Books to Use with Your Present Toy

Now that the holidays are over, you may be packing up your Learning Resources presents until next December. Don’t! Here are my favorite books with which to use them! *This post contains affiliate links.

We all know how motivating these little surprise present toys can be. I love using this toy during December with the books “Dear Santa” and “Don’t Shake the Present”.

They’re great for whole group lessons: give each student a present and they can open it as you read the book. Some of the items in the presents in “Dear Santa” even come with the toy! If they don’t, I use mini objects or my Cariboo cards!

When using “Don’t Shake the Present” with a group, each students can imitate the actions in the book as you read. This is perfect for following directions, verbs, basic concepts, and getting kids up and moving.

I also wanted to give you ways to use them in speech therapy throughout the year – not just around the holidays. Another occasion when we give gifts, that happens all year long, is a birthday!

If you were able to grab these “party animals” at Target a few years back, they work perfectly with “Hooray for Hat”. If not, you can use any animal toys you have. You can even make them party hats using construction paper!

Spot books are always a favorite in my speech room. “Spot’s Birthday Party” is another one where you can go around and grab animal toys that correspond to the book. Throw a party for a dog toy that you have, and have each animal bring a different present to it! Work on verbs such as give & open; concepts such as big, little, colors; asking and answering questions; and more! You can even use play food and serve the animals then blow out some candles!

“Happy Birthday Mouse” celebrates Mouse’s birthday and revisits all of the delicious foods from the other Mouse books that you love. You can target categories, such as food (breakfast, sweets, etc.) and things you see at a party. You can work on wh- questions of elicit longer utterances by asking students what they would have on their birthday if they could eat or do anything they wanted! Target go-togethers/associations, such as pancakes/syrup, cookies/milk, party hat/presents. If you’ve got food mini objects, you can hide each object that Mouse thinks about eating in a new present!

Another motivating book for, probably, lots of kids on your caseload is “How Do Dinosaurs Say Happy Birthday?”

This one is great for yes/no questions; social scripts, such as saying “thank you” or greeting people at your party; and concepts such as all/some/none/each/every and big/little. I’m sure you and your kiddos have some dinosaur toys lying around to act out this book!