Using How the Crayons Saved the School in Speech Therapy: Key Concepts, Activities, & Free Resources
- Sarah Wilde
- 6 days ago
- 3 min read
I’m so glad you’re here!
In this post, we’re diving into How the Crayons Saved the School, a fun, colorful story that’s perfect for speech therapy.
I’ll give you a quick summary of the book, share ideas for the goals and skills you can target, and link to a mix of free and paid activities to make planning easy.
Whether you’re just finding me for the first time or you’ve been following along for a while, I hope this post leaves you feeling inspired and supported in your work as a busy speech therapist!
A little summary
The schoolhouse on the hill was dull and boring! It was so dull, it lost all of its color and everything turned gray. At recess, bright colors appear and the students discover a playground full of crayons. The crayons are determined to help the students bring all of the color back to the school - making school fun again!
What Makes How the Crayons Saved the School Great for Speech Therapy
1️⃣ It contains a complete episode, so you can target story grammar, making it perfect for both the literacy-based therapy framework and narrative language intervention.
2️⃣ It's about school being fun and engaging (perfect for back-to-school season).
3️⃣ You can use it to target a bunch of skills: semantic, syntactic, pragmatic, narrative, & articulation
Key Concepts to Target
Wh questions:
Where are the kids?
How do they feel?
Why did the school turn gray?
Who wants to help the kids?
What did the kids draws?
When did the color come back?
Articulation:
/k/ words: came, color, cover, castle, colorful, kids, sprinkle, brick, book, work, stick, back
💡 Incorporate literacy support:
Do you hear the /k/ sound at the beginning, middle, or end of the word? (reduce to two options if needed)
Do you see the /k/ sound at the beginning/middle/end of the word? Point to it.
How is the /k/ sound spelled [c, k, ck]? (have letters available on index card, sticky note, etc. for student to point to)
/r/ words: right, recess, rumble, rain, rolled, roamed, rambled, ripple, rainbow, ran, red, rainforest
💡 Incorporate literacy support:
Do you see the /r/ sound at the beginning of the word? Point to it.
Write the letter each time you find a new /r/ word in the text. Can use a pencil and paper, dry erase marker and white board, just a finger on the table pretending to write it, a finger in sensory box filled in sand, trace it, etc.
Other skills to target:
Story grammar
Story retell, summarizing
Past tense -ed verbs
Plural nouns
Synonyms & antonyms
Feelings
/r/ blends
For more detailed targets, head to the library for the free book guide!
Activities & Freebies to Pair With the Story
To make things even easier for you to use, I’ve pulled together a mix of activities and free resources that pair perfectly with the story!
🎯 152-page book companion (if you'd prefer to grab it on TPT, here's the link for that)
🎯 Nonfiction Article: How Colored Crayons For Kids Were Invented (great if you work with older students and want to use the same theme)
🎯 Free editable crayon name craft (great for younger students and self-contained classrooms)
🎯 How Crayons Are Made Youtube video (fun pre-reading activity to pair with the story and the nonfiction article linked above)
🎯 Have students draw a picture of something they like learning about in school. Incorporate written expression by having them write a sentence about their picture.
I hope this has been helpful! 🫶🏽
Comments