If you haven’t been to Target Dollar spot recently, now is the time to go! They have recently restocked the Dollar Spot with lots of items for the holidays, including toys! This is a great way to fill your therapy material toolbox on a budget! Here are some of our most recent finds with some fun ways to use them in therapy!
Imaginative Play
Food Items and Chef Set
This is great for preschool aged students or younger elementary! The baking items can be used year-round and the hot cocoa items are great to pair with any winter theme, holiday book or hot chocolate themed lesson! The chef set will help your students get into character!
Animal Playsets
These can be pricey elsewhere, so it is amazing that they are available in the Target Dollar Spot. Use them for imaginative play, for learning animal sounds, sorting, counting, for learning colors, describing, same/different, to hide in slime, in a sensory bin, etc, etc. The list goes on and on for ways to use them! They can also be used as reinforcers for a preschool group. Every time the child takes a turn, they get a new animal. It keeps them occupied when it isn’t their turn and engaged when it is their turn! Best of all, they are small and easy to store!
Organizational Items
This weekly planner probably excites almost anyone who works in a school setting! This planner can be used in countless ways … for your therapy schedule, to help with lesson planning, or to keep track of case conferences and evaluation due dates!
Turn Taking and More
Light Up Wands are so great for turn taking and much more! The teacher or therapist can use it to point to the student whose turn it is or the student can hold the wand him/herself to indicate that it is their turn to speak. This can also be used as a fun pointer for a SmartBoard or whiteboard!
Games
It’s always a good idea to have games like Go Fish and Crazy 8’s on hand. This is also helpful to teach turn taking, colors, sentence expansion or to use as a reinforcer. The games come in a nifty carrying case which is nice for storage!
Articulation Targets, Prepositions AND Reinforcement
Ball Poppers
An easy way to get a ton of articulation trials in therapy is to create a large target (on your white board or out of paper) with numbers within each ring. Have students aim at the target with the ball popper. Whichever number the ball hits is the number of trials the students need to practice! Ball poppers can also be used for prepositional words to describe where the ball lands (under the desk, next to the cabinet, etc).
Your students will be so excited for it to be their turn!
Holiday and Winter Themed Mini Erasers
Mini erasers are a very hot commodity in the therapy world right now! Use them for sorting, to count syllables in word, as Bingo chips, to count trials, for same/different, spatial concepts or as rewards. The uses are limitless!
Walkie Talkies
These walkie talkies could be fun for practicing speech sounds in connected speech while reading aloud, telling jokes or stories with other students.
Sensory Needs
For those students who need a fidget or a sensory break,
Target has you covered. The left is blue
slime with glitter and the right is a pink rubber putty.
Phonemic and Phonological Awareness
Small building blocks are
great way to practice segmenting and blends words. You can write the letters on each block and
connect them to make or break apart words.
If you have a word written out, you can slide each block towards the
letter as the word is sounded out to provide a nice visual.
Following Directions, Describing and Reinforcement Games!
The tin kits are great for
therapists who are on the go!! The Sweet Shop and the Christmas Tree can be
used as a barrier game. Your students
can take turns describing the items and telling their partner where to place
them (e.g. “put the purple candy on the middle shelf” or “put the star on the
top of the tree”). At the end of they can
turn their tins around to see if they’re the same!
Part to Whole, Concept Words or Reinforcement
This train is excellent for your students who are learning part to whole or who like to take apart or build things. You can focus on teaching colors, shapes, top/bottom, front/side, etc. It can also be used as reinforcement so that students take off or put on a piece after a certain amount of work. This toy is definitely unique and will engage your students!
Thanks for reading! We hope this gives you some fun ideas for your therapy! How would you use some of these items from the Dollar Spot?