What worked with my preschool and elementary school aged kids?? (Part 2)
by
Purvi Gandhi
Today, I’m going to continue talking on how I was able to use some of the immediate items at my home for facilitating speech and language goals in children.
Use of Blocks:
One can use blocks in a variety of ways. I have used them to build towers, make small garages for cars, prisons to put in “bad guys” by the superheroes, farm house to put animals in their house, counted blocks, sorted them into different shapes and colors, and played Jenga with older age group kids.
Goals:
Working on pragmatic goals like requesting for a block, asking for clarification, taking turns, and asking questions.
Improves pretend play, imagination and creativity in kids.
Working on labeling colors, shapes, and size. One can also use other pretend figures to label them while playing with the blocks.
Working on using verbs while building towers and other construction structures.
Working on using prepositions, “ should I put the block on top/ bottom, in front/behind, on/off?
Working on adjectives, like big/small.
I have used the blocks to practice production of sounds at syllable level while building towers.
Utilized any communication goal while playing Jenga focusing on each of the client’s goals.
Use of boxes, paper plates, paper cups, toilet tissue rolls:
I have used empty card boxes to make basketball hoops, race car garages, ball rolling games and golf games to score points.
Paper plates were used to make tic tac toe games, frisbee, and animal masks.
I have used paper cups to make phones, and play bowling games.
Toilet tissue and bounty rolls were utilized to make binoculars, and other fun games.
Goals:
Working on pragmatic goals like requesting items, taking turns, asking questions, listening to the speaker as you are following directions.
Following 1-step, 2-step, and multi step directions.
Asking and answering a variety of – Wh questions.
Problem- solving strategies.
Sequencing and retelling the steps to create the final product or craft.
Writing down simple steps or using descriptive language for older age groups.
Formulating grammatically correct sentence structures, using appropriate grammatical markers, punctuation marks and parts of speech.
Working on creativity and more hands- on projects providing the child tactile feedback and the joy of creating something.
Working on articulation goals at all levels while playing the games.
