Play Doh and Legos...Legos and Play Doh

Once again the fans on our FB page came through and suggested some great things, commonly found in a home with children, for me to blog about with regard to reinforcing speech and language skills.  I selected two items this time (because only two people responded! LOL)  No matter, they were great suggestions.

Hands down, Play-Doh has got to be one of my ALL TIME favorite therapy materials. It is so versatile, cheap, FUN and selfishly the smell takes me to my "happy place" so I use it often. The only BAD thing about Play-Doh is that you can't sanitize it so, if you see 5 or 6 kiddos in one day....you go through ALOT of Play-Doh. So, here we go..ways to use Play-Doh to enhance speech and language skills;

*colors (make different sized balls and sort into the correct colored containers, make your own color creations and name them or ask you child for a certain color)
*choices (do you want the red or yellow?)
*sequencing tasks (roll out the dough, then press the cookie cutter in and put the cookie on the sheet)
*vocabulary development (make pretend foods, make shapes, make cookies etc)
*prepositions (hide a ball under the container, in the container, over the container)
*sizes (make a big ball, little ball, medium sized ball)
*directions (take the blue ball and put it in the bowl, take the BIG blue ball and put it in the little yellow cup)
*verbs (squish, roll, press, smack, slap, push, pull, open/close (container), poke, pinch, share etc)
*articulation practice (make items with the play doh that have the child's error sound)

There are so many more but this list should get your ideas flowing.

Ways to use Legos to enhance speech and language skills;

*colors (sorting, patterns etc)
*choices
*sizes (big/little, tall/short, thin/fat, long/short) also sorting sizes
*make a tower and knock it down-GREAT fun for early speech fun  (BOOM!, READY, SET, GO!  CRASH! UH- OH! FALL DOWN!)
*for older children who need practice on verbal expression they could explain "how" to make something to another "take the little, red brick and put it on top of the blue brick"
*articulation (give a Lego as a "reward" each time a child says their word, phrase, sentence using their speech sound correctly)
*more articulation practice (have the child read directions or explain how to make something to practice their speech in structured conversation)
*concept of same/different
*concept of matching ("Can you find a match for this one?") or trace the legos and see if the child can find a "match" based on the outline.

Like with the Play-Doh there are many more uses but this list should get you started!

As always, I'd LOVE to hear your comments/ideas for how to use these items to enhance speech and language skills.