There never seems to be enough money in the school budget to cover what is needed for the students. This means as school speech and language pathologists or classroom teachers we need to reach into our pockets to help meet this need. Our pockets however are not deep so we need to find bargains. This means that we need dollar store hacks for the classroom or therapy room.
Popsicle sticks are one of my favorite tools. Here are some ways that you can use them:
- Write child’s names on them and use them when you are calling on students or you have a special task to make them random.
- Write words on them either for reading or for vocabulary review
- I love making puppets with them or have the students make puppets. This can extend activities even more.
Dice
I love dice and I like them even better with color. I use them for many things Including how many times a child might have to repeat an item. I have now combined them with Pop-Its for even more fun and active learning.
Pop-It I must say I keep some of these Pop-its for prizes ( yes, I am one of those people who gives stickers and have goal sheets and sticker charts).
- You can write letters on the the bubbles and have the students name the letters as they pop them.
- Put a vowel on the bubbles on the 2nd row and consonants on the first and third rows to have the students practice making CVC words.
- Use them for drill work especially when combined with the dice to indicate how many the student needs to say.
Wooden Block Toy I love this game and luckily so do my students. If you are lucky enough to find one of these at your local dollar store pick up as many as you can afford.
- You can glue a miniature picture to the end and have the child name the picture as they take it from tower.
- I will write some social question on the blocks with a marker and when the child takes the block off they will need to ask and answer the question.
- Sometimes I will just write numbers on the blocks and have another paper that has the list of questions that they referenced.
Sensory Bin Activities: The best place for sensory bin fillers is the Dollar Store. You are able to find so many things to fill it with and because it is so inexpensive you can make so many different ones.
- I like using tinsel and ornaments at Christmas
- Beans and plastic eggs for scooping and hiding treasures
- Eye ball and plastic trinkets at Halloween
In the picture you can see how I use them to create sentences . They pick from the basket and then from one of the index boxes to create a sentence.
Dollar store hacks for the classroom and the therapy room will assist you in keeping your hard earned money. What hacks do you have?
RELATED BLOGS:
- Therapy Materials: Wonderful to have but they are not the ‘therapy‘
- USING THERAPY MATERIALS THAT MATCH A STUDENT’S AGE OR ABILITIES
- HOW DO YOU DECIDE WHAT MATERIALS, ACTIVITIES AND BOOKS YOU SHOULD USE IN TREATMENT?
- Dollar Store Deals That Will Level Up Your Literacy Block
RELATED PRODUCTS
These products have some puppets as part of them.
Thank you for sharing about great finds at the Dollar store. Here is a blog post about how teachers can create an effective morning routine.
https://thegamingclassroom.com/morning-routine-teacher-day/