It's the Little Things...

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! ...

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, everyone! Hope you are all having a great week getting ready for Thanksgiving! My school district is off all week, so I am enjoying extra time, snuggles and play with sweet C. Later this week, we will be traveling to see my father-in-law! I know many people will be swarming to grocery stores to buy last minute Thanksgiving food.  The grocery store and kitchen are both great places to teach children new vocabulary words. Playing little games/having children notice things in the store can also keep them entertained and engaged in the activity (buying you time at a busy store :)).You can also use toy kitchens and grocery sets to work on similar skills. Below are several of my favorite toys to target these skills and 8 ways to improve your child’s speech/language skills in the kitchen! At the Grocery Store: Describe the foods One way to improve your child’s speech and language skills is to expose them to new vocabulary and teach them to add descriptors to things t...

Hi there! I hope everyone has recovered from Halloween and has moved smoothly into the Thanksgiving season. We were a little nervous about the transition for C, but he seems to have accepted that Halloween is over. Thank goodness we can still have pumpkins out until Thanksgiving! Haha! Thanksgiving is coming up quickly, especially since it is so early this year! I only have 10 more days of school until Thanksgiving break, so I realized that I need to get moving on Thanksgiving. I feel like Thanksgiving is overlooked in the book and YouTube worlds, which makes me sad! I feel Thanksgiving is such a missed opportunity to foster a grateful heart for all we have been blessed with. Even though C is still little, we are trying to have a gratitude jar and engage in conversations around him about what we are thankful for. We are also moving into the Thanksgiving spirit with these sweet books and songs. Bear Says Thanks I read this sweet book to my kindergarten and 1st ...

Hi everyone! With the holidays coming up, I thought it might be fun to talk about different common toys and how they can be used to help your child develop speech and language skills. When I moved from my first Elementary School to Early Childhood about 5 years ago, I decided to buy some toys that I thought would be helpful. I scoured eBay and found a Fisher Price Farm set. I chose my particular set because it came with a variety of animals and made noise. Fast forward to now… for the first time in my career, I am not working with preschool students. The farm set was collecting dust in my garage until a few weeks ago, when I decided to clean it up and bring it in for C to play with. Y’all… he loves this toy! He played independently for about 20 minutes on it (and he never does that). As I was playing with him last week, I thought of several ways to use the farm set to build speech and language skills. Prepositions Prepositions are something that are challenging, especiall...