Winter DIY Crafts

Winter DIY Mason Jars

Easy Do-It-Yourself Mason Jars or Candle holders

Supplies you will need: You can find these at any Walmart and Dollar Store

Mason Jar or Candle holder

Glitter (Any type in any color)

Paint brush

Mod Podge 

Project will be messy! 

             

*You can add ribbon, charms, jewels and much more!

Decision Making Opportunities for those with a Communication Disorder

Making little choices is an important daily function. We make decisions about what to wear, what to eat, and what to do daily. Imagine if someone else was making these decisions for you. Would you be happy with their decision? Despite the insignificance of these decisions, not making these decisions yourself can be demoralizing and limiting. 

It’s important to recognize how this may affect those with a communication disorder. Helping them to express their needs and wants through giving options could dilute a potential frustrating situation for them. While they may not know how to respond to open ended questions, giving choices can help them give an appropriate answer while practicing recall. For example, “Would you like to eat a banana or an orange?” instead of "What would you like to eat?"

Giving them the option to make these decisions gives them a sense of independence and empowerment. This also demonstrates that you respect their desires and needs.

Benefits of giving choices:

• Allowing children to make decisions demonstrates the role communication plays in making requests in a concrete, immediate way. For example, “Would you like to tie your shoes or would you like me to do it for you?”

• Giving them choices creates opportunities to model and expand language.

• Offering choices helps to set expectations when giving directions. Phrasing a command as two choices can give you a quicker response while helping the child to feel independent and as if it was their idea. For Example, “Would you like to put your socks or shirt on first?” This questions has an underlying command saying “It’s time to get ready.”

Also, it can help to make the child feel in control of their environment. Giving two choices can help them to maintain predictability and reduce the uncertainty of their environment.

Fun Speech and Language Activities for the Car!

Are you planning a road trip during Spring Break?  Does is seem like you spend hours in the car every week driving kids to school, sports, appointments, etc.?  Here are some fun activities for the car with special speech and language twists:

• I Spy - A classic passing-the-time game.  Try mixing it up by spying categories of items, objects that start with a specific sound, or items based on function
• Speech & Language Twist: If your child is working on pronouncing certain sounds, try looking for items with that sound in the beginning, middle, or end of the word.

• Scavenger Hunt - This will take some prep work before your trip.  Put together a list of things you might see along the way and have your child check them off as you go.
• Speech & Language Twist: Don't forget to add adjectives and verbs to your scavenger hunt.  For example, have your kids look for something shiny, flat, or round and someone who is eating, someone who is singing, and something that is flying.  

• License Plate Search - How many different states can you find?  Keep track with a checklist or printed map.  Count how many of each state you can spot and see which one has the most. 
• Speech & Language Twist: Discuss the license plate design and talk about why that picture or saying was chosen.

• Find the Alphabet  - Look for the letters of the alphabet, in order from A-Z, on signs, billboards, cars, or anything passing by.  Take turns being in charge of different letters or see who can find one first.
• Speech & Language Twist: Don't just look for the letters, look for words that start will the letter.  You might have to get creative to cover all the letters.  Can you spot a Quacking duck or a Zipping car?

What's your favorite road trip game? Share it with us in the comments section below!

~Kimberly

St. Patrick's Day and a birthday!

To start I want to wish Paige, one of our speech therapists, a very happy birthday tomorrow!  We all enjoy working with her and hope that she has a wonderful day.

I really enjoy how many events and activities that go on in our area and especially around holidays.  St. Patrick's day is coming up and there is no shortage of fun events to attend.  New activities and events are a great way to foster new language and build vocabulary.  Below is a great article detailing family events for the holiday.

Go Green: Your Guide to the Best St. Patrick's Day Events

To continue in the holiday festivities I will also post a cute craft that I found on Pinterest.  It has the potential for a lot of language opportunities!  Please see the link below the image.

Rainbow Binoculars

You could target practicing specific sounds as you make the craft or target language building by playing "I Spy" with the binoculars.  Either way many children love to look and search for things!

I hope everyone enjoys the holiday.

-Cassee

Thankful Turkey Craft

Thanksgiving is just around the corner! Here is a fun little craft you can do with the children in your family during this fun holiday. It is an easy project that can also double as a writing activity.

 

What you will need:

-Paper bag

-Colorful feathers

-Glue

-Scissors

-Construction Paper: red, orange, black & white (or Googly eyes to add extra fun)

-Markers/crayons

Directions:

1. Have the top rectangle of the paper bag at the top facing you (this will make the bag become a puppet).

2. Glue eyes, beak, and gobble on the top rectangle area.

3. Have the children write what they are thankful for on the body of the paper bag or have the child tell you and you can write it.

4. Turn the bag over and glue some colorful feathers on!

This is a perfect time to have your child work on their speech and language skills! While making a Thankful Turkey you can talk about how the feathers/paper bag/construction paper feel different. Using describing words (such as smooth, soft, fluffy, colorful, bright, long, triangle, and round) are great for expanding their vocabulary. You can use the following sentence to get started, ‘The (object) feels/looks (describing word(s)/adjective)’. Then have your child retell the steps they completed to make their Thankful Turkey. It is also a great time to target speech sounds ‘k’, ‘g’, and ‘th’ with the words: cut, glue, stick on, thankful, and feather(s).

Enjoy and Happy Thanksgiving!

-Kirsten

Preparing for Halloween!

Hello All!  Elizabeth here with a few tips to help you and your child prepare for a wonderful Halloween experience. 

Halloween is an exciting time. With excitement comes unpredictability.  I don’t know about you, but that’s not my favorite thing in the world.  I like to anticipate how my costume will work, the routine of trick-or-treating, and set realistic expectations for Halloween-themed events.

I recommend practicing wearing a costume for a few minutes at a time.  Increase wearing time over a few days so that your child feels comfortable and you have time to make any adjustments (like removing itchy tags, etc.) before the big event.  This is especially true if the costume includes a mask.

You may want to practice dressing up to so that your child feels comfortable seeing you in costume and understands that familiar people will look different on Halloween.

In my experience, grandparents and neighbors would love to help your child practice the trick-or-treating routine.  Depending on your child’s comfort separating from you, you can help her walk to the door, knock, say ‘trick-or-treat’, accept a treat, say ‘thank you’, and walk away.  Sometimes, the concept of accepting whatever is dropped into the treat bag can be tough. Perhaps letting her know ahead of time that she can trade their loot for a prize at the end or swap for favorite candy with siblings or friends can make it easier to accept a non-preferred option. 

Let’s return to the unpredictable aspects of Halloween.  Halloween is full of surprises.  Some fun and spooky and some just plain scary.  More on that in a moment.  Give your child a rough outline of the events he can expect. If attending a school carnival, talk about what kinds of games and activities there will be and estimate how long you will be there.  Perhaps you’re going trick-or-treating in a different neighborhood, you could drive by in advance, or go for an evening walk to get used to how cold it will be and estimate how many houses you will go to.

Halloween is also a great time to work on language skills. Describing the way houses, characters, and decorations look is encouraged.  Describing the emotions they evoke is even better!  I love to take this as an opportunity to discuss things that are ‘spooky’ versus things that are ‘scary’.  To me, ‘spooky’ includes things like fake spiders and ghosts hanging from trees. Flickering lights and Halloween music are ‘spooky’ to me.  ‘Spooky’ things might be creepy, but fun, and do not make me feel threatened or afraid.  ‘Scary’ can be a different story.  I put haunted houses, life-like animatronic skeletons, and people who are still until you approach and then pounce, in the ‘scary’ category.

Giving your child the language to tell you if she thought something was ‘spooky’ or ‘scary’ before Halloween night can certainly help you avoid a situation where she might feel genuinely afraid and unsafe.  Those kind of feelings tend to linger and can taint memories and future Halloween experiences.  Talk with your child about what to say if she scared.  Reassure her that you are there and she is safe.

Reading books about Halloween is also a fun way to prepare and gives you and your child a chance to connect leading up to this fun holiday.