\u00a0<\/p>\n 1. Wash Pumpkins <\/span><\/strong>– my children love a good tub of soap and water. During your session place the pumpkin in a large bucket of soap and water.\u00a0 First, the bucket was \u201cempty\u201d but now look at the \u201cfull\u201d bucket of fun.\u00a0 Allow the child to wash the pumpkin with a variety of rags, sponges, and brushes. Allow the child to use small cups to pour the soap and water \u201cover\u201d the pumpkins.\u00a0 Drying the pumpkins off with a variety of towels can be fun at the end too.<\/p>\n 2. Stickers, Jewels, and Craft Eyes<\/span><\/strong> – allow the child to cover the pumpkin with their favorite stickers. Maybe you use a favorite character, or jewels, or even craft eyes.\u00a0 My clients love to glue jewels of all kinds and craft eyeballs all over their pumpkins.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n 3. Articulation Targets<\/span><\/strong> – If working on a certain sound and there are particular words you are targeting with your child, you can easily write those words on plain stickers. As the child says the targeted word, they can stick it on their pumpkin.\u00a0 Taking a pumpkin home after a great session in speech therapy is so much more fun than a speech folder with worksheets. If you have a student working on \u201csight words\u201d, you can write those words on the stickers as well covering the pumpkin up as the child articulates the words.<\/p>\n 4. Painting Pumpkins<\/span><\/strong> – Some children love messy play, and nothing says a good time like painting pumpkins. Children can use brushes, but you can also fill squirt bottles with a variety of colors. Children will love watching how the colors mix together as they flow from the bottles they squeeze. If painting pumpkins is not tolerated well, then markers or stampers can be equally fun.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n 5. Motor Course<\/span><\/strong> – Pumpkins can be used to walk in and out instead of using cones. You could allow the child to jump over the pumpkin or walk around the pumpkin.\u00a0 You could allow the pumpkins to be used as a target for ring toss using Hula-hoops. One of my favorites is to push the pumpkin up a wedge or slide and let it roll down.\u00a0 This allows the opportunity to incorporate \u201cheavy work\u201d into your sessions which can indeed help to create focus, attention, and calmness.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n 6. Hide and Seek<\/span><\/strong> – I love to hide small pumpkins all around my clinic. The child then must use their words to tell me which one I should find, \u201cGet the pumpkin that is under the swing.\u201d\u00a0 We go back and forth giving directives.\u00a0 This game always ends with a bucket full of pumpkins and lots of giggles.<\/p>\n 7. Carve Pumpkin<\/span><\/strong> – Have your clients ever carved a pumpkin? Can you just imagine all the goo and yuck inside they have never even touched? Give it a try and see if they like it.\u00a0 What a memorable experience for all. You could even make pumpkin slime with real pumpkin guts!\u00a0 For another fun activity put all the pumpkin guts in a sensory squish bag. Children will love pushing and touching the guts while their hands stay clean too.<\/p>\n 8. Halloween Sensory Bin<\/span><\/strong> – Fill a bin or tub with rice or black beans, toy spiders, toy eyeballs, vampire teeth, bats, Halloween erasers, small pumpkins, and all things Halloween. Our children love to dig and discover in sensory bins with their hands or with large spoons and tongs.\u00a0 They will enjoy counting and sorting as well.<\/p>\n 9. Save a Pumpkin<\/span><\/strong> – I love to cover a pumpkin with blue painter\u2019s tape. Children love pulling the blue tape off all objects to \u201csave them\u201d.\u00a0 Maybe small pumpkins are trapped in a muffin tin, basket, or box.\u00a0 The possibilities are endless.<\/p>\n 10. Pumpkin Hammering<\/span><\/strong> – Gather a collection of golf teas and toy hammers and let\u2019s just see how many golf teas they can hammer into the pumpkin. What a great activity for letting off some preschool frustration.\u00a0 Join in too!\u00a0 We all have built up frustration from time to time!<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n No matter what activity you choose for your spooktacular speech and language therapy sessions, just remember to be excited and have fun.\u00a0 Never ever underestimate the importance of simply having fun with your clients. Time spent on the floor laughing and making memories while learning will never be wasted.\u00a0 Children are naturally creative.\u00a0 It is our job as therapists, educators, and parents to give them the space to get creative while helping them grow and learn.\u00a0 At the end of the day, if you are covered in glue, paint, and pumpkin guts then I know you had a spooktacular speech and language therapy session.<\/p>\n If interested, check out my upcoming live interactive webinar on November 4th during Summit’s Acceleration Virtual CE Conference, Low Budget Therapy Solutions<\/a><\/b><\/em>.<\/b><\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Belinda Worley![\"\"](\"http:\/\/l_new.local\/wp-content\/uploads\/Pumpkins-BW-1.jpg\")
<\/a>With the SPOOKTACULAR HALLOWEEN season, it is time to have extra fun with your clients using pumpkins.\u00a0 During speech and language therapy there is just so much to talk about.\u00a0 Pumpkins come in a variety of sizes, textures, and colors.\u00a0 We can talk about pumpkins, line them up, carry them, paint them and even form obstacle courses with pumpkins.\u00a0 Which pumpkin is bumpy or smooth?\u00a0 Which pumpkin is heavy or light?\u00a0 Which pumpkin is the largest, the medium size or the small one?\u00a0 Can we count small pumpkins?\u00a0 Do we have many or just a few?\u00a0 I have made a list of some of my very favorite pumpkin activities.\u00a0 I hope you can pick one, or maybe even two that can help add fun to your therapy sessions.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n
bptkids@yahoo.com<\/a>
www.bootheelpediatrictherapy.com<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n