What have you been doing this week?

In my therapy room this week we have been getting dirty! I wanted to share a great activity for the younger members of our caseload.  I have a few young kids at the moment who love water and sensory play.  This activity has been perfect.  Great engagement, fab play and increased language output. My goals change a little depending on each kiddie. It is a great flexible activity.

My goals for one kiddie was verbs and basic concepts.

What do you need?
Some farm animals – A pig is a must
A couple of plastic containers
Dirt
Scrubbing brush
Cloth
Water

The animals can ‘jump’, ‘roll’ and ‘sit’ in the mud.  Once they are nice and dirty, two-word utterances can be targeted, ‘dirty feet’ ‘dirty ears’, ‘dirty pig’. Body parts, as well as animal vocabulary, can be explored.  the activity is so engaging that you get multiple repetitions.  Loads of opportunities to teach and to practice.

Time to get clean!  Wash and scrub those eyes and tail clean.  Animals always have time for a splash when they are wet.  Out of the bath to get dry.  To extend the activity we have a plastic container with a little food.   For children with heightened sensory profiles, I add a spoon or tongs to assist with the transfer from mud to water.

let's get dirty

dirty play at speech pathology

Need a slightly different activity to reinforce the same concepts?

This was such a great activity, that I wanted to expand and build on it for future sessions.  So what is similar but different?  A car wash!    I purchased sponge rollers from a $2 shop and substituted animals for cars.  You can use different coloured cars to work on colours and add a road to add in bumps and turns.  A roundabout is great for working on around.

Car wash play in my therapy room

These activities have been winners in my room the last couple of weeks, hope you enjoy them as well.