One of the challenges of being an itinerant speech therapist is that you have to plan enough activities for the hour and bring your fun to the child. I usually have about 4-6 activities planned for a preschool speech therapy session because I never want to have 15 minutes left and have run through all my games or toys.
Yesterday was one of those days when my little friend moved more quickly than I had planned through shooting pirates out of my ship, flipping them off the gangplank, putting together a puzzle and playing a game. This is when I reached into my bag and pulled out Play-Doh and started to punt. I always have several cans of Play-Doh and cookie cutters in my bag for just this occasion. Since we were working on “I,” /w-/ and /k/, we started to make a pizza, rolling out the dough and selecting our toppings. Initially he asked, “I want_____” requesting pepperoni and cheese but then we got a little silly and reached into our tub of cookie cutters and added a car, cow and a gingerbread man! The lid to our tub became our serving plate and we grabbed our cutter to serve mom and baby brother. Mom graciously peeled off each layer of animals and food, naming them and taking a pretend bite!