Most SLPs have paper clips in their therapy rooms, right?!
I love sharing how you can use what you have in your therapy room in fun and functional ways. I also love sharing how you can use various games, books, and tools and how you can use it to target a variety of goals. Why? You can work with mixed groups easily AND less planning throughout the day/week! Quick, easy, and cheap are words that touch my SLP heart!
There are TONS of goals you can address with paper clips. What can you do with paper clips that make them fun? You can spin them, connect them, sort them, and even glue them onto things to make them stick to magnets! (Hint: Make your own FISHING POLE!)
I'm not going to lie. I love paper clips. I have a weakness if I see cute ones at Target or Staples (see above picture, I found fun colors!) What is a benefit of having paper clips in various colors? You can assign the various paper clips to represent different things. Below, you can see I used the paper clips to represent what words need to stay, change, and go for restating questions:
You can also have them represent different types of conjunctions and how to use them:
Then, students can indicate the function of the conjunction when they combine sentences you can easily write on pieces of paper. Have the students even punch the hole (less prep for you!)
How do you spin a paper clip? Just use a pencil! If you poke a hole in any paper, you can write on that paper and use it as a spinner. Whatever it lands on, they have to respond, describe, follow, or whatever the goal may be!
Spinning itself it just motivating! Students can request “more” or “stop” using their core vocabulary words. Disclaimer: know your students and which ones can handle these objects!
I created a freebie just for YOU so you can use paper clips to work on core vocabulary and requesting. I hope you find it fun and useful!
Click here to grab this freebie!
For more ideas, view my video from my SLP Blogger Live Periscope below: