Need some fun summer speech therapy activities?! Check out these sandcastle themed resources! Nothing says summer quite like the beach!
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Sandcastle Crafts
I love crafts, but I’m not a huge fan of ordering special materials or running to craft stores to gather supplies. I just want to print n’ go and use supplies I already have! lol.. I have created so many super simple sandcastle crafts over the years! I realized that I needed to round them up!
Mixed Groups
June Speech Therapy Crafts – This packet comes with a variety of craft templates, including this fun sandcastle! These crafts address articulation, apraxia, language, and fluency! Everyone can create the same craft, but use different word targets! These can also be found in The Speech is Sweet Club (along with all of my materials).
Summer Word Lists – I love these thematic word lists! There are articulation, fluency, and language word lists! All of the words are summer themed and come with two options (one with pictures and one without pictures)! These also come in a bundle!
Articulation
Articulation Sandcastle Ladders – These are great summer speech therapy activities! Students can work through five levels of speech! Read more about them HERE!
Summer Color, Cut, and Glue – This summer articulation bundle features a wide variety of scenes, including sandcastles! There are 500+ pages in this bundle!
Language Crafts
There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Shell – You gotta love the old lady! This version takes place on the beach and she ultimately creates a sandcastle! My book companion tackles so many different skills – including several retelling activities! My favorite? The sandcastle retelling craft!
Read more about this book companion HERE!
Sandcastle Toys
This is the perfect theme for a sandy sensory bin! I recommend using kinetic sand and students can build their own sandcastles! I also found this set of 10 kinetic sand containers shaped like sandcastles! These would be perfect for tabletop use!
I also found this Kinetic Sandcastle Kit that comes with a bin! This would be great to incorporate all year long, not just during a sandcastle theme!
My son got a giant bag for Christmas and loves it! There are so many ways to use kinetic sand in speech therapy:
- Hide mini objects/cards/erasers inside the sand! Use them as word targets for articulation drills or students can describe them!
- Following directions – Incorporate the sand in directions such as dig a hole in the sand and bury an eraser.
- Prepositions – place objects in the sand, out of the sand, under the sand, on top of the sand, near the sand, etc
- Object functions – describe the various sand tools and their functions (shovel, pail, rake, roller, etc)
- Sequencing – Discuss the steps for building a sandcastle!
Sandcastle Picture Books
There are so many fantastic picture books all about sandcastles! They’re perfect to incorporate into literacy-based summer speech therapy activities!
The Sandcastle Contest by Robert Munsh
This is a very silly story about a little boy who enters a sandcastle contest! He creates a house with furniture, multiple rooms, and items. All of the judges think that it’s a real house and tell him that it’s not eligible to win. Then he proves its real by knocking it down and burying everyone inside! You can use this book to address:
- Problem Solving – how did he prove it was really a sandcastle? How did he get a pet dog?
- Sequencing
- Emotions – The main character experiences many different emotions – frustrated, happy, disappointed, etc
The Sandcastle that Lola Built by Megan Maynor
This book was inspired by The House that Jack Built, but it incorporates more of a story throughout. As she is building, more and more people come along and start to help her. This is a wonderful story about cooperation and teamwork! Lola is heartbroken when a wave crashes into their sandcastle, but with the help of her newfound friends they start over! Use this book to work on:
- Social Skills – Discuss how Lola made new friends and how they helped each other.
- Articulation – This is loaded with /s/ words in all positions!
- Sequencing
- Problem Solving
A Day for Sandcastles by JonArno Lawson
This is a gorgeously illustrated wordless picture book (Illustrator Qin Leng) and it depicts siblings on a family beach day! They immediately get to work on building a sandcastle, but throughout the day they find themselves building it over and over. A wave crashes it down, then the wind blows a giant beach hat onto it, it gets trampled by a toddler, and a myriad of other unfortunate events. It’s great tale of perseverance! Use this book to work on:
- Problem Solving
- Social Skills – This is a great story of grit. The children didn’t let the mishaps ruin their day, they just kept going!
- WH Questions – This is great for all WH questions, but especially why questions!
Sandcastles are Forever by Ellie Peterson
This is such a precious story of two girls who build live by the beach and build sandcastles everyday. One day, one of the girls reveals that she will be moving soon and the other deals with many emotions! She distances herself for a few days until she realizes that friendships are like sandcastles. If you use the right tools, have patience, and a good sense of humor your sandcastle can last! They can also be rebuilt! Use this story to work on:
- Social Skills – How to deal with change and how to be a good friend.
- Figurative Language – explain how friendships can be like sandcastles.
- Sequencing
Pete The Kitty and the Mermaid’s Sandcastle by Kimbery & James Dean
I’m a huge fan of this groovy cat and this book takes place during his kitten years! Pete wants to make a groovy sandcastle so he recruits the help of his mermaid friend! When they’re finished, something is missing! They keep adding things, but Pete can’t escape the feeling that something is missing! Lastly, they dig a moat and the castle is perfect! Use this book to work on:
- Sequencing
- Problem Solving
- Describing
Sand Animals by Robert Harris
This is a very short book that I found in the Scholastic Teacher Store! Each child builds a different sand animal and honestly that’s about it. haha.. I can’t say that I recommend this one, but it does beautiful illustrate the different things you can build instead of a sandcastle. If you decide to pick this one up, you can also have use kinetic sand to build their own sand animals! You can use this book to:
- Compare/Contrast – Talk about the different animals that were built!
- Animal Vocabulary
- Describing
Have a wonderful summer! It’s time for speech at the beach!
Thank you for stopping by!
