Putting Therapy Into Practice
While eating family dinner, talk with your child(ren) about what they are thankful for. Everyone takes a turn saying one item/person that they are thankful for, and Mom/Dad writes it down and puts it in a glass jar. At the end of the month the jar will be full!
Monthly Activity
Let’s Cook!
Discuss what your family eats for dessert on Thanksgiving (i.e. apple pie, pecan pie, apple crisp, oatmeal cookies). Then, ask your child to list his/her favorite dessert. Make the dessert with your child to serve during the month of November. This activity may 
be messy, but it is very important to allow your child to experience the actions (stirring, pouring, scooping etc.) of preparing the dessert.
Talk about:
- how it tastes: salty/sweet, crunchy/soft,
- how it feels: sticky, hard/soft
- what it smells like: strong/mild, good/bad
Jenifer’s Recommended Toy
A toy kitchen is a great toy for replicating a real-life activity that mommy or daddy performs. Make sure you put plates, cups, bowls, pretend food and utensils in the kitchen. Depending on the age of your child, you can encourage conversation during play to include:
- Commenting to stretch vocabulary:
- Concepts: clean, dirty, wet, dry, hot, cold, full, empty.
- Actions: open, close, put it in, take out, sort, pour, wash, clean.
- Nouns: stove, refrigerator, microwave, sink, faucet, freezer, timer
- Categories: appliances, food (subcategories: fruits, vegetables, protein), utensils (cooking/eating), things that are hot/cold
- Questioning: What do you put in the refrigerator? What do you put in the freezer? What do you put in the oven? Where do we put dirty dishes? What do we use to take out hot food from the oven?
- Sequencing: What do we need to do first? And then what? What happens after we put food in the oven? What do we need to do before we take the hot food out of the oven? Once the dishes are clean, where do we put them?
- Motor Speech Control: 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: cook, eat it, wash, open, dirty, in, put in, I do it/you do it.