The Talking Tree Picture Description Board | Reusable Wooden Speech & Language Activity

The Talking Tree Picture Description Board

The Talking Tree is a reusable wooden picture description board for speech and language practice. A cherry-finish panel holds seven dry-erase prompts branching around a center picture window, so you can take one picture from a single word to a full sentence to a conversation, then wipe it clean and start again. It is built for the picture-description exercise that speech-language pathologists, teachers, and activity leaders run, and it replaces the printouts that exercise usually leans on: a worksheet you reprint, a card you laminate and relaminate, a set you reorder once the pieces walk off. This is the one you keep.

Picture description is one of the plainest exercises there is, and the Talking Tree gives it a shape. The prompts are engraved in order along the branches, so whoever is answering always knows the next question, and whoever is guiding never has to invent one.

How it works

Set a photo, a printed picture, or a quick sketch in the center window. Then work outward, branch by branch, answering in dry-erase marker:

• What is it called? What type of thing is it?
• What are its features? What does it do, and how?
• Where is it found? What does it make you think of?

Each answer reaches a little further than the last, from naming to describing to connecting ideas. Hold it to a single word or let it open into a story. Set it in front of a small group and let them work out what belongs in each branch. When the board is full, wipe it and start over. Nothing to reprint, nothing to run out of, nothing to reorder.

Who it is designed for

One board covers a lot of tables, because the skill underneath is the same everywhere. It is designed for the expressive-language and word-retrieval work speech-language pathologists do with patients, including recovery-oriented practice. It fits the describing, vocabulary, and WH-question drills that fill a special-education or ESL lesson. It works as a picture-based conversation starter in senior centers and memory care, a reason to sit down and talk about a photograph together. And at home it is a screen-free way to practice observation and narration with a child. The picture changes, the prompts stay, and the skill carries across all of them.

Cut and engraved in Hudson, Florida

Pete Janelle designed the Talking Tree with a practicing speech-language pathologist, and we cut and engrave it on the laser in our family workshop. It is one of the Purpose-Built Activities in our Cognitive Challenge Series, the pieces we designed for adult cognitive and language practice from the start. The tree, the prompts, and the writing spaces are engraved into the cherry-finish wood rather than printed, so they will not rub off the way a laminated card or a printed sheet eventually does. It measures 8.5 by 11 inches and a quarter inch thick, light enough to carry room to room and solid enough to be handled every day. A dry-erase marker and the pictures are yours to bring. Made by Creative Crafthouse and shipped from our Florida shop, usually within one business day. You can meet the people who make it on our designers page.

Working the same skill from another angle? WordWeaver, our wooden sentence-building wheel, is its companion piece.

Make it yours

Every Creative Crafthouse piece can be personalized. Add a name, a room, or a short message with custom laser engraving when you order.

The Talking Tree is an educational and recreational activity, not a medical device. It is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any medical condition. For guidance on activities for a loved one, please consult a qualified healthcare provider.