I love incorporating arts and crafts in speech therapy!
I think speech therapy should be hands-on and exciting. Better yet, the kids take home a project they are excited to talk about- built-in home practice.
When I saw an idea on Pinterest for stamping hearts, I knew it was the perfect Valentine's day project for this week.
How does this fit into speech therapy you say?
Let me count the ways....
Articulation:
The children say "hearts" every time they stamp and work on articulation of:
1. initial /h/2. vocalic r
3. final s-clusters -/ts/
4. plural 's' too!
Try prompting "pink hearts, red hearts" now you are addressing:
5. initial /r/
6. velars
Say "stamp a heart" and work on:
7. initial s-cluster /st/
Add a brush and you have:
8. r-blends and
9. "sh" practice.
Verbs: Talk about what you are doing.
10.brush, paint, pop, dip (The hearts sometimes make a bubble that pops. Way cool.)
Concepts:
11. descriptive concepts/ adjectives: wet/dry, empty/full
12. quantitative concepts: many/few, some/all, more/less
13. sequence concepts: what did you do first? next? last?
Syntax:
14. past tense -ed What did you paint? "I painted a red heart."
You get the idea. I have listed just 14 ways to improve speech and language skills, and I bet you can think of many more. So grab a few empty toilet paper rolls, some paint and get stamping. Have fun and Happy Valentine's Day!
I linked up over at Old School Speech! To see more creative speech therapy this week, check out the linky HERE.