Putting Therapy Into Practice
Have your child brainstorm their three favorite memories from the school year. Divide a piece of paper into three sections and have your child write or draw one memory per section. Then, have your child talk about what they liked best about this memory: where they were, what they did, and who was there.
Monthly Activity
Bug Box:
You will need the following items:
- a container with a lid (i.e. milk containers, plastic honey jar)
- grass
- soil or dirt
- a tool for the parent to poke holes
Have your child collect a small amount of dirt and grass from outside. Place these on the bottom of the container. Poke holes to ensure proper air circulation. Go outside and collect bugs with your child.
Talk about:
- type of bug (ant, caterpillar, worm, firefly, butterfly)
- characteristics of the bug (wings/no wings, spots/no spots, number of legs, color, size, fuzzy/slimy)
- what the bug will need to eat
- what does the bug do? (crawl, fly, light-up, wiggle)
Ginny’s Recommended Activity
The toy of the month is one that you can make at home by collecting little toy characters from around your house (i.e. princesses, super heroes). You will also need something to use as a door (i.e. dollhouse door, shoe box, paper). This is a versatile activity targeting many areas of speech and language. Below are a few suggestions to consider while talking and playing with your child:
- Question Formulation: Have your child sit at a table with the “door” in front of them. Put a character behind the door and then pretend to knock. Cue your child to say Who?, Who is it?, Who’s there?
- Language Processing: Give clues and have your child guess, based on your description of the character, who is at the door (i.e. He is a bear who likes honey and is friends with Piglet).
- Language Expansion
- greetings (hi/bye)
- descriptives (big/little, red/green, soft/hard)
- spatial concepts (inside/outside, in front of/in back of, behind/next to)
- sequence (first/then/last, before/after)
- play scheme (birthday party, bedtime routine, mealtime routine)
- Motor Speech Control: Speak with your PROMPT© trained clinician to determine out which words in the following lexicon are appropriate for your child at this time: come in, go away, hi, bye, who, who is it?, who’s there?, who do you see?
Upcoming Events
- June 5th-June 7th: Celebrate Fairfax!
- June 6th: 10:00 Imagination Bethesda
- June 10th-June 12th: Tall Ships Tours in Alexandria
- June 21st: Father’s Day! Have fun playing with dad!
- June 24th-June 28th: Smithsonian Folklife Festival on the National Mall
- June 30th-July 4th: World Children’s Festival on the National Mall
Ongoing Events
- AMC Theatres offer sensory friendly films once a month
- Meet a Farm Animal at the National Zoo every Saturday and Sunday at 11:00
- Special Needs Night at Flight Trampoline Park on the first and third Tuesday of every month from 5:00-7:00