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Nov 7, 2011

SLP Tip of the Week: Chocolate Sauce

Sometimes knowing how to help our little children learn how to speak and use their tongue can be quite a monumental task for two reasons: One) You, as an adult, don't remember how you learned to speak. Two) for most of us, we learned to speak without any problems or needing speech therapy. Therefore, as a mother learning to teach a child to discover their voice can be quite challenging but this exercise was always Jr.'s favorite.

A great way to determine your child's tongue strength is by how well they lick their lips. For Jr. he struggled to stick his tongue out from side to side or up-basically all he could do was stick his tongue out. He would typically use his sleeve to wipe food off. He also would drool sometimes when overly excited. He failed to use his tongue to push saliva back and
close his mouth to swallow-which was kinda yucky :)

You'll Need:
  • Hershey's chocolate sauce (or any kind)
  • Mirror (can use a bathroom mirror)
  • Patience
Sit down with you kiddo and tell them that you're going to practice licking your lips and show them. Tell them after your done you're going to make chocolate milk, Mooo. Then place a little chocolate syrup on their top lip and yours and tell them to lick it off. Then place some below their bottom lip and try licking it off. Once they feel comfortable with this try putting is outside the corners of their mouth. It really helps if you use a mirror and they can watch you and themselves practice. Remember make it fun. If they feel pressure to perform you might quickly overwhelm them and that's not the point-the point is to learn and have fun Together.

That's all she wrote





Contraptions

With a few extra hands the kids put together a ramp to bounce to funnel contraption. Its a little harder than Legos because nothing sticks together and requires a very gentle slow hand. It teaches them patience and gentleness, which I enjoy, and can take quite a while to build. There are many different design you can follow or basically use your imagination to build whatever. Jr. is a strict step-by-step follower when it comes to building things and since he's the oldest I let the younger once follow his lead. Also, we had a special friend helping this time, Noah, the kids cousin.


 As stated before its a large contraption made of many small wood pieces (about 1/4"x1"x4"). One bump on the table and this whole thing would come down.

Then you use a ping pong ball. Roll it down the ramp, bounces off the platform and spirals down the funnel into the bottom base.



This one required the overseeing of daddy who had to make a few adjustments so it would work properly...

without knocking the whole thing over...

Then it worked great. It was so cool to see the boys enjoy their diligence and patience in building this, then actually having it work!



Didn't notice what my little engineer was doing until I put this up, tummy scratch :)







Don't Forget About Snack Time and Potty Breaks:

School is a lot a work and a lot of fun but sometimes we forget to slow down and have a little break. This became apparent to me last week when my 3 1/2 year old, the Engineer, had 2 semi-potty accidents. Ergo we now make sure that we pause all activities by 10:30 for a snack and a trip to the potty. He gently reminded mommy, with his constant wiggling, that holding 'it' for 3 hours is not practical. For some reason I didn't pick up on this immediately and just thought he was acting spazzy when really he was doing the potty dance. Oh well. Live and learn in the classroom, I always say.
Every day I try to give the kids a healthy snack. Today was strawberries, string cheese and grahams.


Yes we have directions on how go potty. I just cut up this sheet and added to a workbox with a snack.
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