Therapy Thursday's... Barnyard Blues

This session was wonderfully well-rounded, our thursday was all about animals! It was great. I am a sucker for themes, so this was right up my ally. Melissa and Harrison played a puzzle with barnyard animals, they had pretend play with a toy barn and a few animals, and they "fed the pig" words that end in "t." Each activity had a specific "speech goal." They did some vocab (puzzle). Melissa snuck in some spacial word recognition (pretend play ex: is the pig IN the barn? No it's BEHIND the barn). They drilled by "feeding the pig" (See DIY Feed the Pig Blog) focusing on the "t" sounds.

Now normally on the way home my mind is racing trying to figure out a "real world application" but honestly this time I was really only left with two options. Track down a farm where he could go to see/pet the animals. Um, no. That is a Daddy thing and since Daddy is deployed it's not going to happen. I could take him to the zoo, this seems easy and fun right? In all actuality it's not so great. The zoo is almost an hour away, over twenty dollars and it feels almost impossible to maneuver at over 6 months pregnant. So we went home.

Then it hit me, if I don't want to go to the farm why can't I bring the farm to us? (Don't get too excited I didn't have a petting zoo set up shop in the backyard... I'm not that cool of a Mom!) I just built a fort. You know, out of couch cushions and blankets? I got on all fours (suddenly the zoo seemed more manageable) and we pretended to be animals! We went in, and out of the "barn." I hid behind and asked him questions like "Where is piggy? Is piggy behind the barn?" I pretended to be different animals and made Harrison tell me what I was. It was a lot of fun! We got in some barnyard vocab, as well as some spatial recognition concepts. Easy, fun and memorable to say the least!

DIY Speech Therapy... Feed the Pig

This drill game is too cute and very simple. It is so simple I like to call it DIY Speech Therapy. You will need a few simple supply's to make you're own. You'll need a file folder, a stapler, scissors, glue, a picture of a pig and "drill cards." (My drill cards are photo copy's of 8-10 words ending in the specific sound we are working on, P,T,K. Your's will need to be specific to your therapy). Once you have your supplies together you can enjoy the art project with your child.

1. Cut out the pig.

2. Glue it to the folder.

3. Use your scissors to cut a hole in the pig's mouth large enough for your drill cards to fit through.

4. Staple the sides together.

5. Feed the Pig!

Let your child pick a card out of a hat or a bowl. Say the word, with emphasis on the focus sound. Then he can feed the pig! Put it in the pig's "mouth" and I like to give a little tank you snort ;) When all the cards are in the pig's belly you can pull them out and place them on the table.

They can learn to point out the items, while you get one more round of practice. "Where is the hat(tttt)? There it is! Yay! Can you say Hat(ttt)?" And repeat until bored or all the words have been practiced for the second time. There ya go. DIY speech therapy!