You may have seen the Press n’ Seal hack floating around as a safe way to use board games in speech therapy. I LOVE this idea! (If you’re unfamiliar with the concept – you just lay your board game on a table and place a few sheets of Press n’ Seal food wrap over the board to secure the wrap to the table) Awesome, right? Then you can just throw away the wrap between sessions!
This is a great way to help stop the spread of germs, but like most things, it could get a bit expensive (I have yet to find a generic version that works as good as Glad Press n’ Seal), wasteful, and there’s still the increased risk of germ transfer if you have to clean the game up before the session is over or while your students are still in your tiny room.
It’s a really helpful option, but there’s a little secret that a lot of people don’t know about – Hefty makes 2.5 gallon bags! (Side note – we use them a lot to store our shoes, toiletries, sunscreens, etc. when we travel. I usually have multiple gallon bags full of things and I then store all of them one big 2.5 gallon bag. They’re amazing!)
Okay, back to speech therapy. Using Press n’ Seal is an amazing idea and I will definitely be trying it this year! The main downfalls though are that it will get expensive to keep buying, it is not recyclable or biodegradable, and there’s still a risk of contamination when you clean it up. It also ends up being a lot of waste when you spend half your time trying to unstick it from itself (I can’t be the only one who constantly has to battle the plastic wrap, right?)
This is where our jumbo storage bags come in! They are large, reusable, sturdy, and can be recycled at plastic bag collection points offered by many retailers! Keep a few on hand and use them over and over again all year long (as long as you sanitize them each time).
There is one major downfall to this – the size. Although they are large (14 3/8” x 16”) they won’t cover some large board games. You could easily solve this problem though by simply cutting your board games in half. I know this sounds drastic, but I promise it’s not that bad once you get over the initial shock and really think about it. The thought of cutting my beloved board games made me cringe, but then I remembered most only cost me $10 or less and you can get many of the popular games at a thrift shop for just a few dollars. If you find some classics at a discount store, you could have sets that you keep whole and sets that you cut in half. Then you don’t have to worry about making the cut. Also, if you ever want to go back to making them whole, just bust out the packing tape and run a piece up the middle. POOF…they’re back to normal! No harm, no foul.
Even More “Clean” Game Hacks
Use some dice or a spinner app / website to take the place of game cards!
Laminate game cards that won’t be easy to replicate in a spinner.
Make your own laminated game pieces to use in place of the thick cardstock character pieces that some games come with. You could use these new pieces with all of your games!
Use free sites like this one to play board games online.
Use this tutorial to make your own board games in PowerPoint.
Invest in an iPad case that comes with a screen cover. You can clean them with wipes over and over without having to worry about harming your screen. Just be careful around the home button. I have a case like this and there’s no cover over the home button so if you use too much cleaning liquid around there it could go under the screen case. Just be careful around that sopt and you’ll be fine. I love my case and have sanitized it countless times!
Simply slip your iPad in a Ziplock bag to protect it from germs without a special case.
Do you have any “clean” game hacks of your own that you could share? This is a whole new ballgame for most of us so the more options the better!
Related Products
Dinosaur Speech & Language Board Games with Digital Card Options
Free Speech & Language Spinners Set One
Free Speech & Language Spinners Set Two
Boom Card Board Games for Speech & Language Goals