Kristen B. Speech Therapist

I get it, using crafts in speech therapy can seem daunting. They’re messy, have tiny pieces, include some prep work and can take away from the learning…. Unless they ARE the learning.
Don’t focus on actually having a craft to send home. Focus on all of the language they are learning while making the craft together.
In this picture we have a lopsided Christmas tree with falling Pom poms and scribbles. That doesn’t matter.
Why? Because for 30+ minutes I had complete attention from my two year old. We focused on:
verbs-cut, color, draw, put,
Adjectives- sticky, big, little
The craft isn’t important, the learning is.

The first day back is tough for everyone.
Let’s keep it simple. I’m thinking no prep materials and literacy based therapy for everyone.

🚨Be wary of “educational toys”When you walk into a toy aisle you can quickly be overwhelmed by exciting. singing, moving, blinking “educational” toys. But they can actually have the OPPOSITE effect. 😳
It’s more beneficial is to step back, ditch the batteries, and allow your child to play with toys that allow them to explore and learn. They will learn more from building, pushing, exploring, and pretend play.
Need some ideas?
Try blocks, kitchen play sets, balls of different textures, pull toys, shovels, play doh and stacking blocks.

The first step to teaching children their speech sounds needs to be phonological awareness.
There can’t be any sort of generalization without it!
Use these “Dot My Sound” worksheets to help your students identify their speech sounds. 12 sounds in initial and mixed positions.

Dot My Sound- Phonemic Awareness for Speech Therapy The first step to teaching your student's their articulation sounds is making sure they can hear and detect it in words. Build phonemic awareness skills with these no prep worksheets. It's perfect for teaching your students their speech sounds, or to use as a warm up before they start their articula...

If I could boil this post down to one sentence it would be this “If you’re concerned about your toddler’s language, advocate for a speech and language evaluation and don’t take no for an answer.”
Getting early intervention will never harm your child. But delaying intervention CAN lead to negative lasting effects.

Teach your students how to identify the patterns of verb tenses with this differentiated verb tense kit.

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Verb-Tenses-Kit-Differentiated-Visuals-Activities-for-Past-Present-Future-6846919

Verb Tenses Kit- Differentiated Visuals & Activities for Past, Present & Future

Hear me out,
I will eventually focus on teaching a kid the importance of “please”. It’s nice pragmatics, it helps a child learn how to ask instead of demand, etc. etc.

But if a child has limited vocabulary (less than 200 words), it is far more useful to teach a child preferred nouns, verbs, and adjectives to communicate their basic wants and needs and participate in a conversation BEFORE they ask for something politely. I’ve got a great list you can find in my bio (“Early Intervention Vocabulary Words)

I see this a lot.
Kids start to ask for something (ex. bubbles). And we say to them.. “what do you say? bubbles PLEASE!”
The child repeats “please” to get what they want. Yay!

But wouldn’t it be far more useful to teach that child “blow bubbles, pop bubbles, no bubbles, where bubbles?” instead of “bubbles please”? All of these have more meaning!

Not sure what you could teach a child instead of “please”? Click the link in my bio for a list of “Early Intervention Vocabulary Words”.