Slimy Speech!

Slime making kits are everywhere in stores. My own kids beg to make slime all the time, and the children I see in therapy love my “speech slime days”. Not only is slime a great sensory activity, I have also found tons of ways to incorporate speech and language activities into our sessions using slime. Here are 4 of my favorite speech-language slime activities:

Following Directions

If your child is able to read, have them read the instructors out loud and follow the directions to make the slime. If your child is not yet able to read, you can even draw simple pictures (or use pictures from the box) to help them follow the directions to make the slime.

If you buy pre-made slime, have your child follow 1 or 2-step directions to add items to the slime. Examples: Get the green glitter and add 1 teaspoon of slime. Put half of the slime in the container and give the other half to your brother.

Making slime is also great for measuring/math skills!

Identifying Items

Kids love “hiding” items in the slime. This is a great opportunity to work on identification of items. You can use small toy farm or zoo animals (Put the “cow” in. Put the “zebra” in). I also love to use small toy furniture, small food items, and plastic letters. Dollar stores or dollar sections in stores often have tons of great, cheap items to use.

If you need to increase the difficulty level, have them identify items using a variety of modifiers (i.e. Put the small, pink pig in. Put the big, blue chair in. Put two pigs and one cow in.)

Expressive Language

I usually get great expressive language from kids when they are playing with slime. It is so easy to target a variety of adjectives to describe how the slime feels: slimy, sticky, wet, gross, gooey, mushy, squishy, etc. You can also use adjectives to describe how it looks and smells (add a few drops of juice, flavor packets, or essential oil to add extra smelly fun).

Having your child describe how the slime was made is a great sequencing and retell activity. Use pictures to help them if necessary. They can describe what they did first, next, and last.

Speech/Articulation

To incorporate speech/articulation activities, collect items that have your child’s target sounds. For example, if they are working on “r”, I might have a small car, fork, rainbow eraser, rabbit, jar, robot, bird, ring, rock, dinosaur, or any other “r” item (either the real item or a laminated photo work great). Sometimes, I mix in items that do not have their target sound to see if they can determine which words contain their target sound. After I hide the items in the slime, I ask the kids to find as many “r’ items as possible. Then, we practice saying the words.

I hope you enjoy these fun, speech-language activities with your children as much as they enjoy them!

-Jessica M. Lenden-Holt M.A. CCC-SLP