May Flowers

Have your child look in their closet and/or dresser and have them make 2 piles: 1 for clothing that is too small and 1 for clothing that fits “just right”.  Take the clothes that fit and sort them into the following piles: one color vs another color (e.g. pink shirt/green shirt), stripes vs polka dots, pants vs shirts, like vs don’t like, dark vs light colors. Teach your child how to hang up their clothing and/or fold them for their drawers.

A plastic wash tub and miniature plastic dogs, some dirt and water make for really fun play.  This activity provides a fun sensory, real life experience that most kids love.  Even if your child doesn’t love touching mud or water, they can participate by watching you and directing you with their words. Take some dirt and put it into a plastic container with a lid.  Add some small plastic dogs.  Use a spray bottle to “make mud”, then shake up the container to make “muddy pups”.  Take turns with your child giving the muddy pups a bath, by taking them out of the muddy container and dropping them into the “tub” (your basin of clean water).  Depending on the age of your child, you can encourage conversation during play to include:

• Concepts:  clean, dirty, muddy, wet, dry, in, out
• Actions:  wash, dry, put in, take out, shake (to shake your container), make, spray (you could use a spray bottle to make your mud), take (a bath)
• Nouns:  pup, puppy, dog, tub, dirt, water, towel

• What happened?  What should we do?  What happens next?  Which one is still dirty?  Who is clean?

• How do we wash the dogs:  what do we do first? next? last?

• With this toy, you can target functional words and phrases. Speak with your PROMPT© trained SLP to develop an appropriate vocabulary to use to match your child’s level of motor speech control. A lexicon might include: pup, puppy, pup in tub, muddy pup, wash, oh no, in, put in, I do it/you do it.