Toddler Tips

Man, I sure do love these guys! They go on every  trip with us and I often find myself reaching for them as we’re leaving for a restaurant, a doctor’s appointment, church, anywhere where we need quiet entertainment 😉

The ones below are small and can easily fit in a purse or bag…*high-five*

You’ll want to find one where the pen is attached with a string, like the blue and pink ones above so all the pieces stay together. Here’s a link for the above blue one on Amazon.

(Purchases made with this link help support the time spent on posts like this.)

Speech / Language / Math Activities You Can Do With Them!

• Guessing game– one person draws while the other person closes their eyes and waits to guess the drawing (SPEECH: you can use words with the speech sounds your child is working on; LANGUAGE: draw items from a particular category like foods, transportation, things that are loud, etc.; MATH: draw a hand then count the fingers)
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• Portable visual schedule– have something last minute come up, you can draw it on the pad to help explain it to your kiddo if they’re having a hard time adjusting to the change
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• Letter/Sound recognition– can introduce for 2-3 yr olds but keep it fun, they don’t need to really know all their letter/letter sounds until around 4-5yrs old. Draw a letter and have your kiddo say the letter name and what sound it makes; to step it up a notch you can slowly write small words (like “bat”) your child say the letter sound; MATH- write a number and draw that many objects beside the number, or just write the number and see if they can name the number-make it fun not like a test
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• Tic-Tac-Toe– (for 3yrs and older) first teach them how to play (MATH: count how many x’s and o’s there are, practice drawing the x’s and o’s big and then little; say I’m going to put my X in the top right box, etc.)
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• Draw It– (SPEECH: your child picks something for you to draw but before you draw it, have them say a speech target- from their speech therapist- 5 times before you draw the picture; LANGUAGE: pick a word category- like blue things, jobs, foods, etc.- and have your child think of 5 things from that category and then they can pick one of those items to draw; MATH:  draw a pattern- like star heart star heart ____- and have your child tell you what comes next in the pattern, draw 2-3 of the same object but have them differ in size or location- ask “circle the big/small/medium one,” or “cross out the one that’s beside/up/down/top/bottom”)
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• Trip Drawing– have them draw what they see out the window on your trip (SPEECH: if they are at the sentence or conversational level with a target sound-ask your speech therapist if they’re at that stage- say “I’m going to be listening for your good “b” (buh) sound when you tell me about your picture. And if they forget and say the sound their old way say “Uhoh, that was the old way, say it your new way.”; LANGUAGE: “Tell me a story about what you drew”, or ask a few “Wh” questions about their drawing-who,what,when,where,why; MATH: have them look out the window and draw a shape they see)

This is not even close to an exhaustive list! Keep having fun and make up your own activity and share it with all of us in the comments below!