If you’re a pediatric SLP looking for group therapy activities that are fun, low-prep, and packed with specific speech and language targets—you’re in the right place. Whether you're working on early sentence structure, pronouns, or describing with attributes, these activities will help you keep little learners engaged and progressing.

Here are 50 group therapy activities you can use with your preschoolers—including how to play, how to keep all students engaged, and tips for eliciting each goal!

Movement-Based Group Activities

1. Simon Says with Verbs

Target: Action verbs (jump, hop, spin)

How to Play: Lead “Simon says” commands using targeted verbs.

Keep Everyone Involved: Rotate leaders and give quick commands.

Eliciting Tip: Ask, “What did Simon say to do?” to get the verb repeated.

2. Obstacle Course Directions

Target: Multi-step directions with spatial concepts

How to Play: Set up a course and give two-step spatial directions.

Keep Everyone Involved: Others repeat or act it out in place.

Eliciting Tip: Have students repeat the direction before their turn.

3. Freeze Dance with WH- Questions

Target: WH- questions (who, what, where)

How to Play: Dance to music. Freeze and ask WH- questions.

Keep Everyone Involved: Use questions that include everyone.

Eliciting Tip: Use visuals or sentence starters as needed.

4. Animal Walk Races

Target: Verb tenses (past/present)

How to Play: Move like animals, then discuss what you did.

Keep Everyone Involved: Everyone moves. Take turns choosing animals.

Eliciting Tip: Ask, “What did you do?” and model past tense verbs.

5. Parachute Play

Target: Pronouns and verbs

How to Play: Use a parachute for lifting, shaking, or bouncing.

Keep Everyone Involved: Assign roles like shaker, runner, or lifter.

Eliciting Tip: Comment with pronouns and model, model, model!

6. Hot Potato Story Chain

Target: Sentence expansion with conjunctions

How to Play: Pass a ball. Add to the story using “and,” “but,” or “because.”

Keep Everyone Involved: Everyone helps generate ideas.

Eliciting Tip: Give choices of words they can use.

7. Musical Chairs Describing Game

Target: Describing with attributes

How to Play: When music stops, describe an object or photo.

Keep Everyone Involved: All kids describe the same item after.

Eliciting Tip: Use visual supports for color, size, and function. My Visuals Bundle is perfect for this!

8. Bean Bag Toss with Categories

Target: Naming items in categories

How to Play: Toss onto a category mat and name 3 items.

Keep Everyone Involved: Everyone adds one item before next turn.

Eliciting Tip: Use visuals and model responses. My Visuals Bundle is perfect for this!

9. Animal Charades

Target: Inferencing and verb use

How to Play: Act out animals silently. Others guess.

Keep Everyone Involved: Take turns acting and guessing.

Eliciting Tip: Ask, “What is he doing?” and model the verb.

My Themed Action Cards include LOADS of animals you can use with movement ideas.

10. Movement Patterns

Target: Sequencing with temporal words

How to Play: Create and repeat movement patterns.

Keep Everyone Involved: Everyone participates and can take turns leading.

Eliciting Tip: Use “first, next, last” in descriptions.

Art and Craft Activities

11. Playdough Animals

Target: Basic concepts (big/little, long/short)

How to Play: Make and compare animals.

Keep Everyone Involved: Build the same concept together.

Eliciting Tip: Ask comparison questions like “Which is longer?”

12. Sticker Stories

Target: Sentence expansion with prepositions

How to Play: Build a sticker scene and describe locations.

Keep Everyone Involved: Each student adds and describes one item.

Eliciting Tip: Model phrases like “The cat is under the bed.”

13. Glue and Label

Target: Core and functional vocabulary

How to Play: Create scenes with glued items and label them.

Keep Everyone Involved: Everyone adds and labels one piece.

Eliciting Tip: Prompt core words like “want” or “on.”

My Themed Craft Scenes are perfect for this!

14. Finger Painting Scenes

Target: WH- questions

How to Play: Paint pictures and ask questions about them.

Keep Everyone Involved: Everyone paints and shares.

Eliciting Tip: Ask “What is happening?” and model answers.

15. Color Sorting with Paint Chips

Target: Describing and categorizing

How to Play: Sort objects onto color cards.

Keep Everyone Involved: Each student finds or names something.

Eliciting Tip: Prompt with “What color is it?”.

16. Collage Creation

Target: Plurals and quantifiers

How to Play: Create a themed collage and describe items.

Keep Everyone Involved: Each child adds and describes 2-3 images.

Eliciting Tip: Emphasize plurals like “There are three dogs.”

17. Make-a-Face Activity

Target: Emotion words and facial features

How to Play: Build faces and talk about them.

Keep Everyone Involved: Each child makes a face and shares.

Eliciting Tip: Ask “How does he feel?” “Where is the mouth?”

18. Paper Plate Puppets

Target: Pronouns and sentence structure

How to Play: Make puppets and act out actions.

Keep Everyone Involved: Rotate turns acting and describing.

Eliciting Tip: Model “He is jumping!” “She is eating.”

19. Seasonal Wreaths

Target: Thematic vocabulary

How to Play: Decorate paper wreaths with seasonal items.

Keep Everyone Involved: Everyone adds and describes one item.

Eliciting Tip: Give choices!

20. Torn Paper Art

Target: Requesting with core words

How to Play: Tear and glue colored paper to make pictures.

Keep Everyone Involved: Students take turns requesting materials.

Eliciting Tip: Prompt with “I want blue paper.”

Games for Group Therapy Language Targets

21. Guess What’s Missing?

Target: Memory and object functions

How to Play: Show several items, cover them, remove one, then reveal.

Keep Everyone Involved: Everyone guesses what’s missing. Take turns being the remover.

Eliciting Tip: Ask “What do we use it for?” or “What’s missing?”

22. Feed the Monster Game

Target: Speech sounds in isolation or phrases

How to Play: Feed picture cards with target sounds into a monster box.

Keep Everyone Involved: Everyone takes turns. Group echoes the words.

Eliciting Tip: Say the word 3 times and use it in a phrase.

My Feed and Move Bundle is perfect for this, with over 15 themes and LOADS of themed characters!!

23. Bingo with a Twist

Target: Describing and comparing

How to Play: Call out clues; kids describe before marking spots.

Keep Everyone Involved: Everyone plays at once. Encourage discussion.

Eliciting Tip: Prompt with “Find something soft and small.”

24. What’s in the Bag?

Target: Attributes and functions

How to Play: Pull objects from a bag and describe or guess them.

Keep Everyone Involved: Rotate turns pulling and guessing.

Eliciting Tip: Use prompts like “What color is it?” “What is it for?”

25. I Spy with a Spinner

Target: Initial sounds and phonemic awareness

How to Play: Spin for a sound and find objects that start with it.

Keep Everyone Involved: Everyone finds and shares.

Eliciting Tip: Emphasize initial sound: “Buh—ball.”

Literacy-Infused Group Activities

31. Go Fish for Verbs

Target: Verb use and subject-verb agreement

How to Play: Use action cards to ask and match.

Keep Everyone Involved: Everyone plays and models questions.

Eliciting Tip: Encourage full sentences: “Yes, he is jumping.”

32. Board Game Sentence Builders

Target: Sentence formulation

How to Play: Land on a space and build a sentence using a prompt.

Keep Everyone Involved: Group repeats or adds to each sentence.

Eliciting Tip: Use visuals or sentence strips for support.

33. Mystery Box Guessing Game

Target: WH- and yes/no questions

How to Play: Hide an item. Kids ask questions to guess.

Keep Everyone Involved: Take turns hiding and asking.

Eliciting Tip: Model question forms and use visual supports.

34. Hide-and-Seek Object Hunt

Target: Spatial concepts

How to Play: Hide and find objects. Describe the location.

Keep Everyone Involved: Everyone searches and shares what they found.

Eliciting Tip: Use prepositions: “It’s under the chair.”

35. Find and Describe

Target: Adjective-noun combinations

How to Play: Search for objects and describe with two words.

Keep Everyone Involved: Everyone finds and shares one.

Eliciting Tip: Prompt: “What color is it? What size?”

36. Story Retell with Props

Target: Sequencing and narrative

How to Play: Retell a story using puppets or props.

Keep Everyone Involved: Assign parts or pages to each student.

Eliciting Tip: Ask “What happened first?” “Then what?”

37. Picture Walk Predictions

Target: Inferencing and future tense

How to Play: Look at a book and predict what will happen next.

Keep Everyone Involved: Each child takes a turn predicting.

Eliciting Tip: Use sentence frames: “I think he will…”

38. Rhyme Time Relay

Target: Rhyming and phonological awareness

How to Play: Pass a ball while naming rhyming words.

Keep Everyone Involved: Everyone gives a rhyme in each round.

Eliciting Tip: Model examples if needed.

39. Character Puppets

Target: Pronouns and verb tense

How to Play: Act out scenes with puppets.

Keep Everyone Involved: Everyone gets a puppet and takes turns.

Eliciting Tip: Model past/present tense: “She was running. Now she is walking.”

40. Draw and Tell

Target: Descriptive language and narratives

How to Play: Draw a picture and tell a story about it.

Keep Everyone Involved: Each child shares and answers a peer’s question.

Eliciting Tip: Prompt with “Who is this?” “What are they doing?”

41. Book Sorting (Fiction vs. Nonfiction)

Target: Categories and vocabulary

How to Play: Sort books or pictures into fiction or nonfiction.

Keep Everyone Involved: Everyone helps explain their sorting choices.

Eliciting Tip: Ask “Is it real or pretend?”

42. Fill-in-the-Blank Stories

Target: Grammar and syntax

How to Play: Read a short story with missing words. Kids fill in the blanks.

Keep Everyone Involved: Rotate turns choosing words.

Eliciting Tip: Emphasize correct grammar use like “He is eating.”

43. Story Sequencing Cards

Target: Temporal concepts

How to Play: Put story cards in the correct order.

Keep Everyone Involved: Each student explains a card’s place in the story.

Eliciting Tip: Use “first,” “next,” “last” in prompts.

44. What Happens Next?

Target: Predicting and cause/effect

How to Play: Pause during a story and predict the next event.

Keep Everyone Involved: Everyone shares predictions.

Eliciting Tip: Ask “What will happen if…?”

45. Word Hunt in Books

Target: Sound-symbol correspondence

How to Play: Choose a sound and search a book for matching words.

Keep Everyone Involved: Everyone finds and reads one word.

Eliciting Tip: Ask “What sound does it start with?”

Sensory + Play-Based Activities

46. Sensory Bin Sound Hunt

Target: Initial speech sounds

How to Play: Find objects with a target sound in a sensory bin.

Keep Everyone Involved: Each child finds and names one item.

Eliciting Tip: Emphasize the beginning sound.

47. Water Play with Verbs

Target: Action verbs

How to Play: Use toys in water. Narrate and act out actions.

Keep Everyone Involved: Everyone gets a turn splashing, pouring, or washing.

Eliciting Tip: Prompt with “What is he doing?”

48. Mini Object Sorting

Target: Categories and functions

How to Play: Sort small toys into categories.

Keep Everyone Involved: Everyone chooses and describes one item.

Eliciting Tip: Ask “What do we use it for?”

This is a fun activity to pair with my Mini Object Scenes! You can use the difference scenes to categorize the items into what belongs in each scene.

49. Play Kitchen Role Play

Target: Sequencing and social language

How to Play: Act out cooking, serving, and eating.

Keep Everyone Involved: Assign group roles like chef, server, guest.

Eliciting Tip: Narrate actions using sequence words.

50. Dollhouse Directions

Target: Prepositions

How to Play: Move dolls or furniture and describe placement.

Keep Everyone Involved: Each child gives or follows a direction.

Eliciting Tip: Model sentences like “The chair is next to the bed.”

51. Puppet Problem Solving

Target: Problem/solution and emotions

How to Play: Act out social problems and solve them.

Keep Everyone Involved: Everyone adds a line or idea to the puppet show.

Eliciting Tip: Ask “What is the problem?” and “How can we fix it?”

52. Mr. Potato Head Build & Talk

Target: Body parts and possessive pronouns

How to Play: Build Mr. Potato Head and label parts.

Keep Everyone Involved: Each child adds one piece.

Eliciting Tip: Use “his” and “her” in descriptions.

53. Toy Store Pretend Play

Target: Requesting and turn-taking

How to Play: Set up a store and take turns being shopper or cashier.

Keep Everyone Involved: Rotate roles. Model polite requesting.

Eliciting Tip: Model the target goal, like “I want the red truck.”

54. Sound-Loaded Toys

Target: Speech sound generalization

How to Play: Use toys that feature target sounds.

Keep Everyone Involved: Everyone uses toys and names actions.

Eliciting Tip: Model and encourage sound-loaded phrases.

My Play Based Articulation Handbook features ideas for toys, games, books that are a LOADED with target sounds (incuding the target and eliciation ideas)

55. Themed Sensory Bins

Target: Vocabulary and sentence expansion

How to Play: Explore seasonal or thematic bins. Describe what’s inside.

Keep Everyone Involved: Each child describes 1–2 items per turn.

Eliciting Tip: Encourage full sentences: “I found a squishy orange pumpkin.”

Check out my Themed Sensory Bins! They include many themes you can use year round!

56. Board Games

Target: Any

How to Play: Practie a target before each turn.

Eliciting Tip: Use VIsuals! My Game Companions are made just for that. They include visuals and low-prep target sheets that help you target vocabulary, artiuclation, grammar, and sentence structure—all while your kids are playing. Pair them with these group ideas, and you’ll be ready for the whole week.

Group therapy doesn’t have to be chaotic—or complicated. With the right tools, it can be fun, effective, and even easy to plan. These 50 group activities are designed to keep every student engaged while targeting meaningful speech and language goals.