Items Needed:
Marshmallows
Popsicle Stick
Pretzel sticks
Black Icing
Reese’s Cup
Fruit by the Foot or Fruit Roll up
Mini Chocolate Chips or Mini M & M’s
1) Place 3 marshmallows through the popsicle stick to make the three balls of “snow”.
2) Stick a pretzel stick on either side of the snowman for the arms. If desired, break the pretzel sticks in half for a smaller size.
3) Cut the Fruit by the Foot to the desired length. Then, wrap it around the bottom of the top marshmallow to look like a scarf.
4) Use the icing to attach the Reese’s cup as the hat.
5) Attach the mini chocolate chips or M & M’s with icing for the eyes, buttons, and nose.
6) Last, use the icing to draw a smile!
5 Ways to Incorporate Speech and Language:
Themed Learning
Pair the snowman craft with a Winter book! Find our favorite snow themed books here: https://www.owlstherapy.com/new-blog/childrens-winter-books
Research shows that thematic learning helps children make connections between concepts, assists with inferencing and predicting skills, develops deeper understanding of functions and categories, and improves vocabulary and semantic relationships (Hadley et al., 2018). Because of this, thematic learning helps children build connections between concepts. This also helps promote generalization outside the classroom or structured learning task and carryover into daily life.
Descriptive Language
Before making the snack, chat about all the different ingredients and their colors, textures, shapes, flavors, and sizes. Pick 2 ingredients to compare and contrast, such as popsicle sticks and pretzel sticks. Talk about their similarities (both long, skinny, stick-shape) and differences (edible vs. not edible, salt vs. no salt).
Speech Sound Practice
Practice the child’s speech sounds within the activity. For a reader, print out the ingredient list and recipe directions. Then, have the child highlight any words that contain their target sound and have them practice reading the directions aloud. Highlighting the target sound provides the child with a visual reminder cue to produce their sound correctly!
For non-readers, lay out all of the ingredients and discuss which items have their sound in it. For example, if the child is working on the correct production of “R”, the following ingredients have their sound: marshmallows, pretzel sticks, Reese’s Cup and Fruit by the Foot or Fruit Roll up. Practice these R words while constructing the craft!
Following Directions
The ability to follow directions is a very important skill, especially within the classroom. A child is asked to do a variety of things throughout the school day, and if following directions is challenging, one can certainly become overwhelmed!
Practice following directions with this activity by laying out all of the ingredients. Read the directions one at a time, allowing the child to attempt the step by themselves.
Should the child need assistance, repeat the direction or offer a picture of the step (see above).
If this continues to be challenging, model the direction by showing the child how to complete it. Pair the model of the step with the verbal language. For example, say “Place 3 marshmallows through the popsicle stick”, while physically completing the step.
Do not read the next step until the previous step is completed. For an extra challenge, once the step is completed, have the child retell you the direction!
Language Expansion
Little ones can enjoy this craft, too! Target language expansion by using a repeat-expand-repeat strategy. For example, if the child needs assistance opening a bag of ingredients, they may say “open!”. Follow these steps to create language expansion opportunities:
The parent repeats what the child said: “open!”
Then, the parent expands on what the child said: “open bag”, “help open”
Last, if the child repeats “open bag”, the parent then repeats again what the child said: “Yes, open bag!”
We hope you enjoyed creating (and snacking!) on today’s craft! We’d love to see your creations- please share them with us at @owlstherapy
About the Author
Janene Besch
Director/Speech-Language Pathologist
Janene Besch, née Martin, holds a Master's degree in Speech Language and Hearing Sciences from San Diego State University and a Bachelor's degree in Psychology from the University of California at San Diego. Janene is a member of the American Academy of Private Practice in Speech Pathology
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Welcome back to our last post in the series “Milestones: Navigating the Numbers”! This series was inspired by the updated American Speech-Language-Hearing Association’s (ASHA) Developmental Milestones. Read more on the expected speech, language, social-pragmatic, and feeding milestones expected by age 1, age 2, age 3 and age 4.