Speech therapy zoo

Children visit a zoo and copy the animals with their mouths and voices: yawning like a hippo, lapping milk like a cat, hissing like a snake.

Steps

1. The teacher places animal pictures around the room as 'enclosures'. Children walk from one to the next.
2. Hippo: open the mouth wide and close it slowly. Cat: tongue out, 'lapping milk' from a bowl.
3. Horse: click the tongue. Fish: lips pout and open without a sound. Snake: a long 'sssss'.
4. At each enclosure children repeat the animal's sound quietly, loudly, high and low.
5. Finally a listening riddle: the teacher imitates an animal behind a screen and children guess which one it is.

Tip: Choose animals for the sounds children practise with their speech therapist – a snake and a bee for 's' and 'z', a train's 'shhh' for 'sh'.

Materials needed

• Animal picture cards (1 set)
• Child-safe mirrors (1 per pair)