Car Ride Activities Set 3

I'm getting ready for another 12 hour car ride to New Orleans to visit family. 7 months ago, I posted Car Ride Activities Set 1 and Car Ride Activities Set 2. This year, when searching for inspiration I used the search term "busy bags" online. It is a gold mine. There are so many ideas out there for making simple activities for young children from arts and crafts materials you probably already have sitting around the house. The goal is for the activities to be portable, decently interesting, car appropriate, and numerous. Each child will have a felt lined lap tray with sides (made from a box) to keep the current activity's contents from spilling and sliding around.

Here's my plan. Both of my children are potty trained, but they are only three and four years old. We pretty much have to stop at every single rest area. The car entertainment cycle will run like this:

1. Stop at rest stop. Keep the stop as quick as possible because every extra 10 minutes you spend at a rest stop cumulatively adds at least an hour or two that you can't afford on to the end of the trip. Go potty and stretch their legs by playing a quick dancing, hopping, or running game.
2. When you get back into the car give each child a busy bag or other car ride activity. Let them play with their own for 10-15 minutes and then have them stuff it back in the bag and switch. After they finish the activities they have to put them back in the bags and return them to an adult who will put that activity in the finished (and save for the return trip) pile. Then turn on some tv until the next stop.
3. Watch 30-45 minutes of tv until the next stop.
4. Repeat the cycle approximately 12 times occasionally substituting running into a fast food restaurant for a bathroom break/stretching legs/getting meal to go instead of stopping at a rest area.

So, here are the first five activities I've prepared this time.

Car Ride Activities Set 3

Busy Bag 1: Popsicle Puzzles (x2)

Print a picture your children will like that is approximately 5.25 inches tall and 4.5 wide (or 4 wide and use one less jumbo popsicle stick). Cut the pictures into strips slightly less than the width of a jumbo sized popsicle stick. Glue the strips onto the popsicles. Voila. You have very portable puzzles. I made two and put them in the same bag. That adds the additional difficulty of figuring out which puzzle pieces (craft sticks) go with which puzzle.

Busy Bag 2: Felt Chain

Cut strips of felt. Mine are 1.5 inches wide by 9 inches long. Sew small pieces of velcro to the ends of each strip on opposite sides. The children can use them to make roads, bracelets, necklaces, "paper chain" style links, etc.

Busy Bag 3: Lego Duplo "Puzzles"

Dig into your duplo stash (or any other kind of building blocks you may have) and build several small structures. I deliberately chose the smaller/slimmer duplo blocks to try to save space. I made a vehicle set, a flower garden set, and two random block tower type sets. Take a picture of each set and print the pictures. Put the picture along with the blocks necessary to build the pictured structure in a bag. Now you have homemade portable building puzzles. They can try to build what they see in the picture or simply play with the blocks in their travel trays.

Busy Bag 4: Felt Picture - House

Just sit down with some craft felt and a pair of scissors and create a simple picture. I made a very simple house. Stick all the pieces in a bag and then the children can recreate the picture and just play with the pieces.

Busy Bag 5: Bead and Pipe Cleaner Counting

Take 10 pipe cleaners (or perhaps only five if your children or younger). Wrap a piece of tape around the top of each pipe cleaner and number them 1-10. Put the appropriate number of pony beads in the bag with the pipe cleaners. The children can thread the appropriate number of beads onto each pipe cleaner. They may even notice that they can have each pipe cleaner be threaded with a different color bead. If your children are even younger, skip the number part of the activity and simply stick some pipe cleaners and pony beads in a bag. Consider cutting the pipe cleaners in half as they will be easier to handle that way.

(Inspiration found: here, here, here, here, here.)

If you like these activities, you may be interested in more.

• Car Ride Activities Set 1
• Car Ride Activities Set 2
• Car Ride Activities Set 4
• Car Ride Activities Set 5
• Car Ride Activities Set 6
• Car Ride Activities Set 7
• Busy Bags Revisited

The Weekly Review: Week 71

SLP Idea of the Week

Take a 12 cup muffin pan and cut speech cards into circles that fit into the bottom of each cup. Also gather 12 small tokens of some kind (pom-poms, cotton balls, squinkies, etc. Have the child (gently) toss a token at the muffin pan and practice the word at the bottom of the cup that their token landed in. Then they toss another token into another cup practicing that word. The goal is to get a token into each cup practicing all 12 words along the way.

Ava this Week

Ava will be starting preschool soon. We're less than three weeks away from saying goodbye forever to our part-time daycare. The daycare was fine. I was perfectly happy with them and they did a great job of taking care of my children. I am not in the slightest bit sad to say goodbye to them (or to the monthly check I wrote to them). It does feel strange to think that soon I will pull out of their driveway for the last time. After all, I've been taking at least one child (and often two) there twice a week for almost three years. It feels nice to be moving on to the next stage though.

Weekly Michael

Originally I had intended to enroll the children in preschool five mornings a week in the fall. In order for Michael to attend the second level preschool room, they require five day enrollment. As fall rapidly approaches I have been realizing that I'm not ready for them to be away five mornings a week. After all, I'm still seriously considering keeping them home and beginning homeschooling a year from now.

So, I decided to keep Michael in the less structured preschool room and enroll the children only four days a week. I may reduce that to three days a week later. A side effect of this decision is that the children will be in the same room for preschool this year. Michael will be repeating in the same classroom (along with all the other students who won't be attending full-time including his best friend). Ava will enter the room for the first time. I think they'll enjoy being together.

Weekly Weight Loss

This week the scale reports a loss of 1.3 pounds. That makes up for the token drop from last week with an average of 0.75/week over the last two weeks. I'm doing fine with the calorie reduction portion of my agenda. I'm having trouble trying to change my lifestyle to regularly include more activity though. I always seem to have higher priorities than exercising (and those priorities are invariably sedentary). I need to remind myself that even 15 minutes a day is so much better than nothing and that I can exercise with the children around.

Mixed /k/ Homework Booklet: Free Speech Therapy Articulation Picture Book

When I introduce a booklet for the first time I just read the story to the kids. Then I have the children practice the words on the back of the booklet to familiarize them with the pictures. Finally, we read the book together. I read the printed text and prompt them to "read" the pictures by pausing and pointing at the right moments. After the children have read the books several times, they are easily remembering all of the words and "reading" large chunks of the sentences as well. It's a great exercise in using speech target words in a more natural setting and in transitioning to using proper articulation in phrases and sentences. Once the children are pretty good at the stories you can have them read the stories to each other, to a pet, to a friend, or to a grandparent as well.

Mixed /k/ Homework Booklet

To download click on the image to open it full size. Then right click on the image, choose "save as" and save the page to your computer. I recommend you print on cardstock for durability.

Description

This articulation homework booklet is designed to be an extension of my single-syllable card sets. The target words are a mix of one-syllable initial and final words and two-syllable medial words that include no blends and no vocalic /r/ sounds. This booklet is designed to be read by a parent (or therapist, older sibling, classmate, teacher...) and child together. The helper reads the typewritten words pausing for the child to "read" the picture words. Each time the book is read, the helper can put a sticker/stamp/checkmark in one of the boxes on the front of the book. This will encourage multiple practice readings. The child's fluency should increase with each repeated reading. The words on the back page can be used for either auditory bombardment before reading the book together or for drill after finishing reading the book (or both). The target audience for these cards are children with speech delays who are ready to practice /k/ sounds in a more natural context. Move to these exercises to add complexity and increase generalization after the child has achieved good accuracy with single words, single word repetitions, and simple alternating single words with the initial /k/, medial /k/, and final /k/ target words.

Key Features

• This booklet features 15 initial, medial, and final /k/ words incorporated into a simple story to be read by a helper and child together.
• The target words are one or two syllable words that do not contain vocalic /r/ sounds or blends.
• The words are easily understood by or easily taught to young children.

Permissions

I give permission to copy, print, or distribute this booklet provided that:

1. Each copy makes clear that I am the document's author.
2. No copies are altered without my express consent.
3. No one makes a profit from these copies.
4. Electronic copies contain a live link back to my original and print copies not for merely personal use contain the URL of my original.

Looking for Feedback

I would love to hear back from anyone who uses this booklet. Let me know if you find errors or there is anything you would change. Comment on this page, or send me an email at testyyettrying(at)gmail(dot)com.

Where can I find more?

More card sets and related printables are on my Free Speech Therapy Articulation Cards page.

Here is a picture of a homework booklet (the /l/ booklet) printed on cardstock and folded into the booklet. It slides nicely in between board books to be pulled out and read during bedtime story time.

Other Speech Practice Booklets Available:

• Initial /s/ Homework Booklet - Sue's Tea Set
• Initial /l/ Homework Booklet - Lou's Busy Day
• Initial /sh/ Homework Booklet - Shy Shae
• Medial /f/ Homework Booklet - Alfie the Elephant
• Initial /fl/ Homework Booklet - Flynn Gets His Picture
• Final /k/ Homework Booklet - Silly Rhymes
• /f/ Sentences Homework Booklet - Finn Finds Number Friends