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Christmas Season

November 29, 2018

It’s hard to believe that Thanksgiving is over and Christmas season is in full swing! As many of you know Blane, Sawyer, and I welcomed our precious baby boy into the world in September. Although I miss my school students dearly, I am enjoying my days spent at home with Rhys. I will be returning to work after Christmas break on January 2. Ms. Ross has been covering my maternity leave and keeping in touch with me about all the students and progress they are making! She is excellent and I am confident your kids are in good hands.

Christmas is an amazing time to incorporate speech and language activities in with your children! Many of the students are working on their lists for Santa with things they absolutely NEED. A Christmas list is an excellent way to have students practice their speech by repeating certain items that focus on their target sound--have them use each item on their list in a sentence, categorize which items are toys, clothing, etc. With a Christmas list you can also teach them to prioritize, have them list items in order of most importance to them or even by which item costs the most to least! Many of you also may travel for the holidays which can be a fun way to incorporate speech and language activities! Have a friendly competition with your child by naming as many things you see in a minute that start with your child’s target sound. While in the car, you can also make your child think about a present they really want and you try to guess as they give you hints and vice versa! If you haven’t already put a Christmas tree up you can also incorporate speech while decorating as you can discuss with your child all the decorations that will go on the tree-make sure to incorporate ‘wh’ questions into the guessing! You could also wrap gifts that aren’t for you children and have your children expand on their expressive language by guessing what the present is! Speech and language activities can be fun and can help promote carry over skills! Hope everyone enjoys the time spent with their children over the Holidays. I look forward to returning to work to see the kids and hear about their break! As always, thanks for allowing me to work with your children, it’s truly a blessing.

Kellyn A. Wickert, M.A., CCC-SLP

Speech-Language Pathologist