I wanted to get this post out to any of you who are as excited about St. Patrick’s Day as I am! Usually I’m not a fan of smaller scale holidays but since my kiddos are little, and so are a lot of my clients, I’ve been much more excited to create activities to celebrate these occasions!
I made this sensory box with my preschool speech and language group in mind. We are currently on a 6-week theme of colors and coincidentally green was our theme last week. (Perfect timing!)
I started with a base of rice. It was very easy to make my rice festive. I dyed it in 2 cup batches. All it took was some green food coloring and two teaspoons of vinegar. I placed it all in a Ziploc bag, tossed it around, and allowed it to dry on a wax paper covered cookie sheet. Next, I gathered all the small green toys I could find!
The box was a hit during Lemon Tree’s Preschool group. (We meet Mondays at 9:30) The group members loved it and each one was able to find something that interested them. I was able to provide a lot of speech and language targets as well!
Some examples include:
- Counting the gold coins (I know, I know they aren’t green but they are festive!)
- Pulling out the numbers and count the coins or eggs accordingly
- Different letters were in the box and I was able to create speech targets beginning with that letter sound (“d” dog, donut, dig, etc.)
- Finding contents based on a category: find a letter, find something round, find a number, find something that is NOT green, etc.
- Targeting positional concepts such as full and empty (fill up egg with rice then pour it out); top and bottom (build a tower with megablocks); on and off (shamrock in the box lights up and can be turned on or off)
I was also able to use this sensory box with an older client who is working on expanding his utterances using the carrier phrase: “I see a green…” It was a hit with him as well! It provided a base of both familiar vocabulary (e.g., letters and numbers) and novel vocabulary (e.g., shamrock).
The last green themed material I want to share with you is the book “Where is Green Sheep?” by Mem Fox. This book is so fun and is filled with great opposite pairs, positional concepts, and the reoccurring question: “Where is the green sheep?” I read the book to multiple clients and then we took turns hiding green sheep and talking about where he was found. Again, lots of fun and lots of great speech and language targets!
I hope you all get to enjoy some “green” activities and have as much fun with St. Patrick’s Day as I have!
