If you’re speech-language pathologist looking for some refreshing summer speech therapy activities, you’re in the right place! My favorite summer drink is lemonade – who am I kidding?! I drink it all year long! haha.. It’s also one of my favorite summer micro-themes! I’ve coined the term micro-theme to refer to super specific themes. I love honing in on niche topics, because they’re out of the ordinary and fun! Lean back onto your lawn chair and check out all the lemonade themed speech therapy resources I’ve curated for your ESY lesson plans!
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Lemonade Themed Speech Therapy Ideas and Resources
Lemonade is one of my favorite ESY speech therapy themes, because you can actually provide your students with real-world experience with the topic! I love a great ocean or beach theme, but unfortunately we can’t bring sea creatures into the speech room and kinetic sand isn’t exactly the real thing! We can absolutely make lemonade in our summer sessions and taste test various flavors of lemonade and compare/contrast them! There are truly so many speech and language skills that we can target with a lemonade theme! Let’s check out some fun materials that I’ve made:
Lemonade Articulation Printables
No prep worksheets and coloring pages have my whole heart! They’re simple, fun, and save oodles of time! These lemonade themed printables address all speech sounds in the initial, medial, and final positions! They can be found in my TPT store or in my membership for pediatric SLPs, The Speech is Sweet Club!
They contain various lemonade-themed picture scenes and give major summer vacation vibes! These can also be used in larger themes as well, such as a picnic theme or food theme. Printables can actually be extremely versatile activities and are a great way to tackle any target sound! Here are some out of the ordinary ways you can use simple coloring sheets in your speech therapy sessions:
- Put them in a dry erase sleeve and make a play-doh smash mat!
- Create a lift-a-flap! Put glue under the top portion of the page and then glue it down on another piece of paper or construction paper. Students can write sentences or phrases underneath.
- Turn it into a game – cover the word targets with mini erasers, pom-poms, etc. You can flip a coin and if a student gets tails then they can color one item or two items if they get heads!
- Print them at a smaller scale to create interactive notebook activities! I have a tutorial on my Instagram Story Highlights for this! Just check out the notebooks icon!
- Make a whole coloring book! You can print out all the sounds a student has articulation goals for or just the initial, medial, and final pages of the day’s target sound and staple them together!
- Use with bingo dauber, watercolors, or paint sticks! Using different art supplies creates novelty! I live and breathe Crayola crayons haha.. but mixing it up is fun!
Super Simple Lemonade Articulation Crafts
My new obsession is super simple crafts! I created NO PREP crafts, because I don’t have a crafty bone in my body.. but now I’ve simplified them even more! haha! I’ve dubbed crafts that don’t require glue super simple crafts! You just color and cut! If you have to bust out the scissors, then it’s a craft to me! lol!
These cute lemonade crafts are so refreshing! They can also be found in The Speech is Sweet Club (along with all of the super simple crafts I’ve designed)! If you’re not working an extended school year program this summer, then I highly recommend saving these for your end of the year therapy plans for next year! They’re just adorable and they come with homework challenges, which make them perfect for adding to your summer speech and language homework packets!
July Speech Therapy Crafts
These summer speech therapy crafts packet features a wide-variety of themes such as watermelon and ice cream, but it includes a pitcher of lemonade! My NO PREP crafts are perfect for mixed groups, because they feature target words for articulation, apraxia, fluency/stuttering, and language! They’re a great way to tackle your students’ speech and language goals!
As busy speech-language pathologists, we need all the no prep materials we can get! These crafts are great for preschoolers and elementary students! They’re also a great way for students to hone their fine motor skills!
Play-Based Summer Speech Therapy Activities
Toys are amazing tools for language development and play is critical for learning. One of the easiest ways to implement themed therapy is by finding a relevant toy to help bring the theme to life! A couple years ago I found this Melissa and Doug Lemonade Set on clearance! Unfortunately, I don’t think it’s made anymore.. but you know what! You can easily substitute these toys with the real thing! Snag a plastic pitcher and cups from the dollar spot and bring in a real lemon!
If you’re a toy-obsessed SLP like me, I have found some really cute toys on Amazon you may want to check out! Here is a quick list:
There are so many communication skills you can target with a toy lemonade set! Including:
- sequencing (You may even want to actually make lemonade! That would make your summer sessions so memorable!)
- following directions
- basic concepts (put sugar in the pitcher, add more sugar, add less lemon juice, pour more lemonade)
- spatial concepts (Hide the ingredients around your speech room! Talk about where things are! Example: The lemon is under the desk.)
- WH Questions
- Describing (sweet, sour, pink, yellow, cold, etc)
- /l/ sound for your articulation students
As speech therapists, we are masters of play! It truly is magical to facilitate communication skills during play! Pretending to make lemonade or actually making it is a great addition to your lemonade themed speech therapy sessions!
Lemonade Picture Books and Read Alouds
Literacy-based therapy is truly one of my passions! I’m an avid collector of picture books and I’m always on the hunt for more summer-themed books! I think that books are a springboard for language and are amazing tools to help bring themes to life! As I mentioned above, it can sometimes be hard to provide our students with real world experiences and books are the next best thing! They are a great way to build background knowledge! I’ve rounded-up some great lemonade themed picture books for your practice, you can find these at your local library or any bookstore!
It Began with Lemonade Therapy Ideas
It Began with Lemonade by Gideon Sterer
This is an adorable book! After lots of hard work, the narrator is so excited to start a lemonade stand, but when she goes to set up she finds that the street is swarmed with lemonade stands! She doesn’t know how to stand out and rolls her lemonade cart away to find a new location! With some seemingly bad luck, her cart rolls away and finally stops by the riverbank… where she finds someone who is thirsty. It has such a great message and dare I say, when live gives you lemons you make lemonade! Use this story to address:
- Figurative Language – this is full of similes!
- Vocabulary – tinkered, tweaked, sizzling
- WH questions
When Grandma Gives You a Lemon Tree Therapy Ideas
When Grandma Gives You a Lemon Tree by Jamie L. B. Deenihan
This is a great story about the unexpected! The narrator has a traditional wish list for her birthday, so she’s shocked when her grandma gifts her a lemon tree. She’s truly disappointed, but begins to take care of it anyways. She nurtures the tree throughout the years until she can finally pick lemons! Of course, she makes some lemonade and then earns enough from her lemonade stand to buy what she really wants.. but now she’s a changed person and what she really wants is a community garden. It’s such a precious and simple story with great character development. Use this book to work on:
- Problem Solving
- Sequencing
- Social Skills (and especially how to act when you receive a gift you don’t like lol)
Lemonade Picture Books from Book Series
Splat the Cat and the Lemonade Stand by Rob Scotton
I’m a cat person, so it’s no surprised I love the Splat the Cat series! In this romp, Splat is planning his summer holidays and needs to earn money to go to the waterpark. Like many young entrepreneurs, he opts for a lemonade stand. This is when the hilarity starts and surprisingly, this book also provides some great lessons in economics haha! Splat lowers his prices to compete with another stand, he changes his sign, etc! Ultimately, he goes into business with his competition and learns some lessons along the way! Use this book to work on:
- /s/ blends
- Emotions
- Adjectives
Froggy’s Lemonade Stand by Jonathan London
This is another great book for your lemonade themed speech therapy activities! I love the Froggy series! Froggy wakes up on the perfect summer day and decides to start a lemonade stand! Except, he forgets to make the lemonade… and the lemonade stand! As he waits for customers, he gets a little bored and starts drinking the lemonade. Ooops! lol! This book can be used to address:
- Social Skills (friendships and working together)
- Sequencing
- Problem Solving
The Berenstain Bears’ Lemonade Stand by Mike Berenstain
I loved the Berenstain Bears growing up! This book makes me feel super nostalgic and this story is a great addition to the series! The bear siblings are drinking lemonade when the mailman offers them a quarter for a glass! They become accidental entrepreneurs and get the idea to sell more lemonade! Their stand becomes an instant success! After a long hard day of work, they go inside and their mom greets them with lemonade! Gotta love a full circle moment! Use this book to work on
- Cause/Effect
- Adjectives
- Sequencing
Lemonade Themed Speech Therapy Conclusion
Whether you’re on your summer holidays, balancing a private practice, or working your school’s ESY program, I truly hope this round-up was helpful and can inspire your future speech therapy sessions! There are truly so many great lemonade themed resources, toys, and books out there! Just remember that frills are not necessary when it comes to themed therapy! Your students will be thrilled with just you and an old-battered Tupperware pitcher! haha
If you’re on the hunt for more end of the year or summer inspiration, check out these fun blog posts:
Summer Speech Therapy Activities – This blog post acts as my hub for all things summer themed!
Watermelon Themed Speech Therapy
Popsicle Themed Speech Therapy
Want ALL ACCESS to my speech therapy resources – including the ones mentioned in todays blog? I’d be thrilled if you joined me over at The Speech is Sweet Club!
Have a wonderful summer and thank you for visiting my blog!
