Something Fishy

I’m continuing through my summer of thematic teaching and offering you ideas of simple learning activities that you can do at home to encourage language learning. Last post I shared my ideas for beach week.  This week, I added a few things and now we are all about things that live in the ocean.  I…

Beach Week

Where I live, on the east coast of the U.S., most kids have some experience with the beach.  It is a common vacation spot as well as a day trip destination.  Whether or not you and your kids travel to sandy shores, you can have beach week at home and incorporate some learning as well.…

Boats

So, we are continuing the journey of streamlining toys to a single concept or theme to assist with teaching speech and language skills.  This week is boat week. My sensory bin has a few inches of water and several boats and a few Little People figures.  Pre-verbal and newly verbal kids are working on easy…

I Scream, You Scream, Teaching with Ice Cream!

Summer is here and by now your kiddos may already be tired of the slower pace and lack of schedules.  In my corner of the world, things don’t slow down, rather they ramp up!  New toys appear, new goals are written  and sessions are added to make the summer months productive for learning speech and…

Developing Early Speech

Developmentally, the first sounds a child uses are /m/, /p/, /b/ and vowels.  Sometimes /d/ is an early sound as well. If your child seems to be making sounds but is slow to combine the sounds into words, practicing consonant-vowel combinations with the sounds that are in their repertoire is a good way to build…

An App Discovery

I love to share with you my new discoveries! Beginning with Babble is a new app that has been developed by LEAP (Language Empowers All People) to assist caregivers of children birth to aged 4 with appropriate engagement and language modelling.  LEAP, a non-profit organization, has been at the forefront of research-based language and literacy…

The Marathon Parent

  This is not really a post on speech and language, but one on the journey of parenting.  These are my musings as I am prepping to send one child to the altar for a summer wedding and the other out into the world post spring college graduation.   The two remaining at home are…