a leap year and that I can incorporate leap day stories, videos, and activities into my therapy sessions.

St. Patrick’s Day Themed Activities and Resources for Speech and Language Therapy

Looking for new St. Patrick’s Day activities and resources to incorporate into your classroom or speech therapy sessions? Check out this list of ideas.

Rainbow Themed Activities and Resources for Speech and Language Therapy

Looking for rainbow-themed activities and resources to build language skills and to kick off Spring? Check out these engaging suggestions that you can incorporate into your classroom or speech therapy lesson plans.

Meet Tamatha

Tamatha Cauckwell is an ASHA certified Speech Language Pathologist with experience working in a variety of settings. Prior to obtaining her Masters in Communicative Sciences and Disorders, she was an SLP Assistant, a Self-contained Special Education Teacher, and a Preschool Teacher and Director. Her combined professional career experiences have given her a unique outlook and understanding regarding behavior management and collaborative needs when working with other professionals, colleagues, and families.

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Speech & Language Activities

Halloween Speech Therapy Activities and Crafts

I have some fun (and still educational) Halloween speech therapy activities rounded up for today’s post! I hope you find something useful for your caseload.

Halloween Speech Therapy Activities:

Halloween crafts for speech therapy.

I love a good craft! And I love a good game – wait a craft and game in one? Sign me up!

Roll-a-Pumpkin is a roll-and-glue activity. Gluing is often easier for students with minor fine motor challenges than a roll-and-draw activity.

Whether you use this in a small group or an individual session, y ou can have students work on  requesting a turn, passing the dice, stating the number and piece they rolled, and requesting any materials they need!

If you are looking for a craft to keep your students’ hands busy while working on articulation or language goals , you could try this adorable vampire craft ! The candy 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!

RELATED: Speech Therapy Crafts for Every Season

Halloween Speech Therapy Sensory Bins

To set up a sensory bin, grab a medium plastic storage container with a lid. Then you can pick your “filler.” The filler will take up the bulk of space in your sensory bin. My go-to filler is dried beans – for a Halloween sensory bin dried black beans would be great!

Filler Ideas:

• dried black beans
• rice (you can die it orange)
• dried pasta
• cooked spaghetti noddles (Undercook the pasta and then run it under cold water)
• aquarium gravel (not taste-safe)

Next, you need fun, small items to go in your bin . I usually go to the Dollar Tree and stock up on whatever. From past years I have collected spider erasers, spider rings, small snakes, eyeballs, and skulls.

Don’t forget to add scoops (like measuring cups, spoons, etc.) and some smaller bowls for sorting items.

With a Halloween Sensory Bin for Speech Therapy, you can work on:

• labeling items
• combining two words (purple snake)
• describing items
• sorting by color
• sorting by size
• making “scary sounds”
• concepts in/out, under/over
• you can also print out articulation targets and hide them in the bin

RELATED READ: Sensory Bin Filler Ideas

Halloween Game: Language Bingo

This Bingo game can work for 1:1 sessions or small groups. You can choose whether you focus on Halloween vocab (kind of like playing Zingo with a Halloween theme), riddles/inferences, or WH- questions.

There is even an option to print black & white boards that students can color in to mark their spaces. The “two-step directions” calling cards are made to go with these black and white boards.

Halloween 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 Halloween Following Directions Coloring Sheet s are for you! They are print-and-go and feature 1-step and 2-step directions including temporal directions.

This post contains Amazon affiliate links, which means we could receive a commission if you click a link and purchase something that we have recommended. 

Halloween Speech Therapy Books

This post contains affiliate links, which means we could receive a commission if you click a link and purchase something that we have recommended.

• If You’re Spooky and You Know It by Aly Fronis and Jannie Ho: This is a play on the classic song with a Halloween twist! During the read, you can work on following simple directions by having the students do the action called out and talk about the adjectives such as “spooky” and “hairy.” Expand the activity by having students come up with their own combinations of adjective and action (i.e. “If you’re ____ and you know it, ______.”)
• Big Pumpkin by Erica Silverman: This cute book uses repetitive language which is great for letting students fill-in familiar language and predict what might happen next. It also has a nice social skills lesson about working together!
• Skeleton Hiccups by Margery Cuyler: This book only has a phrase or sentence on each page, but it includes lots of fun, silly illustrations that can serve as conversation starters with your students!

Halloween Category Sorting

Work on Halloween vocabulary and categorization skills with this Halloween sorting activity . You can use sorting mats or print-and-go worksheets.

Halloween-Themed Categories Included:

• animals (nocturnal)
• Halloween Characters
• Halloween activities
• spooky places
• things for a witch
• jack-o-lanterns

Halloween WH- Questions with Visual Choices

If the Bingo game above would be overwhelming for your students who are working on answering Wh- Questions, then these Halloween Wh- Question Cards might be perfect! They include lots of visuals to help your students with comprehension of both the question and the answer choices. (There’s also a  BOOM Cards version here )

I like to use this  FREE Wh- Types Chart  to teach (and prompt) the different types of Wh- Questions.

RELATED READ: Using Visuals to Teach WH- Questions

Halloween Short Stories with WH Questions

Looking for slightly more challenging WH- questions? These Halloween short stories (about a paragraph long) are perfect for students working on differentiation between WH question types or for students working on auditory comprehension and memory recall .

This set includes three levels of support:

• Level 1: Includes multiple choices with pictures. Students can cut and paste the answers.
• Level 2: Includes written multiple choices. Students can cut and paste the answers.
• Level 3: Students write-in their answers to the WH questions.

Halloween Speech Therapy Activity: “Favorite Things about Halloween” Booklet

Who doesn’t love talking about their favorite things? I like this Halloween 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 !)

Halloween Articulation Practice

I can’t leave out articulation activities in my list of Halloween speech therapy activities! Spice up typical practice with a Halloween-themed set of BOOM Cards where students “feed the monsters” to work on those articulation drills!

I hope some of these activity ideas will work for your caseload too!

Looking  for a bundle of some of these fall speech therapy activities at a discount ?

Here’s one for Halloween speech-language therapy :

Here’s a  bundle for early communicators :

Or if you want a whole year of  seasonal and non-seasonal activities , I have an  Early Language MEGA Bundle  at a  BIG discount !

RELATED READ: Thanksgiving Activities for Speech and Language Therapy

Back-to-School Speech-Language Activities for Elementary Students

Thanksgiving Speech Therapy Activities

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Parent's Academy › Activities for Kids › Holiday Activities for Kids › Overcoming Speech and Language Problems at Halloween

Overcoming Speech and Language Problems at Halloween

Aaron swain.

Writing Specialist , Chicago , Illinois

Jan 14, 2022 Whether it's Halloween-themed activities, Halloween costumes, Halloween treats, Halloween decorations, or Halloween parties, as I'm sure you can tell, we LOVE HALLOWEEN! Stay calm in the run-up to Halloween by doing speech therapy at home.

Halloween Activities for Kids:

• Speech Therapy at Home on the Eve and after Halloween
• Learning Target Pronoun
• Learning Superlatives Adjectives

Examining Body Parts

Exploring colors, study of qualities, candy exchange, halloween offers fun way to develop speech.

Many parents are alarmed when they notice that other children have more developed speech than their kids. Fortunately, this is not as significant a problem as it may seem. You can start dealing with it at home without much knowledge or spending money on speech therapists. We know that Halloween is for kids, and it’s a great occasion to start speech therapy at home with theme games.

This holiday heralds a lot of fun, colorful costumes, pumpkin activities, and candy. Believe it or not, this is exactly what you need to start therapy. Below you will find effective tips for speech therapy at home to help you with fun ways to help your child and correct speech problems. Don’t forget to contact a licensed speech-language pathologist if you have concerns about your child’s speech progress.

Speech Therapy at Home on All Hallow’s Eve and after Trick or Treating

Children love Halloween from an early age, so this is a good opportunity to start doing exercises to get rid of speech problems and foster general development. Most children aren’t yet disciplined, but the atmosphere of this holiday perfectly disguises the exercises and will interest the child.

Even if you are using the services of a speech therapist , these tips and games will come in handy. Most speech therapists give homework, which requires continuous practice that you can provide at home. All subsequent exercises will be playful and related to Halloween.

Speech Exercises Hidden in the Game

Here are some educational games that don’t need expensive tools and lots of prep. You need only Halloween-related items, imagination, and creative thinking. 

Pumpkin Activities

One of the most versatile items for educational games is a pumpkin. This vegetable is so versatile that its use in speech development has no boundaries. CEO of the  Online Writers Rating

Here are some pumpkin-themed games that will not only interest your child but also bring good results.

Learning Target Pronouns

Take several pumpkins of different sizes. Next, stand in a circle, with at least three people in the game, but it can also work for two. The idea of the game starts with each pumpkin being passed from person to person in a circle, and then you need to talk about them. For instance:

• “My pumpkin is orange.”
• “Her pumpkin is big.”
• “Your pumpkin is light.”

Learn Superlative Adjectives

So, we all know that an adjective describes something or someone, and a superlative adjective refers to “the most,” “the b est ,” or “the high est .” For this game, you’ll need several pumpkins.

Prepare prizes, like candies to be awarded to each pumpkin based on its characteristics. Explain that there will be a pumpkin contest now and you will reward them. For instance:

The parent says: “Which pumpkin is the largest/smallest,” and so on.

The child must find such a pumpkin and reward it with candy.

Then you can continue this game and learn comparative adjectives (“bigg er ” than or “small er ” than). Invite your child to compare pumpkins. For instance:

• This pumpkin is bigger than this but smaller than this one.
• This pumpkin is brighter than this one.

Encourage your child to use more interesting adjectives than big/small. This is a good time to demonstrate new adjectives to your child, teach them how to compare objects, and grow their vocabulary.

If you have a small child, pumpkins with faces are a good tool for examining body parts. Make some paper arms and legs, and get some thumbtacks. Attach these parts to the pumpkin and come up with a name for the pumpkin. By the way, here you can immediately develop the following dialogue:

• “Let’s come up with a suitable name for this pumpkin.”
• “Will this pumpkin be a boy or a girl?”
• “If this pumpkin is big/small, what name would be good?”
• “Why do you want to name this pumpkin (name)?”

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Next, start exploring body parts. Depending on the age of your child, you can make several pumpkins with arms and legs. You just need the length of these parts to be different. Then you can continue the game comparing body parts.

For instance:

• “Pumpkin Fred has longer legs than pumpkin Tim.”

As you can see, pumpkins are truly versatile for practicing with your child. You can see the idea behind such exercises, so give free rein to your imagination and come up with more games.

The Halloween holiday involves a lot of candies that can be used for pleasure and more useful purposes. Here are several games that are good for different ages.

Put different candies on a flat surface, and start sorting them into different colors or kinds with your child. This game is good for all ages. If your baby is very young, demonstrate this step by repeating the name of the color/kind each time.

With an older child, you can sort sweets according to two criteria, like during the first game, you can sort candies by “like” and “dislike.” The next game can be based on more complex types, like chocolates, lollipops, or by small, medium, and large candies.

Next, show all the candies that you have chosen and place them in a non-see-through bag. Now your task will be to figure out by touch what kind of candy it is. Show descriptive characteristics as an example:

• “This candy feels like it is not the biggest and not the smallest. This candy is hard. I think it’s a lollipop.”

Children like these games very much and they develop not only speech, but also associations, imagination, and, of course, memory .

This kind of game helps develop not only speech but also communication skills. Get as many children as possible to participate in the game.

Give some sweets to each participant and explain the rules of the game. The bottom line is that everyone needs to ask for candy and explain why he wants it. For instance:

“I want this candy because it is pink, I love pink. It seems to me that this candy is very tasty.”

To make it easier for your child, ask leading questions:

• Why do you want this candy?
• Why do you like it more than others?
• What do you think is the tastiest candy?

Pick up Halloween books on the eve of the holiday. Invite your kid to read together, and then ask questions about the story that are connected to their lives.

You can also ask the child what he/she thinks the new word means. This will help to enrich your child’s vocabulary. Here are some books that fit perfectly into the Halloween theme.

• Mouse First Halloween .
• Room on the Broom .
• It’s Pumpkin Day, Mouse.

If you make this a fun Halloween, you can also use it as an opportunity to work on speech therapy at home. You won’t need much prep time, and all the details will be different for you. Spend this holiday having fun and help your child’s speech.

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Halloween Activities for Speech Therapy

Halloween is almost here! As children get excited about costumes, jack o’lanterns, and candy, now is the perfect time to harness their excitement and work on speech and language skills. Spend quality time with your child while enjoying Halloween-themed activities. 

To celebrate this spooky holiday, I’ve compiled some fun activities that you can easily incorporate into your speech therapy sessions to target various speech and language goals.

Many of these activities and worksheets are from my Halloween Vocabulary Building Product , which is jam-packed with fun ways to learn Halloween themed vocabulary associated with this holiday.

Amazon affiliate links have been included. 

Read some books about Halloween

There are so many wonderful, interactive books about Halloween! I’ve written the following blog posts that explain how to use Goodnight Goon , Go Away Big Green Monster ! Mouse’s First Halloween , and I t’s Pumpkin Day, Mouse in speech therapy sessions. Other books that I like are Room on a Broom , Little Blue Truck’s Halloween , The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid of Anything and my recent discovery of What Do You Say When a Monster Says Boo! This last book will appeal to children who have younger siblings. The young sister (aka the monster) is perpetually annoying her older brother with various antics.  The book repeatedly asks,”What do you do when a monster…”does a certain prank or stunt. It is followed by what you could do versus what you should do.

Say, Color, & Display 

Need a simple table-top activity to calm your students? Maybe your speech students are coming back from recess or gym or are thrilled about an upcoming event and are in the yellow zone (aka this is a reference to Zones of Regulation). Let’s guide them into the green zone by coloring!  Grab some crayons, colored pencils, or markers and get coloring as it can relax the brain and allow students to focus on vocabulary related to Halloween. These unique Say, Color, and Display coloring sheets are a fantastic way for students to see how to make the first sound in the word  – see the visual mouth cue in the top left corner? To change it up, have the students color their sheet behind a folder so they cannot see each other’s coloring page. At the end, they can reveal their finished product and compare and contrast the similarities and differences. 

Circle and Say Worksheets

Receptive and expressive vocabulary skills can be targeted with these interactive worksheets. For instance, before having the child circle the Halloween vocabulary, ask him or her to point to a word (e.g. point to the ghosts, the pumpkins, the spiders).  These worksheets also provide a context to discuss Halloween. The discussion can be modified and scaffolded based on the student’s abilities. Print these worksheets and ask students to circle then say the Halloween vocabulary . They can also be used digitally with annotation tools on zoom or used on an ipad. To have FOREVER – simply laminate and then children can use dry erase markers to find the halloween vocabulary. 

Mini Pumpkins and Vocabulary Cards

Print and cut out the Halloween Vocabulary cards. Fold each card then shove into each pumpkin (students can do the shoving!). Take turns removing the folded vocabulary word and practice saying the word, defining the word, using the word in a sentence or describing the Halloween object. To target receptive language, begin by having your student point to each vocabulary word (e.g. point to the ghost, point to the Haunted house, etc) 

Scatter vocabulary puzzle pieces featuring Halloween vocabulary on a table- top or floor and watch your students put them together and say the words! I laminate the puzzle pieces so it’s super easy to disinfect !   (Amazon affiliate links are included for your convenience.)

Feed Max the Monster

Max is a friendly monster who has an insatiable appetite. He’s not a picky eater and prefers a varied diet of sweets, fast food, insects, and other earthly things. 

Grab a box (tissue box or shoe box), the cards included in my Halloween Vocabulary Building Product , and some Velcro tabs and have a blast using this over and over again during your speech therapy sessions! I wear my green witch’s finger to point and name each picture and shake the box and make chewing sounds (“hmmmm” “yum, yum, yum, yum”) each time a student puts the food item in his mouth. 

Working on articulation? Then change Max’s name to one that has the student’s target sound! For instance, earlier this week Max became Victor and then Sam because I had clients who were working on the /v/ and /s/ sounds!

Graveyard Pudding in a Cup

Everybody loves making fun, delicious treats! This Halloween-themed graveyard pudding cup is a great way to practice vocabulary. Target sequencing, listening and following directions, describing, using verbs and so much more. At the end, enjoy a delicious treat!

Kids will love decorating their chocolate pudding cups with oreo cookie crumbles, gummy worms, and candy tombstones. Can’t find the candy tombstones, no worries! Substitute with candy corns or candy pumpkins!

Guess What I Am! Print and Go Sheets 

Print this worksheet and give it to students to cut, solve, and then glue the correct vocabulary word to the riddle. It’s an ideal homework assignment or can be used in your speech therapy session when you’re having a busy day and need something easy to implement – just print and go! Or laminate and use velcro tabs to use this FOREVER and save paper. 

Big Green Monster in a Cup

I had a blast making this Big Green Monster in a Cup and so did my clients. First scoop green/lime jello into a cup, Next, top with the pink Good and Plenty candies, then draw the monster’s face on the cup, and finally eat and enjoy!

We started by reading the classic, Go Away, Big Green Monster ! This is a GREAT book to encourage language skills. My blog post describes why I like it so much and explains how it facilitates learning the names of our facial features, some common first words, and the importance of using our words to reject or protest something.

Then, we made this interactive and fun snack! Grab the step-by-step directions in my resource library .

Pin the Eyes of the Monster Game 

Everybody loves Pin the Tail on the Donkey, but have you ever heard of Pin the Eyes on the Monster? This Halloween inspired game is perfect for children who need to get out of their seats! 

Start by tying a bandana over a child’s eyes, and spin them around a few times. Before tying a bandana over the child’s eyes and spinning them around, to put the googly eyes on the monster, ask them to perform a specific task related to their speech and language goals.

I hope this post has been helpful, and if you try out any of these activities please share a picture and tag me! I would love to see them! Enjoy your Halloween!

• Enhance Your Speech Therapy Sessions with ‘Picky Kitty’ – A Must-Have Game for Every Speech Therapist
• Same and Different: Why Speech Therapists and Educators Should Target this Basic Concept
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Halloween Speech Therapy Activities

If your kids are like mine, they start to get a little crazy the closer Halloween gets. It’s even worse when Halloween falls on a school night! My kids are hyper focused on everything Halloween, so I love incorporating this theme into my weekly session the week before and week of Halloween! If you are needing ideas on what you can do you in your speech therapy sessions for Halloween, then stick around! There are so many different activities that you can do and some of my favorite ones are listed below!

The best part is that these activities are all extremely low prep, so you don’t have to worry about spending a lot of time putting them together. 🙂 I hope these activities are just as enjoyable for your kids as they are for mine!

Dotting Activities

A simple but fun idea is to use dot activity worksheets because they allow you to work on any speech or language goal. They also pair great with other activities and games. These worksheets can be dotted with anything that you have, including BINGO daubers, markers, or even BINGO chips!

Articulation Activities

Whether you are working with individual or mixed groups, these articulation worksheets will be a hit with your kids! From search and finds to trick-or-treat coloring activities, you’ll have worksheets to use across multiple days.

My kids love doing puzzles in their sessions! Whether you have kids working on articulation or language , these will keep them engaged throughout! They come in both color and black & white options so you can choose which ones you’d prefer to print! If you do the black & white puzzles, you can always have your kids color the picture after gluing the pieces. I’d recommend using glue sticks if you choose that option.

Language Activities

For all of your language kids, these worksheets will be a go to for you. They come in various levels of difficulty, making this a great set to add to your materials. They are great for you mixed language groups, too, with the similar layouts provided.

Halloween Workbook

This Halloween Workbook is a resource that is jam-packed with many activities! It targets various language and articulation goals, including prepositions, following directions, pronouns, and more. This resource is great to use with multiple groups and your kids that have multiple goals!

I hope that these ideas have given you some inspiration on what activities you can do for Halloween in your speech therapy sessions. Let me know down below if you use any of them! Happy Halloween!

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Halloween Activities for Speech Therapy

in Articulation , Free Materials , Language , Resource Roundups , SLP Resources , Time-Saving Resources on 07/30/21

Are you looking for some fun Halloween speech therapy activities? If so, you’ve come to the right place! Here you’ll find a huge list of free and paid resources that cover articulation, language, and everything in-between in fun and unique ways. *Send this blog post to your work email or bookmark this page so you can keep the ideas flowing!

Books (affiliate links): – “ Spooky Fairy Tale Mix-Up ” – A crowd favorite with my students! We use it a lot. – “ There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Bat “ – “ The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid of Anything “ – “ Room on the Broom “ – “ Pig the Monster “ – “ Little Blue Truck’s Halloween “ – “ Pumpkin Jack “ – “ Creepy Pair of Underwear “ – “ Pete the Cat Trick or Pete “ – “ Splat the Cat and the Pumpkin-Picking Plan “ – Click here for a list of fall books for speech therapy!

Halloween Sensory Bin: – Click here for a free Halloween sensory bin! – For more free sensory bins sent directly to you inbox, subscribe to my free email list !

Sensory Bottle Ideas: – Click here to check out these spooky sensory bottle ideas.

Virtual Field Trip: – Take your students on a virtual field trip to a pumpkin patch !

Halloween Speech Therapy Bundle for Articulation and Language: – Click here to snag this money-saving bundle!

Articulation and Language Activities: – Halloween Following Directions Worksheets – Digital and Printable Halloween Activity Mats – Digital and Printable Halloween Articulation Worksheets – Digital and Printable Vocabulary Activities

Speech and Language Crafts: – Halloween Buddy for Mixed Groups – Halloween Pop-Up Craft for Mixed Groups – FREE Articulation and Language Craft – Halloween Bracelets for Mixed Groups and Carryover

Digital Halloween Activities: – Build a Haunted House for Articulation and Language – Digital and Printable Halloween Activity Mats – Digital and Printable Halloween Articulation Worksheets – Digital and Printable Vocabulary Activities

Free Halloween Craft Ideas: – Paper Plate Crafts – Halloween Tic-Tac-Toe – Printable Halloween Masks – Q- Tip Skeletons

Bulletin Boards: – Click here for the Bulletin Board Set shown below! It’s only $3.00 and you get crafts for both articulation and language, as well as the spooky bulletin board letters! – Click here for print and go seasonal bulletin board crafts ! The bundle includes everything you need for easy, functional articulation and language bulletin boards all year round.

Halloween Games (affiliate links): – Disney’s The Haunted Mansion – Call of The Spirits Board Game – Disney’s Hocus Pocus Cooperative Game – Little Monster’s Snakes and Ladders Game – Trouble: Netflix Super Monsters Edition

Are you looking for some fall-themed speech therapy ideas? Click h ere to check out this fall resource roundup!

Any call to action with a link here?

Free Halloween Speech Therapy Activities

Alright, it’s no secret: Halloween is one of my favorite holidays. It comes as no surprise, then, that I LOVE incorporating this holiday (whenever possible) into my speech and language therapy sessions. This year, I teamed up with a group of incredible SLP bloggers and TPT authors to create some FREE Halloween Speech Therapy Activities for you. All of the heart/ pumpkin emojis, because these Halloween speech and language activities are AMAZING.

If you follow me on Instagram (@thepedispeechie), tune in for this hop on October 9th, 2017. If you can’t, or you’re reading this too late and missed it- no worries! I’ve got everything you need in this blog post.

Free Speech Therapy Story and Song

First, I wrote a story about a Halloween frog . It’s actually a song, if you’re willing to have a little fun and sing to your students! The words pair perfectly to “Down by the Banks of the Hanky Panky”.

Halloween Themed Speech Therapy Activities

Speechasaurus is providing you with super cute Articulation Chains ! I’m loving how everyone chose a different area to target, because I know we all have mixed therapy groups! These chains target a variety of sounds, so you’ll be good to go! Ah-maz-ing.

We aren’t done with all of the treats yet! SLPTalk with Desiree created such a cute packet to target WH -questions . Now I KNOW I have so many students that will benefit from this fun activity! The student will use a clothespin to select the correct answer around the lily pad board. Creative and engaging!

Working on phonemic awareness with your speech and language students? The Speech Owl has got you covered. You MUST check out this incredible packet from her- it targets beginning sounds, ending sounds, and rhyming words! Plus, it’s just adorable.

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Halloween Themed Activities for Teletherapy

The anticipation of Halloween is something SLPs can capitalize on in speech therapy (with students who celebrate, of course). From candy to costumes, we can use the Halloween theme to evoke excitement, engagement, and participation in October teletherapy sessions.

Working virtually doesn't mean your Halloween speech therapy sessions are any less festive. Here are tons of activities to take your Halloween theme from ho-hum to ooh-ahh!

Halloween Boom Card Activities

In this activity, students use a flashlight effect to search for objects throughout darkened Halloween scenes. Preschool and early elementary students are intrigued to explore the language-rich picture scenes (while their SLPs target nearly any goal)!

Explore the activity of pumpkin carving with this versatile Boom Card deck. You'll be able to target sequencing, retelling, formulating sentences, and tons of other language goals– perfect for mixed groups!

Halloween PDF Activities for Speech Therapy

This one PDF contains seven different activities for working on various speech therapy goals with elementary students. The bright, colorful pictures draw students in, whether you use the activity on a teletherapy platform, iPad, or interactive whiteboard.

In this free activity, students hunt for hidden ghosts throughout a haunted house scene. You can target anything from articulation and fluency carryover to prepositions and description. Make sure you download this freebie for a quick and easy activity to use as a warm-up or session finisher.

This one-page Halloween scene is great for mixed groups! Using the spooky picture, you're able to target articulation and language goals simultaneously. It makes a great speech therapy homework activity for students as well.

Your animal-loving students will be fascinated to learn all about bats! In this PDF download, you'll use the shared context to target several speech therapy goals with elementary students, including vocabulary, verbs, prepositions, comprehension, and articulation.

Halloween Games for Speech Therapy

Use this Halloween costume guessing game (similar to Guess Who) to elicit tons of questions and answers from your students in a natural and meaningful way! The Google Slides version is ready-to-go with movable pieces, or you can use the PDF with annotation tools in your teletherapy platform (or to print!).

For students who love a little challenge, this Halloween language and vocabulary Boom Card game never disappoints. Students race to find and call out the Halloween item that is pictured in both boxes. It's easy to incorporate any number of speech therapy goals throughout the game, too!

Halloween Website Activities for Speech Therapy

In this PBS Kids game (called Arthur's Tricks and Treats) , students virtually hand out candy to each character that comes to the door (while also trying to avoid some Halloween tricks). This activity is great for following directions, and eliciting language in general.

Younger students may enjoy this Sesame Street activity where they spot differences in Halloween pictures. It's a great activity for targeting negation and even expanding language using contractions (i.e. "This jack-o-lantern has a nose, but this one doesn't.).

The objective of this Halloween Candy Hunt (from ABC Ya) is to simply click on each of the semi-transparent (and semi-hidden) pieces of candy in the photo. Simple, but fun!

Halloween Speech Therapy Activities for Older Students

You're never too old for some Halloween fun! So if you're an SLP for middle or high school students, there are several ways to include the Halloween theme for you, too!

One option is this Boom Card deck in which students create a haunted scene by positioning ghosts around an eerie picture. As they move each one, an articulation target is revealed for practice.

Check out this playlist of Halloween-themed Simon's Cat videos on YouTube... they're always a hit! These Weird But True facts about Halloween from National Geographic Kids are also great conversation starters.

Older students may enjoy reading this interesting passage about bats and completing any of the coordinating language activities. You have options of format, including Boom Cards, Google Slides, and a printable.

A similar resource with a different spin on Halloween is this haunted house-themed language unit . This one is sure to get kids talking about their own haunted house experiences!

And there we have our round-up of Halloween fun for teletherapy! The question is not, How will I make speech therapy fun this Halloween? It's, How will I narrow down the choices? If Halloween is one of your students' favorite themes, you can always stretch it across multiple weeks... I'm sure they won't complain!

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Spookie Pookie…HALLOWEEN Speech Therapy Idea for Toddlers

It’s almost here! Time for Halloween! Over the next few days, I have a great Halloween speech therapy idea for toddlers.

Most of our little late talking friends (or any toddler for that matter!) will not understand Halloween because it’s brand new. Toddlers learn by DOING, so until they DO Halloween, they won’t understand what’s going on.

Unless…

We help them.

We can do that by arranging experiences, language-based of course, to introduce young children to new vocabulary and give them an idea of what’s coming up on the big night. In yesterday’s “Did You Know” post, we discussed the concept of building architecture in the brain and the rapid speed for new connections in babies and toddlers, especially when young children are involved in high quality, purposeful interactions with adults.

Books can be a great tool for providing this “pre-Halloween” experience. In this post, I want to show you a darling book that’s perfect for toddlers and preschoolers with language delays. We won’t just read the book (although that’s a good start), but we’ll use the theme and plan some fantastic “doing” activities too with the cute book Spookie Pookie. Watch the Therapy Tip of the Week and read the written summary below:

Spookie Pookie

Sandra Boynton is one of my favorite authors. I love that this book is cardboard making it a practical choice for toddlers who still like to destroy pages. In this cute book, Pookie’s mom introduces him to the concept of dressing up for Halloween. He tries on several costumes until he finds one that is just right.

To use this as a therapy activity, keep in mind 3 critical components:

To set up your activity, gather a few items you can use for helping a toddler dress up. Dig out a few costumes from Halloweens-past from your older kids. If that’s not an option, snag a couple of hats, a scarf or two, and bigger boots or fancy shoes. I have a good stash of old costumes for dress up, but this year I added a few new pieces from Dollar Tree: a pirate hat and vest, a cowboy hat (to pair with a stick horse), and a darling witch hat and cape. Those finds fulfill my two requirements for new additions: CUTE and CHEAP!

If you have one, place the clothes in a box so that a child can pull them out, just like in the book.

Read the book first a few times, or just flip through the pages with a child. Point to the key pictures and narrate using corresponding labels for what you’re showing him. Talk about the different costumes and make any connections to any real life experience a child may have had such as, “Look! A banana! Pookie looks like a banana! You ate a banana this morning! Banana!”

After you’ve read the book a few times, start your activity by saying something like, “Do you want to dress up like Pookie?” Then bring out your box and begin the fun!

Remember that typically developing toddlers don’t love dress-up activities until they’re 36 months or older, so our little friends with language delays may have an even harder time “getting it.” Know that your introduction will set the stage for lots of play to come.

During play, be sure that you’re talking and having a great time together. Some kids will be ready to move on to pretending. If you’re up for it, give them a jack-o-lantern and help them “practice” the process of “trick or treat” by having them stand outside a door, knock, and then greet the person who opens the door with the standard line of the night: “Trick or treat!”

Some little guys will understand the costume well enough to try to “get into character.” Use exclamatory words or actions to help change the vibe for kids who understand dressing up, but aren’t yet verbal enough to name the costume. For example, if a child is wearing a dinosaur costume, encourage him to “Roar!” If she’s a butterfly or ladybug, pretend to fly around the room.

For some toddlers, the language you teach while putting on the costume will be enough. Teach the names of the clothing items. Don’t forget body parts too! Talk about them as in, “Cool hat! Where’s that go? On your head?” If you’re working on pronouns, target “my” vs. “your” as you have a child give you a turn with the prop such as, “Wow! Here’s your pirate hat. Where’s my hat?”

Stay tuned for more Halloween speech therapy ideas for toddlers!

If you want to get the book, it’s linked to amazon.com for your convenience!*

Read more ideas for making books come to life with toddlers in my brand new therapy manual called Let’s Talk About Talking…11 Skills All Toddlers Master Before Words Emerge …shipping in November!

*Disclosure – Amazon affiliate purchases generate a very small commission for teachmetotalk.com.

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A website dedicated to helping SLPs use PLAY-BASED speech and language therapy so they can save time and have fun!   

Books, songs, and activities for halloween themed speech therapy.

Are you a preschool SLP looking for some fun, low-prep Halloween themed activities to target speech and language skills with your preschool students?

These engaging play-based activities will have your students laughing and learning for your entire Halloween themed session!

Using themes in therapy doesn't have to be time-consuming or complicated! I like to use a book, a toy, a sensory bin, a movement activity, and a game for my thematic therapy sessions. I am very picky with the materials I choose. They need to be low-prep, fun, and versatile enough to use with my entire caseload.

Here are my favorite Halloween resources for preschool speech therapy - they can be used to target SO MANY GOALS!

Interactive Halloween Adventure Story: This story book allows preschoolers to create their own story by choosing an item to complete each page. You can use this with your entire caseload becuase it includes cheats sheets that list therapy ideas for each page! It is avaiable as a BOOM card or as a Printable Story.

The Spooky Wheels on the Bus by J. Elizabeth Mills: This story is the perfect Halloween story for toddlers, preschoolers, and kindergarten students! Students love acting out each page.

You can use this story to target: plural 's, concepts, describing,

s-blends, action words, and vocabulary. Don't own the book or are using teletherapy? No problem! Watch it on Youtube and simply pause when needed! (I do not own any rights to this book - I just love it!)

CRAFT: Draw (or buy from TPT) blank halloween character faces. Use Playdough, Dry Erase Markers, Googly Eyes, or Mini Objects to complete the faces. You can allow your students to create their own faces and incorporate their goals into the activity. In a group, give each student the same face and have them describe their face to their peers! Have one student direct the other students (or you) on how to complete the face. Pair with a Halloween Story and have the student try to make the face look like the character.

PLAY ACTIVITIES:

Trick or Treating: You can set up a trick or treating pretend play activity using Little People, a Melissa and Doug Wooden House, some pretend candy, and a Fisher Price Bus. I use it to target: grammar, speech sounds, following directions, vocabulary, phonological awareness, and play skills. Do you want to try this activity out but aren't sure where to start? I have created a play-based companion to help you get ideas for how to elicit a variety of speech and language goals. Don't own the toys? No problem! This Play-Based Companion includes all the pieces and instructions you need to use this activity!

Halloween Critter Clinic: This quick transformation will have your students engaged and learning for the entire session! Target all your goals in a fun and playful way!

Feed the Woozle : I cannot say enough about this game. I have never met a child that doesn't LOVE this game. This silly Woozle LOVES to eat yucky snacks. Not sure where to start? Grab Words Matter's FREE Game Companion in her TPT store. Don't own the game? Make your own with a paper bag, markers, constuction paper and some creativity!

Feed the Creatures: I also have created an Open-Ended BOOM card activity of feeding yucky snacks to Halloween Creatures. It includes a PDF with ideas how to target speech sounds, possessive 's, negation, describing, past Tense -Ed, first sound identification, following directions, spatial concepts, requesting, comparin/Contrasting, and Categorizing in a natural way!

VOCABULARY WORKSHEETS

These Themed Vocabulary worksheets are perfect for providing tonnes of exposure to new words! Many SLPs struggle finding themed words that aren't just nouns - that's why it includes verbs, adjectives and nouns in a variety of activities, so your students will be growing their vocabulary without even knowing it! Use this no prep speech therapy activity to extend the vocabulary taught in any Halloween book or game!

OPEN ENDED SCENES:

Kids love creating their own scenes using mini objects or mini erasers! Print off your own scenes or check out this massive bundle of Open Ended Scenes that includes dozens of theses (and loads of visuals) that you can use year round to target expressive language, receptive language, speech sounds and more! Simply print and go!

SENSORY BIN

Halloween Sensory Bin . This Sensory bin can be created SMALL or BIG! It's part of a HUGE bundle of themed sensory bins (over 30 themes!), which also includes pumpkins and monster. Use this October themed sensory bins for weeks! Check out how to use sensory bins in speech therapy here! .

ONLINE GAMES:

Baby Hazel Games has a tonne of FREE open-ended games that can be used to target a variey of speech and language goals. I am going to talk about my favorite two. Baby Hazel's Halloween Dress Up is a fun and engaging activity. In this game, your students can choose Halloween costuems and accessories for Hazel. This activity is perfect to target requesting, describing, possessive 's, increasing sentence length. In Baby Hazel Halloween Crafts, your student can help Hazel make a Halloween craft. This is a perfect alternative to 'hands-on' crafts. I like these games becuase there are visual supports built right into the games! There are many other games, so make sure to eheck them out!

Oh my Gourd is the cutest little pumpkin game! Students are able to design their own Jack-O-Lanterns which provides so much opportunities for language. This simple activity allows you target requesting, expanding MLU, spatial concepts, body parts, following directions, describing, and comparing and contrasting! This is also a great home to model during therapy and then encourage parents to use at home!

I hope this helps you plan an easy, fun, and play-based therapy month! Happy Halloween!

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4 “Spooky” Speech/Language Activities to Do with Your Child this Halloween

Halloween may look a little different for most of us this year, but that doesn’t mean we can’t still get in the holiday spirit for this spooky season! Here are a few Halloween themed activities you can do with your child to help them have fun this fall while also building their speech and language ideas.

1. Work on Language Skills While Carving a Pumpkin

Pumpkin carving provides so many opportunities to work on both expressive and receptive language with your child. Before you begin carving, practice sequencing by asking your child to describe the steps to carving a pumpkin. Work on following 1-step or multi-step directions while you instruct them what to do. Your child can work on emotions by making different faces on the pumpkins (sad, scared, mad, happy, silly, etc.). You can also skip the carving and use stickers to decorate a pumpkin and get your little ones talking.

2. Read Halloween Themed Books

The little old lady who was not afraid of anything by linda d. williams.

A perfect book to work on sounds and to add movement to the sounds. Ask your child comprehension questions and follow the little lady to see what gives her such a scare.

Splat the Cat What Was That by Rob Scotton

A fun “lift the flap” book that follows Splat as he overcomes his fear of a haunted house to rescue his friend. Talk about flexible thinking, being brave, and friendship with this story.

Room on the Broom by Julia Donaldson

This is such a fun book to work on rhyming skills! This is also great to practice problem-solving skills and inferencing. Follow along as the witch loses her hat and must figure out how to get it back with the help of some friends.

Pete the Cat Five Little Pumpkins by James Dean

Who doesn’t love Pete the Cat?! Pete goes on a Halloween adventure and meets his friends along the way.

Little Blue Truck’s Halloween by Alice Schertle

Perfect “lift the flap” book for toddlers to work on silly noises, animal vocabulary, and introduce them to Halloween vocabulary words.

3. Play Halloween Themed Bingo

Halloween bingo is a simple, fun way to get your child exposed to a variety of Halloween themed vocabulary words. Take turns describing the pictures on the board. Have your child practice their articulation sounds while naming the pictures they see. Work on receptive language by asking your child to point to the pictures being named. Use candy corn for bingo chips for extra motivation!

https://crazylittleprojects.com/free-printable-halloween-bingo-game/

4. Make spooky crafts

Get crafty with your child this Halloween with a variety of simple activities. Make puffy ghosts using construction paper, glue, and cotton balls. Your child can practice their articulation sound before they glue on a cotton ball. Design monsters or Halloween characters using paper plates or toilet paper rolls. Your child can work on requesting, describing, and following directions with these easy crafts.

We love using seasonal holidays as therapy tools at the Clubhouse! Would your child benefit from seeing a professional Speech-Language Pathologist, Occupational Therapist or Physical Therapist? Contact us  today to schedule an evaluation or complimentary screening!

By: Melanie Krupowicz, M.S., CCC-SLP 

Jack-O’-Lantern Speech Activities 

Julie Knight

It’s Halloween time! Many kids love all the traditions of costumes, decorations, trick-or-treating , and displaying a jack-o’-lantern at your front door. Creating memories with these traditions can be so special!     

Speech Therapy Halloween Activities

Did you know that you can incorporate speech therapy Halloween activities while decorating your jack-o’-lantern? This is a favorite activity simply because of the one-on-one time, shared engagement, exchanging words, smiles, and laughter. In just that, you are already implementing speech and language. Below are three Halloween speech therapy activities to help bring more speech and language into this fun family activity!

1. Picking Out Your Pumpkin

Whether you pick out your pumpkin from a patch or the local grocery store, you find a variety of shapes and sizes. This is a great opportunity to use describing words in the picking process.   

For example, here are words to describe:

• Size : little, small, smaller, tiny, teentsy, medium, big, bigger, large, huge, tall, giant, gigantic, enormous, and Buddy the Elf’s word … Ginormous! (not a real word but fun to say)  
• Shape: circle, round, oval, square-ish  
• Color: orange, yellow, white, green  
• Texture: smooth, bumpy, dented, curve, lines, crack  
• Action: pick, lift, carry, roll, plop, splat  
• Other words: heavy, light, up, down, help, OH!  Wow! Uh-oh!     

2. Carving Your Pumpkin

Already have your pumpkin? No worries, you still have opportunities to bring in language when you are carving your pumpkin. Additional words you can use are top, bottom, cut, carve, pull, scrape, in, out, slimy, stringy, yucky, sticky, light, glow, eyes, nose, mouth, teeth, smile, happy, goofy, scary, angry .  

Tips for Encouraging Speech:

If you are doing most of the talking (narrating the process of carving the pumpkin) for kiddos still building their language, you are modeling many words listed above and building an understanding of what these words mean, what a speech therapist calls receptive language .  

• If they are verbally speaking or using an AAC device (i.e., expressive language ) one word/syllable at a time, you can add more to their phrase, for example: child says, “pumpkin,” you say, “Yes, it’s an orange pumpkin!” both verbally and with the AAC device. For kids using AAC, we always want to model using the device as well. 
• For kids using more language, try open-ended questions: How does it feel? What should we do next? What do you like most about making your pumpkin? 
• For kids who are non-speaking or limitedly speaking, you engage their participation by giving them choices with physical objects they can reach for or use their eyes to pick: Do you want the square eyes or the circle eyes? The big smile or little smile? The green or purple hat?
• If your kiddo or older siblings like a challenge, have a contest to see who could come up with the most words to describe a pumpkin. Maybe let the winner sample the unopened bag of candy specifically for the trick-or-treaters!

3. Decorating Your Pumpkin

Does the idea of kids and knives frighten you a bit? Yeah, I get that. Thankfully there are other options to decorate a pumpkin. Mini to medium-sized fresh pumpkins are the perfect size for this project and you can find them for under $5.    

• Paint – Consider painting a pumpkin using brushes, Q-tips, or your fingers.  Cut a sponge into shapes to stamp a design or paint-and-press leaves for colorful impressions onto your pumpkin. Acrylic paint, Crayola Pumpkin Paint (6ct.-2oz. bottles at Target $4.99) or Tempera paint ( Handy Art 4ct.-2oz. Amazon $12) are options easy to find.  
• Bling it! – Elmer’s 3D Washable Glitter Glue (10 glue pens Walmart $4.27 or Elmer’s Classic Glitter Glue 6 oz.  Michael’s, Amazon, Walmart) dripped from the top can create a cool look in one monotone look or more colors. You may want to wait 3-5 minutes between colors to avoid colors bleeding into each other.  Place it on a paper plate before you start and don’t move it until it is completely dry.    
• Stickers – This doesn’t require much cleanup.  Consider decorating with Halloween stickers or your kiddo’s favorite character from Disney, such as Peppa the Pig or Paw Patrol, to name a few.  It will have a lot more meaning to your child.  
• Bonus Idea: Mr. Potato Head parts can be used to make funny faces or a pumpkin Picasso of random parts.   

Get creative, have fun, and make some memories! Simply communicating with your eyes, words, and laughter is what makes these traditions so special. Happy Halloween!

About the Author

Julie is passionate about working in Early Intervention and celebrating success big or small with parents. Everyone at NAPA loves being around Julie. She brings a fun and vibrant energy with her wherever she goes. Sometimes we catch her on the the trampoline or in the ball pit after all of the kids leave.

Find Additional Resources in the NAPA Blog:

• 5 Tips to Help Your Toddler’s Speech, Language, and Communication Development
• 19 Speech Board Games to Stimulate Language Development
• 5 Great Language Development Activities
• Speech Therapy Toys We Love

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Halloween Speech and Language Therapy Ideas

October 12, 2022

 Plastic pumpkin bucket paired with speech and language cards

Ahhh…the plastic pumpkin candy carrier.  This is a leftover from when my girls were younger and like many things, it made its way from my house to my speech therapy room.  I have found so many uses for this jack o’lantern by teaming it up with any speech and language cards for some easy go-to activities for halloween speech and language. 

For articulation, play “ Feed the pumpkin .”  I tell my students that “Jack” only eats items that start with the “k” sound and we say the name of the picture on the card and decide if it starts with our target sound.  If it does, we feed it to Jack as shown on the left.  I always have the corresponding letter visible when I work on articulation to help kiddoes strengthen their sound/letter skills!  A variation (shown on the right) is to feed Jack different letters and sneak some letter identification work in too!  The possibilities are endless-trick or treating for language cards, anyone?

Small Halloween buckets from Target 

Plastic Acorns

What is it about acorns that our students love?  I bought these at Michaels years ago and I use them for fall decorating at home.  Of course, a small bag of them also made it to my therapy room!  Every time a child says their target sound in a speech therapy session, they earn an acorn.  At the end of the session they get to feed the acorns to my plush squirrel.  It’s a great way to integrate counting activities into your session too.  I tell my students, “when you have 5 acorns, you can feed them to the squirrel.”

What’s under the gourds?

Rake the cards

My Favorite Halloween Book!

Who doesn’t love the book, “go away, big green monster!” by Ed Emberly? So great for working on easing children’s fears, vocabulary and so much more. Click on the book for the amazon link (I earn a small commission on eligible purchases). When I left brick and mortar, I bequeathed my copy to my favorite kindergarten teacher! I love thinking about all the children that have enjoyed my copy!!

 I hope you have gotten some halloween speech and language activities that you can incorporate into your speech therapy sessions.  Enjoy the fall weather wherever you are and thanks for stopping by my blog.  Be sure to check out the other SLP’s blog posts in this series too at Fun Fall-themed articulation ideas!

If you appreciated this content, please consider joining my newsletter and get access to the subscriber’s library!

October 13, 2015 at 1:40 am

Fun ideas Donna! So many of my kids so not know what a gourd is, what a great idea to bring them in for describing!

October 13, 2015 at 1:53 am

I love all your ideas, especially the Target buckets – I might have a few of those lying around… All Y’all Need

October 13, 2015 at 3:24 am

Looks like I need to get some gourds. That's a great idea!

October 13, 2015 at 5:50 pm

Laura Dee, Lisette Edgar and Kayla Redden, thanks for stopping by my blog! Happy Fall!

October 13, 2015 at 8:29 pm

I love all of your hands on ideas! I wish I had some plastic acorns! I never saw them. Thanks for sharing these great tips!

October 14, 2015 at 12:08 am

I was going to say just what Linda said about the hands-on ideas!

October 14, 2015 at 2:57 am

I loved all of these!! Thanks for the great post!

October 17, 2015 at 3:32 pm

Such great great great interactive ideas!! Rake the articulation cards!! I love it- here in our area there isn't much raking going on so some of my kids don't even know what that MEANS, and I'm a sucker for little Target dollar spot cans! Thanks for the inspiration!

October 28, 2015 at 2:23 pm

Great activities! Thank you for sharing!

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COOKING UP COMMUNICATION: VISUAL RECIPES ARE THE MUST HAVE PRODUCT OF 2024! CHECK THEM OUT NOW!

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Halloween cooking activities for kids.

Fall is a fun time of the year filled with changing leaves, pumpkins and spooky spiders. These fun cooking activities for kids will help you connect all things fall and Halloween into your classroom or therapy sessions. These Halloween cooking activities will provide a highly engaging activity for teaching a variety of skills.

If you know me, you know my love for   cooking in the classroom . By weaving in skills instruction and practice opportunities through the cooking process, students don’t even realize how much learning is going on.

Every fall, students become fascinated with the changing weather, fall festivals, carving pumpkins, and Halloween. It is such an exciting time for students with costumes, candy, and spooky treats. Rather than fight against all these out of the classroom distractions, I decided to use it to my advantage with some Halloween cooking activities for kids.

PREPARING TO COOK

Cooking in the classroom is a little more complicated than cooking at home. You don’t have a stocked kitchen and it is likely that you don’t have access to all the same appliances either. But no worries – with a little planning you can engage your students with cooking in the classroom.

COOKING TOOLS

When I first started cooking with students, I purchased what I needed for each recipe. However, I quickly learned that stocking up on some basics made the process easier. If you plan on doing a lot of cooking with your students or clients, a good tip is to stock up on some basic materials/ingredients which you will certainly use. Here’s some cooking in the classroom staples that you can’t go wrong having on hand:

• mixing bowls
• measuring cups and measuring spoons
• baking sheet
• cutting board
• plastic silverware
• paper plates
• small disposable cups

Many, if not all of these items, can be found at your local dollar store! Having these things on hand allows you to focus simply on the ingredients for the recipe.

If you are just starting with cooking in the classroom don’t worry about needing to spend a lot of money. Buy these cooking tools as you need them and pretty soon you will have a nicely stocked cabinet with all your classroom cooking needs!

RECIPE INGREDIENTS

I like to pull together the recipe ingredients a day or two before our cooking activity. This way I know that I have everything I need and that the ingredients are fresh. But this doesn’t always mean a shopping trip for me.

While there are times that I provide all the ingredients for a recipe, there are also times that I ask student families to provide one item. The students love knowing that they helped to contribute to the recipe. It also sends a great message for working together to meet a common goal.

If you ask parents to provide an item make sure to do it about a week in advance to give them time. Too far in advance and they may forget, not enough time and they may not provide it if they don’t have time to get to the store. I also like to put the deadline for providing the items a day or two before so that I have time to grab any missing items without having to make a 6 a.m. store run!

And for a last minute cooking activity, don’t forget about grocery store delivery, services like Instacart, Shipt, or even Amazon. These services can really help you save time by doing the shopping and delivering for you.

HALLOWEEN COOKING ACTIVITIES

Let’s check out some of my favorite Halloween cooking activities that are both as delicious as they are fun! I have used these in my speech therapy sessions for years and they are loved by students year after year.

1. PUMPKIN PATCH DIRT CUPS

These delicious   Pumpkin Patch Dirt Cups   are sure to be a hit. They combine pudding and yummy crushed-up cookies to create a fun fall treat. While you can easily connect this recipe with Halloween, if you are a holiday-free school this makes a great fall treat too!

This visual recipe will guide you and your students through the creation of the Pumpkin Patch Dirt Cups. It is a visual recipe with step-by-step instructions which makes it perfect for classroom lessons and group sessions. With both pictures and words, it is perfect for readers and pre-readers.

But cooking in classroom is about more than just making a sweet treat! It is a great way to working on skills like following instructions, sequencing, comprehension, and listening skills too. It’s also a great “reward” system with each ingredient or step being a reward to skills practice.

This   Pumpkin Patch Dirt Cup visual recipe   includes the recipe, vocabulary cards, and comprehension questions. This alone makes a great activity allowing you to incorporate important skills.

2. SPOOKY SPIDER COOKIES

We can’t go through the Halloween season without making a batch of these   spooky spider cookies . Not only do they taste delicious, but they are also so fun to make and definitely look the part as well! Who knew a spider could be so cute, right?

Similar to the Pumpkin Patch Dirt Cups, and all of my visual recipes, this resource includes the step-by-step instructions in both pictures and words. The vocabulary cards will help students with important words and phrases related to the recipe topic, ingredients, tools and processes.

After going through all the cooking steps, I follow-up with the included questions. This gives me an idea of students understanding of the process. This really helps me to target student language goals.

While my focus with the recipes is in a speech and language therapy setting, these recipes also make a great classroom activity. Create the recipe then have students do a “how to” writing about the process. Finish up a unit study with a fun, hands-on and interactive cooking activity. Add a cooking activity as a class reward or a Fun Friday activity. However you decide to incorporate these cooking activities I know your students will love it!

You will find both the Spooky Spider Cookies and the Pumpkin Patch Dirt Cups in the Visual Recipes for October pack.  In addition to the Pumpkin Patch Dirt Cups you also get three more recipes that are perfect for October: Witch's Brew, Spider Cookies, and Monster Popcorn Balls.  

NO MESS COOKING WITH DIGITAL RECIPES

You can provide your students with the experience of cooking without the mess or the food with these digital visual recipe activities. Using the Boom Learning platform, your students can cook virtually! While it might not be as yummy, it still provides all the same great skills practice and engagement.

Your students will work on following the step-by-step instructions for creating their spider cookie. Built right into the digital activity is a sorting activity, matching activity, comprehension questions, and more! You can use this virtual cooking activity as part of a group activity, or as an independent center.

You can also find the   Pumpkin Patch Dirt Cups   in digital form too! These Boom Cards will allow students to work on receptive and expressive language skills while following along with the recipe. Use these cards to target specific skills like, sequencing, vocabulary, grammar, following directions, expressive language, and more!

Grab   three virtual cooking activities   that are perfect for fall with this Boom Card Cooking Bundle!

3. MONSTER MUNCH FREEBIE

Last, but certainly not least, I have one more fun Halloween cooking activity for you to try! If you're looking to test out my visual recipe cards for yourself, I have just the thing! This Monster Munch Freebie is such a fun cooking activity for Halloween!

This activity uses the same step-by-step, visual recipe card format to help you target key speech and language skills in your sessions. You'll also find vocabulary cards to help children learn new words, target basic concepts and work on asking and answering questions. Students will love following along with this activity as you make this delicious snack mix. 

This recipe uses popcorn, chex cereal, pretzels, white chocolate, and other "spooky" goodies to make the perfect sweet and salty, Halloween treat. The best thing about this recipe is that it's also, "no-cook"! All you'll need is access to a microwave to melt your chocolate and you're good to go! Take a peek at me making this recipe on IG if you'd like to see the finished product.

Once you've carried out your activity be sure to use the comprehension questions as well to follow up on all that your students have learned. This is a great way to bring the activity full circle and check in on their understanding. This recipe is perfect for Halloween parties or anytime you'd like to try a "no-cook" recipe with your kiddos! Grab the freebie here and get in the spooky spirit! 

SAVE THESE HALLOWEEN COOKING ACTIVITIES FOR LATER!

Save these Halloween cooking activities to your favorite classroom Pinterest board so you can quickly and easily find them whenever you are ready to cook in the classroom!

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