Welcome Alex!
Blogs
Technology Thursday – Guided Access
Happy Thursday!!
Today I thought I’d share one of my favourite iPad hacks that not many people know……
Parents often say to me that they can’t get let their child have the iPad because they become obsessed and only want to play video games, not the educational stuff.
What if I told you that you can lock the iPad so kids can only play on the app that you choose! It’s possible and works on every app (well the ones I’ve tried anyway)! It’s called ‘Guided Access’ and enables you to open an app and set a passcode to exit the app, keeping children on the one that you have chosen! I’ve popped the link for you to set it up and try at home!
https://support.apple.com/en-au/HT202612
Guided access is super easy to use, give you more control and can be used by anybody!! So share this ‘hack’ with your family, friends and children’s educators!!
Want more ideas? check out www.learninglinksspeechpathology.com.au to see how we can help!
Toy Tuesday – Fishing Rods
‘Toy Tuesday’
‘Fishing Rods’
Fishing rods are a great, inexpensive way to ‘spice’ up a usually ‘boring’ flashcard activity! For many of you out there working on Speech Sounds it can be one un-motivating thing to practice after a while!
These magnetic fishing rods are amazing, pop a paperclip on your flashcard/ picture and away you go!
Here’s my hot tip, make sure you take the fishing rod in between turns so that your child practices and then gets the rod back for the next turn!!
Fishing rods can be found at most 2 dollar shops and in a really cool set at ‘Kmart’
Happy fishing
Tara
Technology Thursday – Dr Kristy Goodwin
‘Technology Thursday’
The relationship I had growing up with technology was certainly different to the relationship kids have with technology today. It is everywhere these days and in everything from phones to watches.
With rapidly changing technology and media articles making us fear our children’s digital habits it is difficult to know what is good, bad or otherwise.
I am sharing a link to Dr Kristy Goodwin who is uploading short videos providing practical advice and explaining some of the myths and misconceptions regarding raising kids in a digital world.
I would love to hear if you have had any success with the tips in these videos or learnt something interesting!
Toy Tuesday – Mr Potato Head
‘Toy Tuesday’
‘Mr Potato Head’
Mr Potato head gets a real work out in my office! This game can be adapted to lots of different ages and kids love it!
Here are some of my favourite ideas:
1. Learning body parts, match the parts to your self and name them on Mr Potato head.
2. Practicing verbs: make the potato heads and then get them to do different actions, it’s great for kids developing action words and is a really fun and practical way to do this!
3. Sequencing skills: make the potatoes and then draw or use picture prompts to retell the order that you put the body parts on
4. Conversational play: practice getting the potatoes to talk to each other, you can practice greetings e.g. ‘Hi Potato, how are you?’ or asking questions: ‘Would you like to go for a walk?’ (Potatoes then walk together).
5. Emotions: most sets come with ‘happy’ and ‘angry’ eyes, you can also turn the mouths upside down to make them sad and give the potatoes tongues sticking out for silly faces!
6. Encouraging imagination and description: make ‘silly’ potatoes with things in the wrong places, kids love this!! They can then describe them to you.
Have another idea? I’d love to hear it, comment below.
Want more tips or to find out how we can help you?
Starting School for Preps/Kinders
‘Starting school for Preps/ Kinders
Only a few short weeks to go before the beginning of the 2017 school year! I know for some parents I can hear the sigh of relief already! It can be a loooooooonnnggg school holidays!
For others there can be a feeling of worry and anxiety around this big change for your little person! Will they make friends? Will they sit and listen? Will they have a meltdown? Will they eat! Will they understand? Will they learn to read and write?
So many of these questions are raised by parents all the time but particularly this time of year. The main one is: What can I do to help?
Here are a few of my tips:
1. Prepare, prepare: be organised, make sure you have all of your equipment needed e.g. lunch boxes, shoes etc. Make sure your child is involved in this process, get them to pick a lunch box, make getting shoes fun and feel like a milestone for them!!
2. Plan: plan a visit to school or look on the internet about what the school offers, talk about what might happen during the school day, talk about what you might eat for lunch, start a ‘count down’ on the fridge/ calendar for how many days before school.
3. Practice: Practice getting ready for school, make a visual time table of what you have to do in the morning, practice packing your school/ lunch bag.
4. Discuss: discuss your worries/ concerns with school or your Speechie/ Psych/ OT we are all here to help make the transition as smooth and as worry- free as possible.
If you feel you need help with this transition, ring your Speechie/ OT or ask them to go out and do a visit. I know term one for me is lots of school and kinder visits as this is such a tricky time for parents and children and I know it can be difficult explaining things to schools/ kinders, we can help with this!
Need more tips, information or just advice on how to get through this transition, ring us on 0435 151 959.
Technology Thursday – Schedules
Technology Thursday
Another Thursday down for this year already! We are fast approaching the return to school so I thought apps that involve schedules might be the way to begin!
For those that have worked with me before or work with me now know I love to be organised! I love a good list/ schedule to my day and feel pretty lost without it!
Here’s the funny thing, so does nearly everyone including kids! We forget that kids are little people and often have the same preferences as learners as we do! They like to know what’s going to happen and when (particularly the fun stuff). Providing children with schedules can make a big difference to how they respond to a situation/ activity particularly if it is something they don’t want to do!
Schedules in the ‘Therapy’ world can often be misinterpreted as what they are used for, usually just being passed off as a tool for working with children on the Autism Spectrum.
I use schedules for lots of reasons: understanding concepts/ what’s coming up, to show when children get rewards, for compliance around activities and most importantly for teaching students how to manage time and organise themselves.
You can use schedules in lots of different ways: paper schedules with pictures or words, written on the whiteboard or for time poor people like me in an app.
Choiceworks is an amazing app, for a relatively low cost (around $7), which you can take your own pictures and make up all types of schedules.
Tips for Car Trips
“Tips for Car Trips”
School holidays are now in full swing! We are now over the ‘hump’ of the festive season and it’s a great time to enjoy this amazing weather and explore Victoria!
Many of you will be taking drives over the next couple of weeks whether it be down to the beach, to visit family or friends, car trips are a great time to get in some of that ‘pesky’ practice that your Speechie keeps reminding you that you have to do!
Here are some of my favourite ideas for developing language skills in the car!
1. ‘I Spy’, A classic car game in my opinion, but I like to adapt the rules to make it more family friendly! Try changing it to a description game instead of a first sound game. You need to tell the listener 3 things about the item that you are describing, for example: ‘It’s red, has two wheels and a person wears a helmet while riding it’.
2. Sound practice: laminate and stick cards for different sounds on the back of the seats/ passenger windows, take turns as a family at making up a sentence or saying a word
3. Rapid naming: practice naming things in groups as a family and see how many you can name in a group, you can all have a turn at doing this one.
4. Make up silly stories to practice narrative skills, try doing a different ‘part’ of the story each e.g. one person makes up the ‘beginning’ the next person follows on with the ‘middle’ and the last person does the ‘conclusion’
5. Take photos while on your outing and then get your child to describe what you did or recount your day, they can then do this to a family member of friend when they get home.
6. Practice thinking of questions, what might happen when you get to certain places to prepare your child for the outing in question.
Got any great ideas? Feel free to comment below…..
Want more tips? Get in touch today 0435 151 959
