Home “Play” NOT Home Work for Speech

Ann Suess Cobb, the new GiGi’s Playhouse Quad Cities Speech and Language Pathologist, has shared the following suggestions with some of her current students (ages 2-4) and we thought maybe others would benefit from it as well!

Mirror Play

I have mentioned playing with facial expressions in the mirror at toothbrush time.  Keep this up and here are some things to expand in the mirror/face play.

1. Use shaving cream to draw on the mirror on your faces! On the mirror give yourself a beard/mustache/crazy hair.  This will hopefully encourage talking about facial features and try to get him/her to name them, and of course giggles!  This is also a good fine motor activity if you are daring enough to let him/her then finger-paint in the shaving cream on the mirror.
2. Make animal masks out of paper plates. I have included links for templates.  Then put on the masks while looking in the mirror and model/encourage the animal sound!

Links to printable masks:

https://www.firstpalette.com/craft/printable-animal-masks.html

https://www.dltk-kids.com/animals/paper_plates.html

https://www.lifeissweeterbydesign.com/paper-plate-mask-craft-for-kids/

Cars, Trucks, Boats and Planes—And Don’t Forget a Bus!

1. Small vehicles are great for getting kids talking, taking turns and building their knowledge of action words like vroom vroom and beep beep.
2. Announce “ready, steady—go” before driving over little body parts.
3. We’ve heard from many out there in the field that children often say the word “bus” before car, so if you can find a bus, it’s sure to be a favorite.

Wind Up for Fun

1. A walking robot, monkey with cymbals, hopping frog—there are so many fun wind-up toys out there to choose from.
2. Practice requesting words like “more” and “please.” These little movers are a great way to introduce and reinforce “go” with the phrase “ready, set….go!”
3. You may also work on concepts like “down” by winding one up and asking the child, “Where should I put this?”

Books and Songs

All books are wonderful but especially ones that have a lot of repetition and encourage noisemaking.

Here are some suggestions:

• Books of Songs like Old Mac Donald, Head/Shoulders/Knees/Toes, Wheels on the Bus, etc
• Moo Ba La La La – Sandra Boynton (and almost any of her books)
• Any of the Brown Bear, Brown Bear books
• Animal Sound Books – I love Eric Carle Around the Farm, and Hear Bear Roar
• You can always add your own sound effects to a favorite story!

GiGi’s also has a Speech and Language board on their Pinterest page! We will be adding new activities there as we can.