As SLPs working on speech sound disorders, we know how important it is to keep therapy engaging without taking the focus off high-practice trials. The children I work with often love to use playdough in therapy and I like to keep their little hands busy wherever I can. What I do not like is wasting valuable therapy time on setting up activities – such as rolling lots of little balls for the child to smash or squash as they say their target words. That is where my other ideas for using playdough in therapy come in handy!
Make a long playdough snake!
I have my own twist on the traditional “playdough smash” idea. I keep the playdough in a long snake, and every time we say a practice trial, we smash a part of the snake with our finger. Sometimes, I wrap it around my therapy cards or board so we can see the words and smash the playdough at the same time. (Picture of playdough snake around artic squares board).
Another use for a “long snake” of playdough is “chopping” a small piece off the snake every time you say a target word. See how many pieces you end up with. If you started with a really long snake – you could get up to 30 trials here.
My final use for a long snake of playdough, I like to use with “hard” physical cards. When we say the card, we “stand” the card up on the snake, placing cards all the way along it.
Roll it out!
My other time-saving tip for playdough is to roll it out flat. This provides many opportunities to use minis or stamps to make a picture or design. I find these ideas lend themselves to practice at phrase or sentence level.
Get creative!
Use a big ball of playdough with other toys you may have in your room – such as body parts. Use the big ball of playdough as the body and add shoes, a hat, arms, ears, eyes and mouth to make a funny monster!
See all my ideas to keep therapy focused on speech practice while having fun with playdough!