It's the Little Things...

When I think about my life priorities, they fall in this order: 1. God 2. Family and Friends 3. Coffee. In C’s 25 months of life, he’s picked up on that. Coffee (or Cokee) was probably one of his first 50 words. When C was 6 months old, my best friend bought him What Every Child Needs To Know About Coffee ,  and his love for coffee has only grown from there! A few weeks ago, my best friend, C and I went to a fun little coffee shop in the town where we work. The have a great play nook for kids complete with...a kids coffee machine! C LOVED it (I think because it helped him feel like an adult), so we rushed to the store and found him one of his very own ...                                                          This has been one of his favorite toys of the past month! I LOVE Melissa and Doug toys. They are great quality ...

Confession: Before I had C, I literally knew NOTHING about little boys. Sure, I’d worked with 75% boys being a SLP in schools for 5 years, but I knew nothing really about parenting little boys. Two of my worries included How would I teach a little boy to be a nice person and What type of quality literature was written for little boys (my mom is a reading specialist, so quality literature is important….and you never truly understand the importance of quality literature until you’re asked to read Happy Troll-o-ween! (DreamWorks Trolls) (Pictureback(R))   on repeat for a week, just a side note). At my first shower, one of my oldest friends gave me Little Blue Truck board book .  I read it once and fell in love. It’s one of C’s favorites, too, with the sweet truck and lots of fun farm animals. Luckily for us, there’s a whole series of Little Blue Truck  books now! Each book has a sweet theme, teaches social skills and packs in lots of early speech/language skills, too! ...

My FAVORITE book as a toddler was Brown Bear, Brown Bear. I adored bears and, therefore, the book. I asked my mom to read it to me every night. So often, in fact, that I had it memorized when I was about 2 and a half and my parents recorded me “reading it” (glided R’s and lisp included). So when C started getting interested in Polar Bear, Polar Bear, What Do You Hear? (Brown Bear and Friends) ,  I ran with it! This book as SO many speech and language targets appropriate for toddlers! I LOVE to read books more than once. The first time, I’m all for reading the book in it’s entirety and just letting the child listen and learn. Each subsequent time, I like to choose a different target to focus on. Every time I read a book, I don’t always read the words (I like using a technique called dialogic reading to increase oral language skills). Here are a few of my ideas: Colors Learning to identify and express colors is a milestone for 2-3 year olds. C doesn’t know his yet...whi...

My son turned 2 a few weeks ago, and we suddenly have a full blown toddler in our house. To be completely honest, I LOVE 90% of this age! It’s so fun to watch C develop a personality and opinions. He’s growing into such a sweet and caring little boy. Last weekend we went to a friend’s house for a party, and C (who is usually on the shy side), went and asked a boy we had met once to play because he was sitting by himself. It was so sweet to see him be so inclusive. He’s also started to tell me stories about what happens while he’s at daycare. Although he has a wonderful babysitter and friends, it’s still tough to leave him, so I love that he’s able to relay memorable parts of his day to me. Along with the amazing things that C’s developed have also come the dreaded toddler temper tantrums ! Working at an early childhood school. I’ve become very familiar with what they look like, however I’m new to the embarrassment that comes when it’s YOUR child that’s screaming and incons...

If there’s one thing I have learned working at a school, it’s that kids LOVE cars! When I got my first job working with preschool and elementary school students, my mom bought me 5 wooden cars from the dollar aisle at Target. They are the most well loved and favorite toy in my speech room! Luckily, there are so many language skills you can target using cars! 1. Basic Concepts According to Super Duper publications , “Basic Concepts are the foundation of a child’s education. They are words that a child needs to understand in order to perform everyday tasks like following directions, participating in classroom routines, and engaging in conversation.” Basic Concepts include words pertaining to colors, directions, prepositions, quantities, shapes, sizes and more. Cars provide such a fun and natural opportunity to introduce your child to these words! Practice playing a little “red light, green light” or racing with your cars and embed words like “stop, go, fast, slow.” At fir...

Hi everyone! Now that Thanksgiving is over, it feels like Christmas is in full swing! I wanted to write and suggest a few songs on YouTube for Christmas. We love having some new songs to listen to, especially because it means introducing C to Christmas! 1. S-A-N-T-A by Super Simple Songs A fun, holiday take on “B-I-N-G-O,” this little song is sure to be a favorite! It’s a great introduction to colors (red, white) and letters! 2. Little Snowflake by Super Simple Songs This is a sweet, original song that my preschool students have loved for years! It offers a simple introduction to body parts (head, nose, hand) as well as opportunities to talk about verbs like skating. My preschool students have debated for years if the girl at the end is the snowman’s mom, sister or girlfriend! :) 3. What Do You Want For Christmas? By Super Simple Songs This song was a new discovery this year, but I really love it! It reminds me of the “Knock Knock, Trick or Treat” songs ...

Hi there! I hope that everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving and was able to reflect on all of the blessings in your life! Now that Thanksgiving is over, Christmas is in full swing! I’m here today to give you some ideas for gifts that can help promote or improve speech/language skills. I’ll share a few toys for younger children and games for older children, too! Lately, I’ve been reviewing toys and giving ideas for how to use them to help with your child’s speech/language skills. If you’ve missed those, you can find the posts (as well as amazon affiliate links to buy the toys that I’ve reviewed) on the farm , slide , books and the kitchen/grocery store . I still think each of those toys are GREAT for working on speech/language skills. But if you needed a few more ideas, keep reading! Here is a wonderful handout from the University of Texas at Dallas explaining different types of play and how to help as a parent. Now… onto the toys! Blocks Blocks are a simp...