Freebie - Fall Scavenger Hunt

Fall is officially here! This is my favorite time of year hands down. There are so many topics and vocabulary to discuss. I made this fall scavenger hunt for children to use with their grown up. If you live in a climate where you don't experience fall you can also use the sheet with a sensory bin or fall story book. 

Scavenger hunts are a great way to get outside and spend time with your family. I have fond memories of doing scavenger hunts with my children as preschoolers in our neighborhood. You can download the link HERE.

Fall Paper Plate Wreath

If there's 2 things I love it's in this world, it's fall and a simple craft. My kiddos had so much fun making their very own fall wreaths to take home to their grownups. They were so proud of the final product! 

Materials were: a paper plate (center cut out), fake leaves, stickers, pompoms, glue, festive ribbon, and crayons.

This friend chose to use stickers on her wreath

We called the tiny pompoms "pumpkins."

We worked on so many fall vocabulary words doing this activity as well as sequencing, turn taking, and following directions. I paired the activity with "Pick A Pumpkin" by Patricia Toht. 

Will you be trying this craft with your kiddos?

Summer Sensory Bin: Kinetic Sand

Is it just me or did summer show up all of a sudden?! Unlike my school SLP friends, I will be working through the summer. That is, until I pop out this baby (see last post)! One of my favorite activities to use with my preschoolers is a good ol' sensory bin (as you can see from my previous post on the Spring Garden Sensory Bin). There are many types of sensory play you can explore (gel, water, ice, shaving cream, etc). I have been having fun with kinetic sand.

For those of you who aren't familiar with kinetic sand, it is material that looks like sand but doesn't have the same grittiness. It's mold-able, easy to clean up (grains tend to clump together), soft, and doesn't dry up (I've had my sand for over a year and it feels the same way it did the day I purchased it).

I love how kinetic sand keeps its shape!

Kinetic sand isn't the cheapest thing in the world (about $13 for 1.5 lbs) but I figured it was worth the splurge. It totally is!

For the sensory bin, I placed a few pounds of sand into a shoe box sized plastic container that I got from Michael's. The sand alone would have been enough to make my preschoolers happy, but I decided to add some extra goodies. Additional accessories included mold's that I also purchased from Target. It included a turtle, fish, seahorse, and sandcastle mold. I also added a shovel I got from the dollar store as well as seashells.

My preschoolers had so much fun digging, building, burying, making, etc. We were also able to work on sentence expansion, following directions, comprehension of 'wh' and yes/no questions, you name it!

I paired the sensory bin with one of my favorite books, "Miranda's Beach Day". It's a simple story about the sights and sounds a little girl and her mom encounter while at the beach. After reading this, my kids were so excited to get to play in the sand like Miranda did!

For those of you who have used kinetic sand, how do you incorporate it into your sessions? What would you add to your sensory bin?

Spring Garden Sensory Bin

I don't know about you but I have a bit of spring fever and have gotten into the gardening and planting mood. Oh wait, you thought I was referring to my own personal garden?! No way! I'm talking about my educational play garden. Not only are sensory bins a fun tactile way for kids to play and learn, they can be used with any kind of toys/manipulatives you have laying around.

I filled a plastic shoe box sized bin with dried black beans (about 4 bags). I then added plastic fruits and veggies from Target (see below). I felt like I hit the jackpot with this purchase! It came with 2 cutting boards and 2 knives. Win!

My children had a BLAST with this one! We worked on verbs (digging, finding, hiding, cutting, etc), labeling, following directions ("Give me the __"), 'wh' question comprehension ("What is the orange, crunchy vegetables bunnies eat?"), yes/no questions, and categorizing.

I paired this activity with "The Fruits We Eat" to provide additional reinforcement to work on vocabulary. We used one of the last pages as a reference the help identify whether or not a selected item was a fruit.

**Edit: I found a great book that targets vegetables called "Our Community Garden". My kids loved learning about all the different veggies that can be grown in their own garden.

What else can I do with the bin you ask? How does planting flowers sound!? I couldn't really find any cool plastic flowers in the store, so I decided to make my own out of pipe cleaners (thank you YouTube!)

My "bouquet" 

I made the flowers in an assortment of colors (pink, red, blue, and orange). Add a toy shovel and planters and you're all set for some gardening!

Kids have so much fun using the shovel to dig the "dirt" into the planters.

 With this activity, skills such as requesting ("I want the red flower"), sentence expansion, 'wh' question comprehension, following directions, yes/no questions, can all be targeted.

Do you use sensory bins in your sessions? What materials do you use?

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I didn't want to make a separate post, so I'll just let you in on a secret I've been hiding. I'm pregnant! Hubby and I are so excited to be expecting a sweet baby girl this August. If I end up MIA again, you'll know why :) Please find the obligatory bump pic below:

Learning to Read is a Ball {Review and Giveaway}

"What can I do to help my child improve their language skills?" This is a common question I hear regularly, especially now that I'm working with preschoolers. Although it may not be a mystery to us in the field, many parents (and other professionals) do not know how or what to do with their little ones when it comes to literacy.

Kimberly Scanlon's book, "Learning to Read is a Ball" is just the type of resource for those who are looking to work on important language skills but are unsure of how to do so.

In this simply illustrated book, you will find a 28-page picture book accompanied by a 17-page parent guide that covers techniques to develop oral language, strategies to improve vocabulary using synonyms and antonyms, methods of increasing print awareness and much more!

One of my favorite illustrations from the book.

Undoubtedly, children will find the illustrations and story line of "Learning to Read is a Ball" captivating. However, I believe the parent guide is the most valuable portion of this book. Not only will it provide strategies and tips to use with "Learning to Read is a Ball", but it also serves as a great jumping-off point for a host of other books!

The parent guide is a handy resource for parents and professional alike

Bottom line, I will definitely be recommending this book to the preschool families I work with. "Learning to Read is a Ball", can also serve as a lovely parting gift for many of my students who are transitioning to kindergarten.

So now that I've gushed over this wonderful book, you're probably interested in getting your hands on it! Lucky for you Kimberly was kind enough to provide a copy for me to giveaway. Enter below with Rafflecopter.


Please note that comments will ONLY appear once I've reviewed and approved them (prevents postings from spam-bots). If your comment doesn't appear immediately, wait a few hours. 



a Rafflecopter giveaway



Disclosure Statement: I was provided a copy of this app by the developer. No other compensation was provided. This review includes solely my opinions.

Freebie - Parent Welcome Letter for the Traveling Pediatric SLP

If you have been following me on Twitter and Instagram, you probably know that I now work with preschoolers as a traveling SLP. Since I commute to a variety of sites, I do not always have the ability to discuss the policies of my employer to parents. This welcome letter is meant to do just that. Fun topics like make-up sessions and inclement weather are all addressed :)

Front view

Back view

Feel free to download the form and edit as you please!

Discipline Is Love

First off, my apologies for not posting last week!  Life has been crazy busy, and I promise to be more consistent and not neglect you all :) Now onto the good stuff...

This post will be deviating from my usual talk of middle schoolers, as I spent six weeks working with preschoolers and wanted to share my experience.  Although it was a part-time position, my summer job really kept me busy and I’m excited to relax and enjoy the few weeks of summer left before I return my middle schoolers.

Working with the 5 and under population was definitely a nice change of pace from the adolescents that I typically deal with. However, working with the little ones was not without its challenges. There were moments where I felt like a human punching bag, as I was kicked, slapped, and swatted at!

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m no stranger to my students exhibiting aggressive behavior, but it’s normally verbal instead of physical. After speaking to co-workers, it became apparent that there were a few “repeat offenders.” Children who were known to be physical with adults as well as their peers. As many of you know, the less expressive language a child possess, the more their frustrations build up.  This consequently leads to “inappropriate” behaviors like hitting. As it turned out, many of the children who were demonstrating the hitting, screaming, etc. were also the ones with limited expressive language abilities. Apologies if I made it seem like all non-communicative students were physically aggressive, as that is not the case and I had my share of quiet angels as well.

Show love by disciplining with love.

We are creatures of habit, if I cry until I get my building blocks then I will cry the next time. Many of the children I treated this summer appeared to lack discipline and structure in their home life and were thus behaving the way there were accustomed to in preschool. Structure and discipline are very important foundations for all children, especially those with special needs as there will be implications later down the road (e.g. school, work, etc.).
 
How can discipline begin at home?
1. Provide positive reinforcement for good behaviors (e.g. a tangible reward, smile, praise etc.)
2. Provide negative reinforcement for bad behaviors (e.g. time-out, indicate to child your displeasure: “no” or “stop”).
3. Be consistent.

I am not a parent, but I understand the frustrations associated with special needs children. They require more patience and tolerance than most but they also require the same discipline and structure that are provided to their typically developing counterparts. Not providing them with rules promotes a more chaotic and difficult life. You are loving your child by disciplining them, as you are preparing them for the world.

What forms of discipline have you found to work with your little ones?

Targeting Language Through Play

My summer vacation seems to have taken a bit of a turn. I had every intention of relaxing and using my free time to get organized for the upcoming school year and perhaps even plan my wedding (July 26, 2013!!!). However, an opportunity to work with the early intervention and preschool population arose that I could not pass up. After spending a year with my middle schoolers I definitely needed to jog my memory and re-familiarize myself with functional and multipurpose toys to use in order to support and develop language. I am using this post to do just that.  Here is a compilation of some of the things I’ve have found useful in the past, as well as toys I would like to utilize moving forward.

Elefun: 

Kids can't seem to get enough of this game, although adults get tired of this one fast!

This is a classic game where an elephant blows butterflies out of his trunk and are caught with nets. Short utterances can be modeled (e.g. “Pick up,” “Ready, set go!” etc.) as well as requesting, and turn-taking behavior. Important spatial concepts regarding spatial relationship (e.g. front, behind, top), quantity, colors, directions, etc. can also be addressed.

Pound a Ball:

This toy allows you to target color matching, prepositions (e.g. in/out, up/down), requesting, turn-taking, cause/effect etc. Just me mindful of fingers during this activity as children tend to get very excited and  occasionally “miss” their target.

Melissa & Doug Sound Puzzles:

Sound puzzles are a great way to teach sounds and basic words as well as cause/effect. The child's receptive language can easily be targeted  by asking them to “point to”, “show me”, or indicate “where?”

Bubbles:

Bubbles are one of my favorite therapy tools because they can be used to assess language skills as well as promote its development. Skills such as eye contact, requesting, signing, sound production, word/phrase production, turn-taking, quantity, etc. can all be addressed.

Jenga:

Classic Jenga with an updated look.

                                                             

Jenga is a classic no frills game that is a tried and true motivator. It reinforces turn-taking behavior and spruces up any speech/language activity. After producing a target sound, answering a question etc. have the student take a turn removing a block. I have also found this to be a great demonstration of concepts like “gentle”, “slow”, “rough”, “careful”, etc.

Shape Sorter: 

In addition to requesting and turn-taking, many concepts can be targeted with a shape sorter. Concepts include: prepositions ("in", "out", "on"), color, shapes, directions, full/empty (depending on type of sorter), quantity, etc.

Blocks:

Blocks are an essential part of any SLP’s toolkit as they encourage creativity as well as target prepositions, spatial relationships, directions, quantity, cause/effect, as well as social skills related to turn-taking, and sharing.

These are only a few examples of toys to utilize with the preschool population. I am fully aware that there are a plethora more available. However, I find that the simple toys/games/activities illicit the most language, as there are no bells and whistles to distract the child from their innate need to play.

I am very excited about my new summer position working with the little ones. I'm also extra pumped because I get the added bonus of a supplementary income.  I hope my piggie bank is ready for all the cash :)