Rock Chalk Speech Talk

Sharing Speech & Language Therapy Ideas!

  • Rock Chalk Speech Talk
  • Home
  • About
  • Blog
  • Shop
  • Get on the List!
  • Contact

Lovin’ Legos®!

I’m pretty sure one can never outgrow a fondness for Legos®.  I played with them ALL the time as a kid and had my own Lego® table that had an opening with a mesh bag attached to it in the center to store all my Legos®.  My husband and I spent last Christmas Eve watching National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation while assembling two big Lego® castle sets he had gotten for his birthday but had yet to set up.  I even have a Lego® Yoda on my keychain (I’ve never actually seen Star Wars, but my husband was giving out these keychains to some guy friends at our apartment one night and I guess I just didn’t want to feel left out!)

Needless to say, I don’t mind one bit when the preschoolers I’m seeing in class choose the Lego® center, or when they request it as one of their choices for therapy activities during pull-out sessions.  Here are 3 ways I like to use Legos® in therapy!

1.  Vocabulary Building:  I’ve used Legos® to target animal vocabulary (think Farm, Brown Bear Brown Bear, and Ocean themes).  Cut small pictures into twos or threes and tape onto the Legos®.  You can have kids match animal tops/bottoms (or throw ‘middles’ in there, too!) and then label the animals.  Identify their different features (ie fins, beaks, wings, etc…!) while you do this activity.  There was even one day where I was working on basic concepts with kids at center time using Legos® (see idea #2 below!) and taught them the word ‘skyscraper’ as we were making tall buildings.. it was really fun to hear them using that word on their own the next day when I came in!

2.  Basic Concepts:  I’ve done this a lot during center time with my preschoolers.  We work on building tall/short towers, long paths, putting certain colored blocks on top or underneath another block, etc…  You can easily do comparative concepts here, too.. which one is smaller, which one is tallest, which tower was made of more Legos®, etc…  Build a Lego® bridge and have toy animals/people go under and over it.  The animal vocabulary activity I mentioned above is perfect for working on concepts /top, middle, bottom/, too, by having them point to which part is the middle, which part is the bottom, etc..

3.  Associations & Categories:  Another simple way to use Legos® that is kind of similar to Idea #1.  Tape pictures of items that go together to various Legos®, and have your kids identify the items that belong together by matching up the correct Lego® pieces (this is easier with the larger Lego® blocks!).  To work on categories, stack Lego® pieces on top of each other that have pictures of items that all belong to the same category (animals, foods, etc…)

What are some of your favorite ways to use Legos® in therapy? Click below to check out the 3rd Thursday 3 For All Link Up, hosted by Speech2u, to see how other SLPs are using Legos® in therapy!

«
»

Filed Under: Uncategorized Leave a Comment

Comments

  1. Speech2U says

    September 21, 2013 at 1:15 pm

    That's a great idea to use Lego's® to work on animal names-I really like the idea of matching up the tops and bottoms! Thanks for linking up!

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Subscribe Via Email

Categories

Search

Latest on Instagram

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle- that’s the saying isn’ Reduce, Reuse, Recycle- that’s the saying isn’t it? (Earth Day pro over here, clearly 😅)

REUSE…. Your spiders that you probably have from Halloween or even from your bug theme, and use them for Itsy Bitsy Spider!

Grab those spideys and a tote lid for a ramp aka your “spout,” and walk them up the ramp.  Use “up up up” as your verbal routine each time. (Taking turns making a spider walk up is great motor imitation with objects, too!) Once it’s at the top of the ramp, let go so the spider slides down your spout. 

Verbal routines could look like…
“Up up up!” or...
“Up, up, up… whee!” or... 
“Up, up, up… down! Whee!”

What else would you use as a ramp besides a tote lid?
Need some basic, simple activities for a weather t Need some basic, simple activities for a weather theme? Use “rain” and plan around Itsy Bitsy Spider!

These “Never Touch A...” books are my 7 month old’s favorite (she repeatedly closes the book on me as we’re reading to feel the front cover again 😂), and they’re great to use at work, too, for introducing literacy to kids who don’t necessarily enjoy books yet. I’ve found that a lot of these kids are also sensory seekers, and the tactile component of these books gets them interested!

In the schools, I always got a lot of new late talkers on my caseload in the Spring from the birth-to-3 service transitions, so working on exclamatory words like “ew!” “yuck!” “ick!” “ooo!” is something you can do with this tactile book, too, for your little ones just starting to imitate!
If there’s a Little Blue Truck book that fits my If there’s a Little Blue Truck book that fits my theme, you bet I’m using it! The Springtime version, while not my all-time fave of the series, is perfect for a farm theme or in May for Mother’s Day with mama and baby animals! 🐤🐣

Annnnd to go with it, this Little Blue Truck BOOM deck can be used...
-in person or virtually
-for a ton of your preschool language goals 
-with ANY Little Blue Truck book (but fits especially well with the original and Springtime version of the books!)

Swipe to see a video of it in action!
Hi! It’s me again. Long time no see. I unexpec Hi! It’s me again.  Long time no see.

I unexpectedly took a long hiatus, and maybe you noticed, maybe you didn’t (it’s cool if you didn’t). 

I kinda poured my heart out in a message to my email subscribers earlier, so I’ll give you an abbreviated version (mostly bc IG won’t let me have as many characters 😂🤷‍♀️)

I was playing the comparison game in pretty much every aspect of life which was so unhealthy for so many reasons so I had to take a step back. 

I was comparing myself to my coworkers who all seem put together each day while having young kids at home, as I feel like I’m riding the hot mess express every day and I’m lucky if I leave the house with makeup on!

I was comparing Olivia to other August babies- mostly worrying whether I was doing enough for her.  I had to mute the due date group I’m in on Facebook bc I’d start going down a rabbit hole of worry when I’d see threads of babies doing things she wasn’t yet- despite logically knowing she was well within the normal range for milestones and that an early August baby is way different than a late August baby. 

I was comparing myself to all of my other sweet and wonderful SLP TPT friends who are killin’ it, creating great, useful content to share and still managing families and work, and some days I felt like I was just spinning my wheels (but for real guys how do you do it 😂)

Essentially I felt like I wasn’t doing enough as a mom, a wife, a friend, a therapist, or a blogger.

But I’ve been feeling more like myself lately, trying to create some systems that work, and learning how to give myself some grace as I figure it all out. I love the little nugget in this picture more than I could ever adequately explain- so I’m working on some things for my own well-being so I can be a great mama to her!

I’m looking forward to being back- I hope you are, too!
Who else is reading The Day It Rained Hearts this Who else is reading The Day It Rained Hearts this week? Between this and Little Blue Truck’s Valentine, we’re delivering Valentine’s to LOTS of our animal friends! With all no prep or low prep activities, you can buy this set tonight and use tomorrow morning!
Easy to prep? ✅ Works for lots of your caseload Easy to prep? ✅ 
Works for lots of your caseload? ✅ 
Preverbal AND verbal kids can participate? ✅ 

I use this every year, at different times throughout the year, and just leave out the “Valentine’s Day” part of the line- voila, you also have an interactive book for a jungle/zoo anima theme or a pet theme, too! 🐵 🐊 🦁

Grab it with the link in my profile!
Olivia and I are Super Bowl ready! #gochiefs ❤️💛 Is the bow and tutu over the top? Yes. Do I regret it? No. 😂 

Since most people are just in it for the food and commercials.. Whats your favorite Super Bowl snack? Mine is buffalo chicken dip 💯!
This little lady knows what’s up and doesn’t w This little lady knows what’s up and doesn’t want you to miss out either!

⏰ The BEST bundle and the BIGGEST bundle is back for version 2.0! Get yourself materials from 23 SLPs-

Need speech sound materials? Gotcha covered ✅ 

Need language materials? Yep- covered there, too! ✅ 

Need both (and want a bundle of mixed group materials thrown in for free?) You got it! ✅ 

Buy the bundles at thisthatorboth.com where we have allll the info you need if you want more details!

Copyright © 2021 · Darling Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in