Emily and I love Thanksgiving and incorporating holiday/seasonal activities and crafts into our therapy sessions! We wanted to share these super fun activities that Emily made. They have been a TOTAL hit during our therapy sessions. Our kids were so excited during groups today that they were jumping up and down!!
Who doesn’t love bowling?? Throw in some turkeys and feathers, and you’ve got the most fun activity that you can do anything with! These activities and crafts are perfect for ALL students and levels of ability. The activities can be easily modified to use with a variety of students in mixed groups, co-treats, or individual therapy sessions.
TURKEY BOWLING
Turkey bowling is a fun and engaging way to get students to complete gross motor, fine motor, or speech therapy exercises/activities. During speech sessions, turkey bowling is perfect for practicing articulation, figurative language, following directions, verb tenses, pronouns, plural nouns, etc. Just have your students practice their targeted objectives the number of pins they knock over (i.e. If the student knocks down 4 pins, then he/she would say 4 words containing his/her sound)! It’s such a great way to get lots of trials in.
For fine motor activities, use the word tracing included in our freebie or come up with different motor movements for students to do after each turn bowling. For example, you could do core strengthening activities, bilateral coordination, or balance exercises. Exercises/activities can be graded up or down to match the needs of your students. Some of the activities we incorporated were: do the turkey dance, flap your wings like a turkey, stand on one leg, shake your tail feathers, etc.
Turkey Bowling Directions:
- Using construction paper, cut out some feathers.
- Get 6 bowling pins and a bowling ball (I borrowed a set from our PE teacher).
- Attach the feathers to the pins.
- Draw a turkey face on each pin.
- Tape a turkey on the bowling ball.
- Set up the pins and play!
Grab your Thanksgiving freebie here!
BUILD YOUR OWN TURKEY CRAFT
The build your own turkey craft is a great way to target handwriting in either short words or phrases, as well as, cutting and coloring. Have your students write things they are thankful for, words containing their targeted sounds, or other objectives they may be working on, on the feathers! Be creative!!
To complete your therapy session, read the book I Know an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Pie and make a sweet treat such as this No Bake Pumpkin Pie: https://www.crazyforcrust.com/no-bake-pumpkin-pie/ . It’s delicious!
Add in a cute song like the “Turkey Dance Freeze” (great for following directions) or “10 Little Turkeys“! Make sure to have your students act out the actions in the song with their hands to incorporate bilateral movements and following directions (i.e. counting with fingers, running, hiding, stepping forward/backward, moving both arms like wings, etc.).
More Therapy Ideas and Popular Resources
If you’re interested in more Thanksgiving speech activities or self-regulation activities, check out our stores Two Sisters Therapy: Nicole Absher, SLP and Emily Bales, OT!
Leave us a comment if you have any questions or suggestions. We really appreciate any feedback on the freebies you download! Follow us on Instagram for more therapy ideas, resources and other fun stuff!!
If you use and like any of these activities, please take a photo and tag us @twosisterstherpay on Instagram or Pinterest!
HAPPY THANKSGIVING!
Nicole and Emily
