25 Tips For Your Child's Success
- Practice marching as your child's hands cross over to touch their opposite knee, for timing, coordination and brain stimulation.
- Pool noodles can be taped together to form a balance to practice with at home.
- Blowing bubbles and whistles helps to develop increased breath support, lip closure, and lip rounding necessary for speech production.
- Try writing on various surfaces other than a table to do homework: easel boards, tape papers to a wall, or lie on the floor.
- Pushing a loaded laundry basket, wagon, or shopping cart cannot only help with balance, but also with strength.
- Take a "picture walk" through a favorite book to encourage vocabulary growth and object recognition.
- Use squirt bottles and colored water to "paint" on paper or squirt bottle to water plants around the house.
- A pool raft can be used inside to work on balance and strengthening for crawling as well as walking.
- Sing! Sing! Sing! During the song, try to pause, allowing your child to fill in the missing word/s.
- Encourage kids to do their own socks/shoes and play dress up for extra practice with buttons, zippers, and snaps.
- To work on standing on one foot, try stomping on bubbles or stepping into and out of an elevated hula-hoop.
- Create short tongue twisters that contain your child's target sound, and practice them each night to promote carryover skills.
- Branch out from typical routine meals to explore different foods, textures, and shapes. Try a kid's cookbook for new ideas.
- Squeezing a ball between the knees with walking or jumping will help strengthen the hips and legs as well as work on coordination and balance.
- An echo microphone is a great tool to engage your toddler while promoting increased vocalizations and imitation skills.
- Use play-dough for hand skills to create tiny snakes, balls, and then use cookie cutters and scissors to create scenes.
- Replace your child's chair with a large playground sized ball to work on seated balance while working at the table.
- Try using "parallel talk"; describing your toddler's actions as they do them, to support expressive language skills and build vocabulary.
- Use crayons instead of markers while coloring; crayons and chalk create more resistance and develops hand skills.
- When working on a puzzle, scatter the pieces on the floor instead of a table to work on leg strengthening through squatting.
- Play a game of "I Spy" to encourage your child's describing skills.
- Walk as animals; bear, crab, wounded puppy and inchworm all help develop arm and core strength.
- Use couch cushions and pillows to make a lily pad obstacle course to walk across.
- Making "funny faces" in a mirror together engages your child while helping them develop imitation and motor skills.
- Play card games! This helps your child to learn how to "shift" two cards from each other and maintain grasp of several cards without dropping them.