I can’t be the only one to have some garbage-truck-loving little boys on my caseload! I found this Little People garbage truck and garbage man at a garage sale and just knew I had to have them! Scroll down to see how I’ve been using this adorable little vehicle in speech therapy!

Articulation with Mini Objects: My favorite way to use the garbage truck is targeting speech sounds. I have a set of mini objects for each sound I target in articulation therapy (see the boxes here). So if the child is working on the /b/ sound, I’ll pull out the box of /b/ objects and they will act as our “garbage” to load into the truck! I may have the child produce the word a certain number of times to earn putting it into the truck or have the child put the target word in a phrase or sentence (e.g., “ball in” or “yucky banana”).
Requesting: I’ll gather a random assortment of mini objects and line several of them up. I prompt the child to request which object they want to put in the garbage truck. You could use this with requesting with the “more” sign all the way to “I want the bottle.”
Following Directions & Vocabulary Comprehension: Lay out several objects and cue the child to follow your verbal directions (e.g., “Put the ball in.”).
Prepositions: Give the child a mini object and tell them where to put it, such as “in,” “on top,” “under” or “next to” the garbage truck. Or prompt them to tell you where the object is after you place it somewhere.
Describing: Pick a mini object and prompt the child to describe it. Once the object has been adequately described, they can put it into the garbage truck. Click here to download my super helpful describing anchor chart for only $1!
Inferencing: Secretly put a mini object in the back of the garbage truck and close it. Give the child verbal clues about what the object is (e.g., “It’s yellow. It’s food. You peel it.”). Have them make inferences about what the object could be, then dramatically reveal the object!
Categories: Put mini objects from different semantic categories all over the table. Direct the child to group the objects into categories and discuss while you complete the activity. Then direct them as to which group of objects to put in the garbage can (e.g., “Put all the foods in the garbage!”).
Negation: Hold out two mini objects. Direct the child which object NOT to get (e.g., “Show me which one is NOT a bell.”). That object then gets to go into the garbage truck!
Expanding Language: As you play with the child, expand what they’re saying about the garbage truck and objects. If they say “truck,” you say, “It’s a big green garbage truck! Beep beep!” If they say “yucky,” you say, “Yes, that banana is so old and yucky! Ew!”
Pretend Play & Exclamations: Pretend the mini objects are real garbage! Pretend to sniff them and make exclamations like: ew, blech, gross, disgusting, yucky!

They don’t make my exact garbage truck anymore, but I linked some similar ones and some of my favorite bundles of mini objects!

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