As the summer comes to an end and the fall colors start to pop, I wanted to share some recent activities I’ve been doing with some of my little friends. Before Fall showed its’ true colors, I squeezed in two summer-themed activities. First was a crab made out of each kids handprints. I love doing crafts with kids because they elicit so much language and the little ones always love the opportunity to use a glue stick! With the crab activity, my one little friend wanted to make it 3D and “feed the crab” his articulation pictures. It was a great way to work on his target words in phrases by saying “crab eats ____.”
Another summer themed activity I’ve been using a lot lately has been my kinetic sand box with some underwater animals. I’ve created a topic board as well as some PECS pictures. Its a great activity to use for requesting, following directions, and introducing some less common verbs such as “dig,” “burry,” “hide” “squish” etc. I also created a sentence strip “_____ in the sand” that allows my little ones to add a picture of a sea creature and then finish the sentence. The visual supports allow them to produce more comment based phrase/sentence rather than a request. I love how quickly my friends pick up the new sentence so quickly! Visual supports are key!
Now that it’s officially Fall, I started an apple theme with my little friends. This week we made paper plate apples using various picture stimuli. I used this activity for ALL of my friends. For those working on articulation, I printed the target pictures in black and white and had them color them the color of their favorite apple. For those working on expressive language, I printed out various verbs/pronoun pictures in black and white and color them. For my friends working on basic requests, I had them request what color apple they wanted to make, what materials they needed, requesting help, etc. Once the children colored the pictures, they needed to cut them out and glue them on to the plate. While they glued them we practiced the target pictures either labeling them or putting them in phrases/sentences. For my friends working on requests, I made sure to utilize a “arts and crafts” topic board, PECS pictures, and/or basic icons on my Sounding Board AAC app on the iPad. Access to total communication is key!
My remainder Fall themes will be Leaves, Fire Safety, Pumpkins/Halloween. Stay tuned for more posts on some creative activity ideas!