Speech Therapy: Barn Yard Animals

My daughter Maggie is in speech therapy.  She just has a really hard time with speech.  She's been diagnosed with speech delay.  She's extremely bright and there's a lot going on in her mind she just doesn't or can't let it out yet.  She has improved TONS since she started in January but she still doesn't say much for her age, so we work hard on practicing her words each day.

This week her speech therapist gave us the goal to practice saying barn yard animals names, not just the sounds they make.  She gave me some gorgeous flashcards to work with.  Of course I couldn't just leave them alone, I had to get creative!

I rounded the edges and laminated each flash card using my personal laminating machine.

I wanted a place to store the cards but I also wanted it to be fun and interactive so I created this barn.  I free hand cut the barn body, grass, sun and a little chicken and then laminated the whole page.  I created a stable fence and doors that I laminated separately.

I used my sewing machine to sew the fence onto the page.  (Yes, your machine can sew more than just fabric!)  All of the flashcards fit nicely into the fence.  I left a little of the lamination on each of the doors and sewed the clear lamination straight onto the page.  Sewing the lamination and not the paper door itself helped the doors open more easily. 

A little surprise chicken in the loft. 

 

Maggie has loved her new barn.  We "knock, knock, knock" on the doors, tell them to "open" and get excited when we see "horsey" and "cow".  We line them up and make them play.  Then we put them back to bed, "night night doggie". It's been good practice and a lot more fun than flipping flash cards.

Our point in this is to be anything but quiet, but this would also make a great quiet book. 

So simple.  Now go make your own!