I always enjoy welcoming a new year! While it doesn’t necessarily change much in the day-to-day aspect of our lives, it gives me a sense of renewal and always reminds me to take a step back and to reflect on how far I’ve come both personally and professionally while setting and revising new goals for the future! This January I introduced some cute crafts that targeted speech and language skills. While we live in the Boston area, it really hasn’t felt like the typical Boston Winter this year (which I think we are owed after last year!). So I tried to incorporate some snow themed activities to help keep in mind we should be seeing some more snow!
Snow Globes:
Keeping the cold/snow theme in mind, the children made snow globes with the “snowflakes” containing their target words. This is a very simple craft. All you need is a light blue circle and a trapezoid base! I printed articulation words off of speakingofspeech.com and from a few other websites! The children glued the target words on and they were able to add a snowman or snowflakes if they wanted with a white crayon. Then they took it home and were told to practice the words for carry-over.
Snowball Splat:
I purchased this great activity set on Teachers Pay Teachers from Peachie Speechie. I used the various worksheets throughout the month! I like them because they can be used in a variety of ways! One such way is with dobbers! The children love to use the paint dobbers to mark the target words as they say them. I also will slip the sheets into page protectors and let kids “smash” play-doh balls on the target words. These sheets create great multi-sensory activities!
Note: Dobbers can be found here.
Snowmen:
We read many snow-themed books this month. Some of my favorite winter books are the Interactive Winter Books from Speech Room News. They really engage the child and allow the child to interact throughout the book. After we read some of our winter books, we completed a snowman craft. I used this craft as a way to target increasing utterance length, following directions, color identification/labeling, size concepts, and requesting. I prepared the materials ahead of time and made sure I had an example to show what was expected. I really enjoyed seeing the different ways children created their snowmen!
For some of my other children who either didn’t quite have the fine-motor skills yet for the small pieces, or who had sensory aversions to the glue, I modified the activity by using a coloring sheet. The children could still request different colors, follow directions, request/comment, etc. Everyone enjoyed making a snowman!
This January has been a great start to the new year! February therapy activities will be focused around Hot Chocolate and Valentines Day!! Be sure to keep an eye out for the February blog post!