Finding teletherapy activities that engage your students without the use of remote mouse control can be a challenge. Whether it's the teletherapy platform (or device) that lacks the capability of remote mouse control or you just find it works best for your students if you control the mouse, there are lots of activities to get and keep students engaged in your virtual speech therapy sessions.
Teletherapy Activities That Do Not Require Remote Mouse Control
Use these teletherapy activities when you aren't able (or choose not to) give your students remote mouse control:
Picture Search Activities
A colorful picture can capture students' attention, especially when it motivates them to search the picture for something. The Highlights Kids website has dozens of pictures, each with different theme and list of objects to find.
In this articulation activity, students race to find all of each object in the sound-loaded picture search. This is a great group activity for students who thrive on a little competition!
A Boom™ Card deck lets you put a unique and fun spin on a picture search... using a virtual flashlight! As the SLP controlling the mouse, you can move the flashlight overlay around the darkened picture scenes as students look for the vocabulary items listed on each card.
Picture Scene Activities
In addition to picture searches, an interesting picture scene can go a long way in facilitating speech and language in teletherapy. These one-page scenes even have articulation and language prompts right on the page.
A real photograph can also provide visual interest and opportunities to address numerous social goals in teletherapy. These social situations come in both Boom Card and PDF formats.
Another great place to find intriguing photos for teletherapy is The New York Times' segment called "What's Going On in This Picture?" A new photo (without a title or caption) is added everyday, and students are even invited to comment with their thoughts and opinions on what's happening in the photo.
Teletherapy Games
Oftentimes, SLPs can adapt digital versions of classic board games in teletherapy by rolling onscreen dice and moving game pieces themselves. Some games, such as this "Line of Four" Boom Card game, even have numbers for students to reference when specifying their next move.
Other games, such as this FREE "Click It" Boom Card deck, challenge students to find the duplicated picture and call it out before the other players. This is an example of how not providing remote mouse control can actually be beneficial, as it requires students to participate verbally.
Question Games are another way to spark lots of communication without the need for students to click anything. Create your own (or search) free Jeopardy-like game using Jeopardylabs.com. You can also create or find free games on any topic using the website Baamboozle.
The website conversationstarters.com has tons of conversation-starting "Would You Rather...?" questions, and you can also find lots of "Would You Rather" videos on YouTube with a simple search (always preview the video first).
Presenting poll questions on light-hearted (yet high-interest) topics is another teletherapy activity that elicits language by encouraging students to share their opinions. And as a bonus, an index helps you quickly find questions for a particular speech sound.
Brain Teasers
Most brain teasers don't require much clicking at all (only thinking and talking), so they're perfect for using in teletherapy. They're especially great for drawing in older kids that welcome a challenge.
You can find these brain stretching activities lots of places, but The National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences has pages upon pages of them... all different kinds that will intrigue your students!
If want some brain teasers that are specific to speech therapy, these Boom Card decks contain word puzzles for specific speech sounds that are fun and different for articulation therapy. They're also great for language students or just session warm-ups.
Scavenger Hunts
Even without controlling the mouse, you can make your teletherapy sessions "hands on" with a scavenger hunt. Scavenger hunts allow you to target so many speech therapy goals, plus they're easy to adapt to any topic or theme.
All you have to do is present a picture of each item on the screen, and students show something similar that they have at home or school. You can also use digital books or videos to search for and talk about each item.
Reading Activities
Of course, you can always screenshare digital books and articles for you and your teletherapy students to read together. But there's a whole lot more to reading activities than that!
Students working on social skills can read role play scripts presented on screen. You could show various forms of digital media, such as advertisements, newspapers, menus, etc. to work on various speech therapy goals including functional life skills and articulation and fluency carryover.
Having students read shorter texts can be used to target specific language skills. This Boom Card deck works on identifying the meaning of figurative language using the paragraph context.
Videos
Videos are a great teletherapy activity because they tend to be engaging, but don't require any mouse control. There are many kinds of videos that can be used with various ages and goals, but here are some ideas:
Movie trailers
Wordless videos (such as Simon's Cat and animated short films)
Live webcams
Commercials
Time-lapses
Children's educational music videos (such as Jack Hartman)
Virtual field trips
Informative short videos (such as Weird But True! Shorts from National Geographic Kids)
Articulation Cards
Excuse me while I go a little more basic really quick, because sometimes SLPs need basic. Whether it be for screening, baseline measuring, drilling, or progress monitoring, SLPs love a quick go-to for getting good data.
These digital articulation cards can not only be screen shared (alongside any other activity using split screen), but also clicked to make a checkmark for each production. Seeing this keeps students attentive to the task and motivated to continue practicing.
Digital Object Building Activities
Websites where students can tell you how to make an object using the various parts are teletherapy GOLD, especially with younger students. Not only do they allow students to be creative, but they also encourage the use of precise and descriptive language.
ABCYa is one of my favorite sites for these sorts of building activities. They have everything from faces to treehouses to cupcakes, plus seasonal options such as Christmas trees.
ToyTheater also has a great scene creation activity. You can choose the background before adding various objects in different sizes to it.
Other Solutions for When You Can't Give Remote Mouse Control
In addition to all of the above ideas, there are many other teletherapy activities that you can use with students who are not remotely controlling a mouse.
Use whiteboard tools to annotate a PDF.
Many teletherapy platforms have annotation tools built in that can be used for many activities. In addition to using them on a blank whiteboard, students can mark up PDFs with underlines, highlights, shapes, etc.
Annotation tools work great for game pieces in simple games (like this person guessing game) and for activities that students would normally write on.
Share a Google Slides file.
You can share a Google Slides resource (using a link or from within Google Classroom) to work on together in real-time. As long as students are given the permission to "edit", you and one or more students are able to do the same activity.
Use Boom Live.
Similarly, Boom™ Learning has a feature called Boom Live that allows multiple users to play a deck simultaneously, each from their own device. As a teletherapist, you can invite students to play (using a PIN or link) and each person can see the mouse movements and controls of others.
Send printable pages.
This may sound old school, but sharing pages for students, parents, or school staff to print for use in therapy (or have them bring some blank paper) is another great option. This opens up a ton of new options for writing, drawing, and coloring activities (such as these articulation drawing activities) to keep students active
Teletherapy SLPs may feel like they're stuck between a rock and a hard place (or many hard places) when they, for whatever reason, aren't able to give their students remote mouse control. But the truth is that there are tons of ways to keep students engaged even without the use of a mouse while they're working on their speech therapy goals.
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