The Popcorn Sound

This week we talked all about our popcorn sound /p/. We are going to do fun things with popcorn the next couple of weeks. We talked about how /p/ is a really quiet sound with air that explodes from your mouth. We had the kids put their hands in front of their mouth to try to feel the air. You can use the sheets attached below to practice the /p/ sound but if your kiddo doesn't love drill work you could turn it into a game, or if that might be tough, just model a lot of /p/ words yourself. You can always pull out some bubbles to try to do quiet "pop"s!

Isolation

• Practice /p/ by itself. You can do it in front of a mirror, or video your practice together. Then you can watch it after you finish!

CV Combos

• Use this sheet from Heather's Speech Therapy to practice some CV combos.

VC Combos

• We often target sounds word initial first, but for certain kids on some sounds, word ending is easier! You can use the same sheet but use the vowel before the /p/. Or just practice "up!" Tell your bubbles to go "up" or hit a balloon up in the air.

Words

• Try these words from Heather's Speech Therapy. You can say them then crinkle them and throw them, or hang them in a darkened room and use a flashlight to find them.

The next two weeks, we are targeting speech sound skills and phonological awareness a lot. Usually, each week, I target phonological awareness for at least a few minutes at the beginning of our group. Phonological awareness is an essential pre-reading skill for all kids. Phonological awareness starts with awareness of sounds and increases into the ability to identify sounds in words, manipulate, rhyme, and segment syllables. If you would like to read more about phonological awareness. Super Duper has a nice handout about it and you can find it here.

We are also talking about basic concepts this week at large group. We are doing fast/slow, high/low, and over/under. Basic concepts can be really tricky for kids to learn because their meaning is often reliant on context. So kids really have to put together several pieces in order to consistently comprehend a basic concept word. You can play with a blanket at home to target some of those words like we did with the parachute : )

Attached below is our activity card for the week:

Low Pressure Play Time

Sometimes kids might have anxiety around verbal communication. There could be a lot of reasons for this. Maybe they are shy, have an articulation disorder, stutter, other things I haven't thought about, or a combination of these factors. Sometimes, it is appropriate to put a little pressure on children to communicate. I do this SOMETIMES with offering forced-choice questions or even saying "tell me..." I've found, however, that usually, the harder you push, the harder a child is going to push back and dig his/her heels in. I found that for most children, it is more effective to tempt them to communicate by waiting (so, so much wait time and silence), talking about what you or they are already doing, or playing dumb (it has to be believable).

It is not always the case that kids are not talking because they are anxious about it, sometimes they do not yet have the words, or maybe they have learned that not talking is an effective way to avoid. If you have questions about your particular child, please talk to me, Annette, or Amanda.

For kids who truly do have anxiety around communication, one of the best ways I have found that supports their communication skills, is providing a time for low pressure communication exchanges. This allows a safe space for a child to communicate (or NOT - if that is what they choose, low pressure remember) and be communicated with. The goal is to share a moment and attention with a child. My goal is usually 20 minutes but 5 minutes is more doable and will still make a difference.

During this time provide:

• Comments NOT questions
• No clarifying questions, watch your intonation on the end of your phrases
• Way more silence than you are comfortable with
• Materials you and your child can both engage with separately and together
• No distractions (i.e., cell phone)

It truly does not matter what you are doing, as long as it is something your child is interested in. I usually just join a child with what they are already doing. I took an example of me interacting with my son. It is EIGHT minutes but stick with me.

Yummy and Yucky

This week we read one of my favorite books!!! Yummy and Yucky by Leslie Patricelli.

We first talked about how we all like different types of food and it is OKAY if you like something and someone else does not. One of our puppets, Bob, read us the story "Yummy and Yucky" since the story repeats, the kids are encouraged to read along with Bob ("Bob" because that is our sound right now).


We asked a lot of yes and no questions about the foods that Bob likes or doesn't like and the kids answered yes and no too.

On the first day of our group, we took turns feeding Bob different types of foods after we read the book. We took turns asking him "Bob do you like....?" and we helped him answer either YES or NO. When he liked it, he ate it, but when he didn't he spit it out.

We also talked about even if you do not like a food, as your tongue and mouth get older, you like more and more and more foods and that is one way that you can know you are getting bigger!

To extend at home you could practice yes/no questions and depending on your own child you could:

·      Ask a yes/no with a visual of the object  “Do you want milk?” (prompt with two people if you can – talk to me about this if you are interested in what this means)

·      Ask yes/no about what your child likes

·      Help your child ASK yes/no questions to other people in the family or puppets. Make it a Round Robin game so you can take turns and model the questions for your kiddo. You could make it funny – “Do you like shoes?” or  “Do you like to eat shoes?” etc..

Targets:  

• Vocabulary: Food terms, like, dislike, yummy, yucky
• Yes/No questions 
• Answering "yes" and "no"
• Asking yes/no questions

Target Sound

• Our Bouncing Ball Sound
• /b/

For the last two weeks, we have been reading this silly little book called "Halloween Boo!" All of the kids LOOOOOOOOVE this book. It is a pretty simple book but they love it. Our "B" word is "Boo!!" I actually got this book from someone ages ago. If you want a copy for home, send me a message in remind and I can print you a copy. 

Germs, Germs, Germs

This week during large group we talked about germs and why it’s important to wash our hands. Ms. Amanda/Bee told us about why we need to wash our hands—so we don’t spread germs and spread sickness. She showed us how germs spread from one person to the next by sneezing glitter germs onto her hand and then she shook all of our hands. The glitter germs spread from her hand to everyone’s hand! Yuck! We then talked about when we need to wash our hands and practiced sneezing or coughing into our elbows. Ms. Amanda/Bee coughed towards us without covering her cough and sprayed each of us with germs (glitter) to demonstrate how important it is to use our “superhero” elbows to catch all of the germs in our elbows and not share them with our friends. Last we practiced all the steps of how to wash our hands the correct way. We worked on following directions and sang a fun song to help us remember the right way to wash our hands. Maybe when I get home you can help me remember all the steps to washing our hands correctly while singing our song.

“Tops and Bottoms” (Sung to ‘Frere Jacques’)
Tops and Bottoms, Tops and Bottoms (washing tops and bottoms of hands)

In between, in between (washing in between fingers)

All around your hands, all around your hands (washing around entire hand)

Makes them clean, makes them clean (rinse under the water)

Click here for "Handwashing Song"

After we sang our handwashing song, we danced to some music and played freeze dance. When we stopped, we all pretended to sneeze into our elbows. 

Targeted Objectives:

·      Vocabulary

·      WH questions: where, what, and why

·      Basic concepts: top, bottom, etc..

·      Following directions (visual and verbal)

Current Sound Target

·      /b/ in syllables and words

o   Our “Bouncing Ball Sound”