Simple Articulation Activity

I love smelly markers and so do my students!  I've been picking up these jumbo smelly markers at Michaels for a while now and now they have dry erase markers and highlighters.  I picked up a few of these and ended up using one during articulation therapy with a particularly challenging student today.

The brand of the marker is Scentos.  I pick them up at Michaels for less than a dollar each (retail a dollar, but you get a 15% teacher discount with your id).  If you don't have a Michaels, I've also seen them at Wal-mart and the Dollar Tree.  I originally bought them because they are everything I'm looking for in a marker.  Really big, has a face and smells delicious. 

My student is a reluctant therapy participant at best.  Today he did NOT want to practice his L sounds for anything.  He is not motivated by taking turns in games.  Not motivated by praise, doesn't like "finding" L's in books to practice.  If fact we are back on articulation after a 2 year break with language-only therapy for lack of participation.  Anyway, on a whim today, I asked if he liked smelly markers, of course he does.  So we used the smelly highlighter to highlight his words when he said them correctly 10 times.  He needed some cues to wait until he was done to highlight, and not to smell the marker while practicing.  The entire activity was done with him half laying on my table.  However, I'm counting it as a success because we did FORTY YES, forty words today.  This is completely unheard of, so I'm calling the activity a success. 

I have two more highlighter colors, so hopefully, with new smells the activity won't wear off so quickly.  I'm thinking stars or smiles on the picture next time.