Educational Colouring Pages

If you have ever been tasked with the daunting assignment of drawing your child's favourite TV or movie character, knowing your attempts will only end in confused little faces or quite possibly tears, or worse still had a child's favourite colouring in book commandeered by a younger crayon happy sibling, then you will know the value of this wonderful website Educational Colouring Pages.

Whether your child lives adventures with Dora and her talking backpack (with or without the Spanish accent)

Turns into aliens with Ben10

or dreams of simpler times when children's movies consisted of orphaned deer and lying puppets

You can find free printable colouring pages to suit your child's every whim, and save you and your little ones many tears.

While they are at it why not print two copies and work on their language skills 

1. Following Directions e.g. colour Dora's backpack blue

2. Giving Directions (have them tell you what to colour ) 

e.g. colour Ben10's watch green

If you have concerns regarding your child's speech or language development feel free to visit Small Talk Speech Pathology Website and follow the links to the email address. All questions will be answered as soon as possible.

Lauren

Dressing time - what to wear??

Everyday activities such as meal times, showering and dressing are great opportunities to develop children's language.  Here are a few language tips for dressing time:

• Use verbs eg. pull, put, stand up, sit down, button, zip, tie, hold.
• Use names of body parts eg. arm, leg, hand, foot, head, waist.
• Use names of clothing eg. pants, shirt, skirt, top, dress, socks.
• Use descriptive words and opposites such as clean/dirty, new/old, long/short, same/different, pretty/plain, light/dark, right/left, etc.
• Use location words such as up, down, on, off, under, in, out, through, around. 

Here is a dress up box http://planetgreen.discovery.com/home-garden/diy-dressup-box-cheap.html idea - great for both boys and girls.  

• You should be able to find everything you need at your local thrift shop. First you will need a dress-up box. A great way to do this, especially if you are giving it as a gift, is to get a suitcase to use as the dress up box.

• Once you have the suitcase you only need to fill it with clothing of all sorts. Keep in mind that the bigger the variety the more roles your child can try on.  Some of the items that work well are:

Formal dresses
Unique shirts
Military uniforms
Suit coats
Neckties
Hats
Purses
Shoes
Jewelry
Shawls
Scarves
Briefcases
Computer bags
Gloves
Aprons
Empty perfume bottles

• Be sure to wash everything before putting the dress up box together.

• Organising the dress up box.  Don't get so many items that they won't fit in the suitcase easily. 
• Final Touches.  The last thing to do is to personalise it. There are a variety of ways to do that. You can stencil the child/s name on the suitcase and decorate it however you want to.   Here are some other great ideas on how to personalise the dress up box/suit case.

http://kimboscrafts.blogspot.com/2010/04/thrift-store-take-4.html

http://kimboscrafts.blogspot.com/2010/04/dress-up-suitcase-girl-version.html

Enjoy and happy dress ups!

Vanessa

Play dough - homemade & made with LOVE!

We all love the squishy, comforting feeling of play dough and so do kids!

Play dough is a FUN filled activity for everyone and kids love it even more if the adults can get creative along with them and play with them.  Play dough is an inexpensive activity that can occupy kids for hours on end!

This is a simple no cook play dough recipe which you can make within minutes.   

Ingredients:

• 1 cup flour
• ½ cup salt
• 1 teaspoon cream of tartar
• 1 tablespoon oil
• 1 cup boiling water
• natural or food colouring (eg. beetroot, turmeric powder), optional

Note:  Increase the above amounts two or three times for more play dough which can be divided and coloured differently.

INSTRUCTIONS: 

1.  In a bowl mix all dry ingredients. 

2.  Add oil, liquid colouring and boiling water (warn kids if they are helping!) and stir until it all comes together.

3.  Tip the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead it until it becomes smooth. If the playdough is still too hot to touch, leave to cool a bit. Divide into several portions and add different colouring few drops at the time to each. Knead well into the playdough.

4.  Store in an airtight container after play time.  It will dry out quickly otherwise.

Last step, but not the least, have fun and play with your kids (for a little while)! It’s very therapeutic for adults, too, as you can see in the picture below !

More play dough making tips:

• For a textured play dough, add some glitter, dried lavender or sand.
• Add a few drops of natural cooking essence like orange, peppermint or almond for a nice smell, but omit if that will tempt small kids into eating the playdough – it IS natural, but way too salty.
• If the kids manage to eat some, don’t be alarmed, it won’t hurt them, they’ll just be very thirsty!
• Be alarmed if they eat commercial playdough – it is full of chemicals, with a weird sweet smell.
• Once the playdough starts to smell rancid, dries out or gets very dirty, it’s time to make another batch.

In addition to being a sensory, manipulative medium for children and assisting with the development of fine motor skills - 

play dough is brilliant for building language skills.

When playing with play dough, try using the following words:

Play dough Nouns:

knife, rolling pin, cutting board, cookie cutter, plate, circle, square, triangle, heart

Play dough Verbs:

cutting, rolling, squeezing, squishing, pulling, slicing, chopping

Play dough Adjectives:

sticky, soft, hard, smooth, rough, round

Play dough is another great activity to talk about concepts such as colours, shapes and sizes.

eg. "Let's make a small green star each". "Then we can try a big red square".  You can even theme your play dough sessions to extend your child's vocabulary further eg. baking, making facial expressions based on feelings, or occasions like Christmas, Easter etc.

Have fun and get creative!

Vanessa

Spring Showers and Playful Ideas

This beautiful creation by Juime would be a lovely way to expand your child's bathroom vocabulary and a way to ease anxiety for those little ones in the transition from baths to showers.

With a few days left of school holidays and the dreaded onset of these spring showers, why not use some of your enforced inside time to get creative and have a go at making this wonderful toy with your kids?

Needed:

One vintage suitcase like this one.

a hanging soap holder

A storage container for a bath. If you like this one get it here.

A little pocket mirror. If you don't have one of these lying around have a look at this sweet one on Etsy.

From your local hardware store, a small length of wooden dowel to fit across the top of your suitcase

and while you're there, pick up a small shower head (or take the opportunity to update your own and pass on the old one to a doll in need)

Finally, you will need some lovely fabric of your dolls choice to use as a shower curtain - 

why not use an old scarf or scrap fabric from a hemmed dress. If you get stuck, have a look here for some lovely options.

Have fun assembling all the pieces and work on your child's language as you do

example vocabulary: prepositions (in, on, over, through) 

- bath in

- soap on

- mirror on

- soap hanger over

- shower curtain through 

Have older children give you the directions and add "put the" into the beginning of their sentences.

If you have concerns regarding your child's speech or language development feel free to visit Small Talk Speech Pathology Website and follow the links to the email address. All questions will be answered as soon as possible.

I hope you all enjoy the last few days of school holidays and happy crafting.

Lauren

25 Snacks That Will Give You Energy Throughout The Day

Our energy is integrally connected to the foods we eat. The foods we choose to put in our body can either boost our energy, or drag us down. Here are great energizing foods that will support our general well-being and health. There’s 25, so I’ll get right into it!

25 Snacks That Will Give You Energy Throughout The Day!

To persuade your defiant little ones, try getting the whole family involved, or even making dinner or lunch a competition e.g. "who can eat something RED first?"

Happy snacking,

Lauren

Building Cupcakes ~ Building Language

Build Your Own Cupcake FREEBIE

These free printable cupcakes from the delightful blog Volume 25 are perfect for playing and learning.

1.  To teaching prepositions to early language learners  use sentences like “cake in”, “icing on”, “cherry on”.
2.  For the more advanced child add colours to the sentence e.g. “chocolate cake in”, “pink icing on”.
3.  For children with difficulties expressing themselves, have them tell you what they are going to make e.g. “I would like a chocolate cupcake, with pink icing and a cherry on top”.
4.  For children with difficulties understanding instructions have them follow your directions e.g. “find the chocolate cupcake” “put the pink icing with sprinkles on the top” “put a red cherry on the pink icing”.

If you have concerns regarding your child's speech or language development and would like to know more about what to expect for your child's age, feel free to visit Small Talk Speech Pathology Website and follow the links to the email address. All questions will be answered as soon as possible.

keep calm 

and 

bake on!

Lauren

Why not try making these lovely crayon hearts for some school holiday fun.

Step 1: cut up wax crayons into equal size pieces

Step 2: Mix pieces in a large mixing bowl

Step 3: Add even amounts of different coloured pieces to shaped baking trays

Step 4: Cook at 110 degrees Celsius for 15 minutes

Step 5: Allow to cool before removing from tray

Step 6: Enjoy your new rainbow heart crayons 

While you do this, why not take the opportunity to develop your child's knowledge of colours. e.g. find me a blue crayon, find me a red crayon...etc.

Have your child then use that colour in a sentences. Add the verb 'cut' and expand their sentences to a level that fits their current ability.

e.g. 

1. blue

2. cut blue

3. cut blue crayon

4. cut the blue crayon

If you have concerns regarding your child's speech or language development feel free to visit Small Talk Speech Pathology Website and follow the links to the email address. All questions will be answered as soon as possible.

happy learning,

Lauren