Playing in the snow!!!

Did I ever tell you that my husband and I are originally from the east coast?  Well we are and we decided to take a trip back east to see the family this holiday.  We must have had luck on our side as we flew just between two snow storms and made it to the east coast yesterday...just in time for a "White Christmas" (a few days late but still part of the Christmas season so that works just fine for us!).  You better believe in the 17 degree weather this morning we put on our snow gear and got "serious" about having some fun!!!!

There's my boy with his cookie monster hat on (made by a friend) and that beautiful smile that could stop traffic (at least it stops me in my tracks from time to time) having the time of his life in the snow!  We are supposed to get a bit more snow before this week is through.  Here's hoping for some nice snowman making, snow ball throwing, sledding kind of snow!

Have you taken my advice and had some playtime this holiday break?  What have you and your family been up to?  I'd love to know.  Maybe you can give me some good ideas! 

For those out there traveling, have safe travels this holiday season.  Keep having fun and happy talking!!!!

It's the eve of Christmas Eve! Remember to take time to play with your kids over the next few days!

It's the night (well day actually) BEFORE Christmas Eve and as I was going through my plan of "things I need to get done before Christmas morning" I realized NONE of those things involved playing with my son.  At that moment I looked up to see my son holding tight to his new race car, dancing around the living room to Christmas music with his eyes closed.  (He very much loves his new race car which was an early Christmas gift from his Aunt J.)  What an incredible site to see!  It warmed my heart and made me laugh out loud at his innocence and wonder of life!  

What if I hadn't had that thought?  What if I didn't look up at that moment?  I would have missed that beautiful site of my son's pure joy and love of life.  Shame on me for getting so wrapped up in all of the "shoulds", "coulds" and "need to"s of this holiday season rather than living in the moment!  

So, I decided right then and there...what gets done, gets done, what doesn't, doesn't and if someone has a problem with it...frankly, they can keep their opinions to themselves.  Because I will never get today back and if I waste it "doing" and "planning" rather than "listening" and "playing"...then it is my own fault if my life passes before my eyes.

So I've messed up.  I've made the mistake of putting "things" before my family.  I'm not going to beat myself up about it because I'm human.  BUT, I do believe it's never too late to change and I WON'T be making this mistake again (at least not over the next couple of days...bad habits are hard to break, you know!).  Instead, I'm going to play and laugh and learn from my son!  I'm going to watch with wonder as my 2 year old navigates through this Christmas holiday with enthusiasm and a level of excitement that he will not be able to contain within his little body!

The reason I am writing this post is to talk to all of you that are reading this today, parent to parent.  I completely understand the stress and busyness of the holiday season...cooking, cleaning, wrapping, traveling, visiting family and friends.  All of these things are necessary and must be done.  But, if I can impart one very little piece of advice...please, please, don't forget to stop and play with your children this holiday.  Even if its 5 minutes here and there throughout the day when you give your children your undivided attention, it will make a difference for them and for you.  Let's make some wonderful memories this holiday!

Be safe, be silly, and have fun!
Have a Blessed Christmas Holiday!
Happy Talking!

What My Clients' Were Up to This Christmas Season!

 Here are just a few of the fun Christmas themed activities my clients' and I had fun with this holiday season.


Must Be Santa:
Guess what my kids got to do with a bag of cotton balls and some petroleum jelly?  Make Ms. Maria into SANTA!!!!

We had so much fun!  Each correct sound production, or correct response to various language activities equaled 1 cotton ball placed ANYWHERE they wanted on my face!  Here are some pics of our fun!!!!  What do you think?

I don't know about you, but I'm kind of liking this new look!!! You think I can rock the cotton ball Santa beard or what?




Christmas Tree BASH UP:
I have a few boys that just LOVE their cars.  So I modified the articulation cups game that has been floating around the internet for some time now.  

I took 10 small Dixie cups, placed articulation or language stimulus cards on top.  For each correct response or production, my client got to build a "TREE" one cup at a time!

Here is a picture of one of my client's picking up an articulation stimulus card and practicing saying it correctly BEFORE he obtained his cup.

Here's a picture of our "tree" in the process of being built!



Once the tree was complete, my clients' would choose which car he wanted to "bash up the tree" by driving into the cups and knocking them down.  

Tip:  Stick to doing this on the floor...the cups fly everywhere and it's so fun for the kids to see where they go (which we can then use to stimulate language by asking "where"?s) and gathering them up for another round of Christmas Tree Bash Up! Looks fun right?  It really is!  PLEASE DO TRY THIS AT HOME!!! You'll have so much fun.

Felt Christmas Tree Decoration:
I made a Christmas tree out of felt and used multi-colored buttons of various shapes and sizes to "decorate" to the tree!

My clients' would practice a few stimulus cards and then roll the big fat red die...

...and count the number of "dots" to know how many buttons to put on their trees! 

Here's one of our first finished trees!!!!

Later we made this game more difficult by sorting the buttons by shape, size and color and placed the correct buttons on the corresponding trees!  GREAT for PK kiddos learning these pre-academic skills!!!!

Christmas Tree Hop:

For this game I used some of the free materials I posted on Monday and placed target pictures next to numbered index cards.  Each student had to HOP in number order from 1-10 while practicing various stimulus cards along the way.

Below you can see the crazy path I created for the kids to travel on their way to the.... 

...Christmas tree!

 By the time they reached their Christmas tree, each child got to pull an ornament out of the "Christmas box" I had and place it on the tree.  This means in order to obtain 1 Christmas ornament each child had to practice 10 DIFFERENT stimulus cards.  

 Below is a picture of one of my kiddos placing their ornament on the tree!

(I was able to get an average of 8-10 ornaments per session which is equal to 80-100 trials!!!!)

Parent Presents:  Christmas Ornament:

Children LOVE to GIVE to others.  What's more fun than making a Christmas gift for mom and dad?  I found these super cute Christmas Ornaments at the $ store!  This packet comes with 2 ornaments and you assemble them with glue. 

I love this type of activity because you can work on sequencing and following directions!  And look how cute they are!!!

 For each piece of the ornament my clients' had to practice 5 stimulus pictures...and there were at least 10 items to glue which is equivalent to at the very least 50 trials PER ORNAMENT!

And how very proud my kids were of themselves!  They now have something they can give mom and dad on Christmas day!!!!

Stuff the Stocking and Decorate the Christmas Tree: 2 Holiday Themed Games!

The last few Holiday Themed Freebies!  Parents don't hesitate to use these activities over the Christmas Holiday to work on speech and language goals!!!  

Go to the bottom of this blog to download these FREEBIES!

Game #1:  Stuff the Stocking:  is a fun quick game you can play while practicing on your child's target sounds.  The object:  to correctly produce the target sound in the appropriate context (word, phrase, sentence, etc) in order to place the picture on your child's stocking.  Once all squares have a picture on them...the stocking is full.  Whomever fills their stocking first...wins! 

You don't have small enough target pictures to fit the squares?  No problem! Go online and print several pictures of different "candies" and fill your stocking with "candy"! Yummmmmm!

I used Microsoft PowerPoint clip art for all of these pictures.  Since I needed these particular sounds (K, F, S) I decided to add them to this download.  If you are working on these sounds too, feel free to use these pictures for personal use. 

 

Remember: ONLY target the sounds your child is working on with his/her speech pathologist and ONLY in the context (isolation, syllables, words, phrases, sentences, etc.) with which your child can be successful.  Repeated incorrect production will yield nothing more that incorrect productions in the future.  Your speech pathologist can explain to you which level of complexity to work on .

Game #2:  Parents, you have probably seen several very similar activities out there.  I feel you can never have too many materials in your arsenal to keep things fresh.  So, these are my versions.  For Decorate the Christmas Tree, I like to make a big Christmas tree from butcher paper but if you are parent at home, you most likely won't have access to your own personal stash so I added an plain tree template you can start with.

Here is a page of ornaments you can use to decorate your tree.  (I like to use contact paper with sticky side facing out and let the children put the ornaments anywhere they would like on their tree!)  It's how they obtain their ornaments that count!

I will do several things to keep this game interesting:  

1)  Pin the ball on the tree:  this game requires a few practices of the articulation or language target (speech sound in words, phrases, sentences, etc) before they are blindfolded and pin their Christmas ball to the tree.

2)  "Ornament Fishing":  I paperclip articulation pictures to Christmas ornaments, and have my kiddos use a fishing rod (with a magnet on the end) to "fish" their ornament.  Before they place it on the tree they must practice their target word first.

3)  Hide N Seek:  Yes this is exactly what it sounds like...you hide the cards and your child seeks!  There are 2 versions you can do:  A) hide the target pictures and after your child finds and practices the target they choose a Christmas Ornament from a bucket and place on tree.  B) hide the ornaments and after practicing a few target pictures let your child seek, find and place the ornament on the tree!

Anyway, I hope you enjoy these cute little Freebies!  Remember the goal is to practice your child's speech and language goals in a fun and motivating way.  Keep it light and don't get stressed out if your child can't obtain that sound or remember the word correctly.  Model, model, model the correct way to say something!  Your child will eventually learn that skill.  Good luck!

Click below for your downloads:

Decorate the Christmas Tree

Stuff the Stocking


Enjoy!  Happy Talking!

**Materials are for personal use only.  Communication Station: Speech Therapy, PLLC reserves the creative rights to all materials made and distributed via communicationstationspeechtx.blogspot.com**

10 Ways to Target Speech and Language during Christmas!

 

I am writing the post because this year, as my son turns 2 1/2 yrs. old, I realized how many things we naturally do during the Christmas Holiday Season that is language-rich and an EASY way to target our child's speech and language development at home.  My focus on the  Christmas holiday traditions is not to exclude other religious or cultural holidays but to write about a topic with which I am familiar.  If you have some language-rich activities you do with your family for other holidays, please comment below so others can benefit from your ideas!

So here's a quick list of 10 fun things you can do this holiday season to support your child's communication development:

1.  Elf on the Shelf-one of our favorite holiday traditions in the Del Duca household is our Elf on the Shelf.  As a parent it is fun to see the wonder and excitement in my son's eyes each morning as he searches for "Buddy" (yep...that's our elf's name...thank you Will Farrell)!  But as a speech pathologist I LOVE this activity because for 24 days (or more if you start right after Thanksgiving) you are focusing on "Where"?s and teaching prepositions (location words, e.g. "in, on, behind, under, above," etc.) through a real-life fun activity.

 2.  Decorating the Christmas Tree-this activity is great for vocabulary development as you can talk about the different Christmas ornaments you have.  You can teach descriptive words and even focus on answering "Who?s" by labeling who may have given you the ornaments in the past.  Its also a great sequencing activity talking about what you do 1st (cut down, or buy/unpack and assemble tree), 2nd (put on lights if not decorated with lights already), 3rd (put on ornaments), 4th (garland/tinsel/ribbon, whatever), 5th (candy canes?).  Whatever your typical process is to decorate your tree.  You can use words like "first, next, last, before, after"...great sequential words!

3.  Cookie Making, Baking, & Decorating!-Oh so fun!  I love this activity because it is language-rich, sequential and ALSO focuses on math within measurements.  Again you can talk about sequential words (examples above), use self-talk and parallel-talk (find further explanations of what these are here) to describe your actions, and use descriptive words (colors, shapes, textures, etc.) when decorating cookies.

4.  Reading Christmas Books-some of my personal favorites are How the Grinch Stole Christmas, the Polar Express, as well as Twas the Night before Christmas (of course).  What great vocabulary in these books!  Also rhyming (phonological awareness), making predictions and inferences, etc can be targeted and practiced.  If you are religious, reading stories about the Nativity lends itself to a whole new set of vocabulary words children don't typically hear in school (unless in a Christian school) such as "wise men, frankincense, myrrh, manger, shepherds, etc.".

5.  Making a gingerbread house-who doesn't love to make gingerbread houses?  Especially when you get to eat the candy as you work!  I love this activity because you can talk about all the different foods and candies you are putting on your house.  Its a great sequencing activity.  Your child can problem solve how to keep the candy from falling off the house.  You can talk about patterning of red and green (or whatever colors you are using)candies, count out the number of candies or foods you are going to use, use self-talk and parallel talk to describe your actions.  So many wonderful language skills in this one activity!

6.  Catalog Shopping-going through store catalogs and/or circulars and spending time cutting out pictures of what toys your child wants and pasting the pictures onto a piece of paper (making a collage or booklet) is a GREAT activity!  You get to practice cutting and pasting as well as talk about all the cool toys your child wants and why your child would like them.  Some parents get nervous with this activity because they feel that if their child asks for the toy, they must then go buy it for them.  But you can just explain that this is just a "wish list" and that Santa (or mom and dad if you don't do Santa in your house) will get what he/she/they think is best.  IF that is not an option for your family, you can still do this activity.  Just spend some time before the activity picking and choosing the circulars that have only the toys you have or are getting your child and have your child cut pictures out of those certain circulars.

7.  Singing Christmas Carols-you don't realize how many new and different vocabulary words are in Christmas songs until you start to sing them.  Really!  What other time of year would your child talk about a "partridge in a pear tree" or that the "horse was lean and lank"?  Another great thing about singing songs together is you can sing as fast or slow as you want if you are singing without music accompaniment.  Which means for children who have articulation deficits or apraxic behaviors, singing songs slowly will help them produce their target sounds with more success.  Also singing helps create a rhythm which is great for children with disfluencies.

8.  Writing a letter to Santa-a perfect activity to practice creating complete sentences with correct use of vocabulary, grammar and organization.  You can do this in writing if your child is old enough (great to practice spelling as well) or if your child is young you can still focus on these skills by having your child verbally tell you what he/she wants to write and you can use modeling and rephrasing to demonstrate how to create complete sentences.  Plus its so fun to watch them as they are talking about the things they are hoping Santa will bring them!

9.  Looking at Christmas Lights-depending on what opportunities you  have in your area, you may be able to go to a light display that has many different kinds of lights and Christmas character displays.  If not, you can do what we used to do (and still do to this day), make a thermos full of hot chocolate, get in the car, and drive around looking at Christmas lights.  What does this have to do with language?  Think about all the different adjectives you can use when talking about light displays (bright, beautiful, colorful, simple, tremendous, etc.) as well as great vocabulary when looking and naming Christmas icons you see!  Maybe you can even play "I spy" or some other game to target listening, following directions, memory recall and even receptive comprehension (especially if you are using descriptive words to describe an object you see rather than naming the object).  Such a fun holiday activity to do with family!

10.  Christmas Scavenger Hunt-this is one of my very, very, very favorite activities to do focusing on vocabulary, modifiers, direction following, problem solving and so many more language and cognitive skills.  I like to print out the Christmas Scavenger Hunt from Speakingofspeech.com (click the link above find your copy) and take my son to the mall or numerous stores and we use Bingo markers or stickers and mark off every time we find an object pictured!  It really is a fun time!  You could also drive around your neighborhoods and find these items as well if you wanted to!

A few other fun activities you can find on the internet that are great for older kiddos are telling Christmas jokes (awesome if you are targeting figurative language and understanding humor), figuring out Christmas song puzzles (great for problem solving and reasoning skills), Christmas trivia (focus on auditory comprehension and recall), and even Christmas mad libs (so great for discussing parts of speech).  You can find a FREEBIE Christmas Songlibs from Sublime Speech by clicking this link.  Just type these activities into your browser and some great printables will come up!

So these are my top 10 language-rich activities to do at Christmas time!  What are yours?  Comment below!

Happy talking and enjoy the holiday season!