Here are lists of games, toys, and apps that I like to use to build speech/language skills.

Games

Don’t Break the Ice

Connect Four

Sneaky Snacky Squirrel

Memory Match

Go Fish

I Spy

Barnyard Bingo

Toss & Move Animal Bingo

Toys

*magnets- use these for working on naming objects and for prepositions (“Look! You put the horse above the cow”, etc…).    Paging Fun Mums have posted lots of great ides for making your own magnets.

*Play food sets (especially sets by Melissa and Doug) – These sets make it easy to work on sequencing and a variety of words.  I really like the birthday cake, pizza, and cookies.  All of these could start as 1-step play (put the cookie on the pan) and could turn into a whole pretend play sequence.

*Playdough – Playdough is great for imitating actions (roll, smash, poke) and can easily be turned into pretend play (make pancakes, play snakes, etc…).  Personally, I like homemade playdough best – you can find the recipe I use here.  When teaching kids to play with playdough, visuals might be helpful.  Here are visuals I’ve made for Making cookies, making a caterpillar, and making a birthday cake.

Puzzles

Farm Set

Apps

I use apps for a variety of purposes.  Sometimes I use them to help with a sound, sometimes I just use them as a break in the action after articulation drill-and-practice.  The apps below are the go-to apps I have on my phone.

Duck Duck Moose – Trucks – Kids can chose from five different car and truck related games.  I use the car wash game to target /w/ (wash, water), /s/ (soap, scrub, slide).  I like the dump truck game to work on “more”, for /d/ words (dump, dirt), final /p/ (dump, scoop), /s/ blends (scoop, squirrel), and combining “want ___” or “____ please” as in “want scoop” or “want dump”. I like the flat tire game for /f/ words (fix, flat, off, funny), commenting (oh no!), and /t/ words (tow, tire, two, out)

Duck Duck Moose – Wheels on the Bus  – This takes you through a long version of the song, with lots of interactive things kids can touch.  This app is especially useful for /b/,/p/ and final consonants.

Duck Duck Moose – Itsy Bitsy Spider – As the spider makes his adventure through the song, kids can work on vocabulary (door, window, rain, roof, grass, etc…) and there are a number of /s/ blends in the game.

Duck Duck Moose – Old Mac Donald Had a Farm – Another app modeled after the song.  This one is great for animal vocabulary, initial consonants, vowels/animal sounds.

Beck and Bo – When you open the game, you have 12 game options!  Each game (except the grocery game) has the game structure – the background is given and then the items are introduced one at a time.  The item falls to the ground and kids have to drag it to the correct place.  For example, the sun goes in the sky, the train goes on the tracks, etc…  This game is wonderful for working on vocabulary, answering “Where” questions using prepositions, or as a short break for drill and practice (do 5 words, then you can add another piece to the picture).  Once the picture is complete, kids can play with the scene.

Barney – The Barney app has three game options – silly hats, cookies, and clouds.  I haven’t found a great way to use the cloud game, but I love the other two.  Silly hats is good for the /h/ word “hat” or phrase “hat on”, the /w/ words “wear” and “one”, and the pronoun “he”.  It is also good for direction following, as kids are shown three hats and asked to find the spotted one or the big one or something.  The cookie app is great for /k/ words (cookie, sprinkle, color, crunch) and /s/ blends (sprinkle, spread)

Pepi Tree – Another app with a variety of games (do you see a pattern?).  This one has nature-related games like building a spider web to catch bugs (possible target words: web, spider, spot, bug, catch), eating leaves & fruit (possible target words: eat, munch, yum, more), working through a maze with a mole (target words: worm, which way?), and more.

Build A Ship, Ride A Pony, and Build A Plane – These apps are made by the same company and have the same premise.  Through a series of six screens, you “build” a ship, pony, or plane by choosing from 5 saddles, manes, tails, etc…  When your item is built, you get to take it on a short adventure.  I use this game mostly for short breaks (10 words then you can add something to your plane) and I like that a longer break is built in with the adventure.  I’ve also used them, though for  working on the phrase “I want ___”.

Toca Kitchen – All of the Toca games are great, but I like Toca Kitchen the best because the vocabulary is familiar and useful.  I suppose that could be said for Toca Salon too, but I prefer the Kitchen.  In Toca Kitchen, you choose a person (or animal) be the customer then you choose some sort of food to prepare for them.  You can prepare the food by boiling, chopping, cutting, microwaving, or frying it.  I like the app to work on vocabulary, verbs, WH-questions (what will you pick?, what will you do next? Who will you choose?), final consonants (eat, cut, chop, pan, plate, salt) and “I want ___” phrases.

All of the Kindergarten.com apps – these apps are little quizzes.  Four pictures are shown and kids are asked to “find the apple” or “find the one you can eat”.  They have nouns, noun classes, verbs, and anything else you could be working on.

Balloonimals – This is a cute game where you get to make a balloon animal.  For each animal, the directions are the same: blow, shake, play.  The simple steps are good for working on remembering 2-steps to a process.  The blowing is good for working on getting air moving forward and lip-rounding, and the shaking is just fun!  This is also good for working on /b/ and /p/ words (big, blow, pop, balloon).

iTot Cards – This is a flashcard app, so its great for vocabulary of all kids, but I mostly use the food flashcards.  I like to get a few little farm animals and build a play sequence around them eating the food then going to sleep.  In the sequence, you can work on final /t/ (eat, night) or mixed final consonants (eat, lay down, sleep, wake up).  You could do the same thing with pretend food, but for me its easiest to use the phone.

Mr. Potato Head – This app is like having every Mr. Potato Head set imaginable.  You can download pirate pieces, construction pieces, halloween pieces, and more all for free.  I like this game for initial /p/ (put on), final consonants (put, on, arm, leg, hat), and body parts/clothing vocabulary.

Apps Gone Free – this app gives you daily updates of about 7-12 free apps that day.   This is where Ive found most of the apps listed above.