Tag Archives: family

Join In! July Activities for Families

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Get out and enjoy the city this July with the following fun activities for the whole family!

Chicago Children’s Museum Free Day:

Time: July 7th10:00am-5:00pm.

Location: Chicago Children’s Museum 700 E Grand Ave, Chicago, 60611

Cost: Admission is free for children under 15.

About: Check out the sights of the Chicago Children’s Museum with free admission for all children under 15 years old on the first Sunday of the month.

 

Play Days at the Farm:

Time:Every Tuesday and Saturday 10:00am-12:00pm.

Location: Lincoln Park Zoo 2001 N Clark St, Chicago, 60614

Cost: Free!

About: Children ages 1-5 and their caregivers join Play Assistants at the Farm-in-the-Zoo for a variety of nature-based activities.

 

Family Night: Mini Golf Build and Play:

Time:July 11th5:30pm-7:30pm

Location: Chicago Public Library (Lincoln Belmont Location) 1659 W. Melrose Street
Chicago, 60657

Cost: Free!

About: Help design, build, and play on a miniature golf course! Best for children 8 years and older, but younger children are welcome with adult help.

 

Family Swim Nights:

Time: July 19th, 20th, 26th, and 27th 6:30pm-8:00pm.

Location: Goldfish Swim School 2630 W Bradly Rd, Chicago, 60618

Cost: $10 per child, with a family maximum of $30.

About: Get the whole family swimming together! Register online beginning at 10:00am on the day of the event.

 

Natalie Machado, MS, OTR/L
Occupational Therapist

Photo Credit: William Stadler from FreeImages

The Benefits of Parent Involvement in Early Intervention

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What is your role as a parent in your child’s therapy sessions?

As a parent of a child who is receiving Early Intervention services, you may wonder what your role is during your child’s therapy sessions. Will the therapist be working one-on-one with your child? Will you be observing the session? Or will you be actively participating?

Parents are key to the success of therapy, no matter the goals being targeted. As a parent your involvement and insight are essential for your child to make progress towards their developmental goals.  For this reason, it is recommended that parents take an active role in therapy sessions. Your child’s therapist will model and teach you strategies and techniques for achieving your child’s specific goals. These strategies can then be carried over into your child’s daily routines and activities. You will see the best outcomes when the strategies provided during therapy sessions are embedded into your child’s everyday routines, as this will provide your child with frequent and natural learning opportunities to practice the skills introduced.

Benefits of parent involvement:

  • Parents are a child’s first teacher and children will learn the most from the people who know them best!
  • Parents interact with their children everyday and offer frequent learning opportunities for their children.
  • Children generalize learned skills when they are embedded into every day routines, such as mealtime, bath time, bedtime, and play

The impact of ongoing parent involvement

As a parent you will be able to provide your child’s therapist with important information that will help with setting specific goals for therapy and how best to implement strategies for reaching those goals based on your family’s daily routines and activities. You will take an active role throughout the therapy process by reporting changes that you see in your child and subsequently working with your child’s therapist to determine what the next steps will be. As a parent you will be able to take the strategies provided during therapy sessions and incorporate them into your child’s every day activities, which will allow frequent learning opportunities for your child. You are your child’s first and best teacher and your involvement makes all the difference!

If you have any questions or concerns about joining your child’s therapy sessions, talk with your ongoing therapist to discuss a plan for getting involved. For further information on parent involvement, please contact us at info@playworkschicago.comor 773-332-9439.

Claire Kakenmaster, MS, CCC-SLP
Speech Language Pathologist

Photo Credit

Family Time: Helps kids grow!

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During the holiday season, many families have the pleasure of spending time together, increasing their daily family time. There are many fun family activities that you and your child can do to promote their cognitive development.

Winter scavenger hunt: Create a winter themed scavenger hunt around your home and outdoors.

  • Tip:
    • This is a great way for children to work on their picture concepts, matching skills, and helps them in making associations.
  • Activities:
    • Indoor Hunt: Hide items around your home related to winter and have your child find them (e.g. hat, coat, gloves).
    • Outdoor Hunt: Talk about the different things your child might see while walking outdoors during the winter (e.g. snow, snowmen, shovels). Go on a “hunt” to find these items while spending time outdoors.

Organization/ laundry: Have your child help you organize your home and take care of daily chores.

  • Tips:
    • This is great for categorization of colors or sizes.
    • Learning where items go around your home will help further develop spatial relationship knowledge.
  • Activities:
    • Turn this into guessing game around your house.
  • Examples:
    • Narrate what you are doing and have your child join along: “Hmm, I wonder where I should put away Jon’s toys.”
    • Make a mistake and have your child catch/correct it: “I should put the pillows away on the kitchen table.”

Singing songs: Singing songs is a great way to work on your child’s engagement and imitation songs.

  • Tip:
    • Using songs that your child has interest in will help maintain their attention span and further work on their engagement and imitation skills.
  • Activities:
    • Sing together: Listen to music around the house and in the car. Select music that your child shows interest in. Model singing and dancing along with the music.
    • Finger play songs with gestures (i.e. “If You’re Happy and You Know it”, “Wheels on the Bus”, “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star”): Model gestures for the song and encourage your child to imitate the gestures. Use hand over hand assistance if needed to help your child imitate the gestures.

Pin up pictures: Put pictures around your child’s room or in your home to practice picture identification.

  • Tips:
    • This activity helps your child work on word associations and improve memory.
    • You can pick pictures of your family (especially those that you will see during the holiday season) or your child’s favorite things (e.g. favorite toy, blanket, food item).
  • Activities:
    • First go around the house and label the pictured items for your child (i.e. “Look, there is a picture of your train set.”). Point to the pictures while labeling them out loud, then start asking your child to label the pictures themselves.
    • Turn it into a game! After you feel your child can identify specific pictures ask your child to retrieve specific ones.

Winter crafts: Arts and crafts are a great way to engage with your child in creative ways. These activities help them practice their fine motor skills, their color concept knowledge, and their concept knowledge.

  • Tips:
    • Talk about the characteristics of the paint (e.g. the color, temperature).
    • Work on color identification. Label the colors for your child and have them work on labeling them independently.
    • Work on number identification. Count the cotton balls with your child. Have your child work on giving you “one” cotton ball at a time.
  • Activities:
    • Ice paint: Put food coloring into an ice tray with water and a popsicle stick. Freeze the “paint”. Once frozen, take tray out and have your child paint with it on paper
    • Painting the snow: Use food coloring and a spray bottle. Fill the spray bottle with a few drops of food coloring and water. Take the snow paint outdoors and have them spray the snow.
    • Cotton ball snow man: Draw the outline of a snow man on a piece of paper for your child. Have them glue cotton balls inside the snowman to make it look like snow.

Have a great winter season!

Rachel Weiser, MS, DT

Developmental Therapist

References:

http://dailymom.com/nurture/encouraging-cognitive-development-through-arts-and-crafts/

http://www.parents.com/toddlers-preschoolers/development/intellectual/toddler-development-activities/

Spring Break Speech and Language Opportunities

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As spring break approaches, parents frequently ask what they can do on their various trips so their children don’t fall behind and they can help maintain progress in speech. Without their house full of toys, they are often at a loss on how to play and incorporate speech and language practice. The short answer is, pretty much everything involves language and ordinary activities can easily be turned into a targeted speech and language opportunity! With a new environment, it can present lots of new opportunities for increasing vocabulary and new ways to use language they already have.  No matter where you find yourself, from airplanes to hotel rooms, beaches to mountains, there are lots of opportunities to talk with your kiddo. Here are some specific examples:   

  • Identifying/Labeling: There are bound to be a lot of familiar as well as new and exciting things to see wherever you go. Depending on your kiddo’s goals, give them specific things to look for and identify or have them label things they see for you to look for. Make an “I Spy” game out of it for some back and forth fun that can be played in the airplane/car or exploring the new scenery.
  • Imitating actions: This can be a great opportunity for teaching new verbs. Have your kiddo imitate your actions and then see if they can identify/use them when they come up again. Whether it be swimming or building sand castles, hiking/climbing mountains, riding new rides, or even licking an ice cream cone, there are countless activities they will engage in that will present opportunities for practicing language.
  • Follow directions: Whether you’re doing it intentionally for language practice or simply trying to keep everyone together at a theme park, there will likely be novel directions given (and hopefully followed!) wherever you go. Take this opportunity to practice directions at whatever level your kiddo is practicing/performing (i.e. simple commands, one-step directions, two-step related or unrelated directions, etc.) Remember to use language at their level and one level above to ensure they understand and can be successful. Make a game out of it to make it fun while they’re still practicing goals!
  • Use your imagination! Whatever the trip entails, there are always ways to encourage language. Don’t forget to label what else you see throughout your trip to give them a language model of these new and exciting things in their environment!

Therese Schmidt, MS, CCC-SLP