SLPs Love Yard Sales

As a Preschool SLP, I absolutely LOVE yard sales. I love finding some cheap, cheap toys to use with my kiddos! About two weeks ago, our town had their city-wide yard sale weekend. I took FULL advantage of this by grabbing some goodies. 

I found this jungle - which was perfect for a particular student I have that LOVES jungles and jungle animals.

I have no idea what it was really used with. All the little toys that went with it were gone. But for $3, it was a steal! I had a bag full of superheroes and a basket of jungle animals that were a perfect fit. We've been practicing spatial concepts with this baby! 

Superheroes were "on" stumps...

"in" stumps...

"in" caves...

at the "top" of trees...

at the "bottom" of trees. 

They flew through the jungle and over the jungle, too. We had a blast with them! 

And then of course, there was the Transformers Fire Station for $5.. 

This thing makes a ton of cool noises. I used it for spatial concepts too - going up & down the elevator, up & down the fireman's pole, through the doors. But it was also great for some basic concepts like open & closed, up & down, and "same" vs. "different." It was also fantastic to "feed" the transformer cards as we finished them - articulation cards, language concept cards, and grammar drill cards all went into the Transformer's "mouth."

I also scored a Thomas the Train Mat with a Train for $10.

Once again - spatial concepts galore! We talked about going over & under bridges, through tunnels, etc. We could also talk abut places in the community. I also paired them with card sets. Kids completed the cards and then loaded them up in their train car. When they got a certain number of cards in their train car, they could take the train for a trip around the tracks before picking up another "load." 

I also scored some dress up fireman hats and a bag of random action figures. I am excited to use these toys in the upcoming weeks to jazz up therapy before the end of the year. I am also excited to see what other finds I can get throughout the summer. A nice rotation of motivating toys always makes therapy a little more fun! 

What is the best yard sale find you've ever used in therapy?