Actually, we did write one for April 1st because any special day is reason enough to write a blog post suggesting fun ways to slip in some speech therapy ideas into your child's day. And these ideas will get the whole family giggling!
In this article we will discuss:
The key with any of these activities and integrating speech therapy, is to know what your child's goals are and target the those within the activity.
For example, if you toddler is working on increasing their sentence length from one to two words, you can take any activity vocabulary word and make the sentence 1 word longer. So you can take the word "day" and make it "long day." Or you can take the word "fish" from the activity below, and make it "big fish."
If you have an older child working on Wh- questions, you can make each question more or less simple. For example, you can take the simple question "what is a prank?" and extend it to, "what is a prank and when was the last time you played one?"
If your child is practicing certain sounds for an articulation goal, you can take any vocabulary word and add another one with the target sound. If the target sound is "th" as in the word "the," you can practice saying "the fish" or "the joke.
April Fool's Day is a great day to tell funny jokes
The key is knowing your child's goals and making the small changes to the activity to target those goals. The Better Speech speech language pathologists always make recommendations to their families on how to modify any family activity to address speech therapy goals.
We asked our speech language pathologists to tell us about their favorite April Fools Day activities, and here are some that they shared:
Wh Questions:
What is April Fool’s Day?
What is a fool? What is a prank?
When is April Fool’s Day?
Why is it ok to do pranks on April Fool’s Day but not on other days?
A Chilly Breakfast:
The night before April 1st, fill a bowl with your child's favorite cereal, pour in the milk and then put the bowl in the freezer. The next morning, serve it for breakfast and watch your child's confused looks.
Talk About it:
Why is this prank funny (or not)?
What else can you put in the freezer to prank someone for dinner?
April Fools Around the World:
People all around the world celebrate April fools day. In France, it's called Poisson d’Avril which means April Fish. People in France try to stick a paper fish on someone without them noticing and then yell, "April Fish!" in French. And in Portugal, they celebrate April Fools by throwing flour in friend’s faces.
If you are brave enough to let your child choose, describe the traditions from France and Portugal and let your child decide which they want to try at home.
Here is some vocabulary your can review with your child depending on which country tradition they choose:
France: fish, paper, stick, back, run, got ya!
Portugal: flour, bowl, white, cloud, throw, run
Do you have any favorite April Fools ideas? Did you take a photo or video of a prank you played on your child? Email Michelle, the clinical director at Better Speech and she might select you to win an Amazon Gift Card. We will share your prank with all of the Better Speech SLPs to use next year with our families.
At Better Speech, we offer online speech therapy services convenient for you and tailored to your child's individual needs. Our services are affordable and effective - get Better Speech now.
About the Author
Cheri Gipson
I am a speech-language pathologist who specializes in language skills and pronunciation. I obtained my Master’s of Science degree in Speech-Language Pathology from Western Illinois University and I have worked in the field of speech pathology for over 20 years. One of the things I enjoy most is helping people learn.
In my spare time, I enjoy writing tips on how to improve online teaching for both the larger language schools and also as a private ESL teacher. Teaching is my passion, and I love seeing students make progress. Every day is a new adventure, and I am grateful for the opportunity to help people learn and grow!
