Speech/language with simple Christmas chains

We're in the Christmas spirit around here and we started with a classic Christmas chain. 

* I first had Ashlynn sort the strips into their respective color piles. Great for developing early sorting and categorizing skills.

* I then instructed her to put glue on the "end" of the strip.  Many kids with language delays have difficulty with positional words and she is no exception.  She kept wanting to glue in the middle, so I had to keep reminding her "no, not the middle, put the glue on the end. (Also great for O/T practice)

* We then put the strip "through" the other strip.  During this, I made sure to emphasize "through" because again, this is another word that kids have difficulty with.

* Once the chain had three links, we repeated, "white, green, red"  and then each time, I would stop and ask her what comes "next" or "after" emphasizing those two concepts. 

*Also, having her identify what comes next is the beginning of early patterning and sequencing skills.

* Finally, at the end of the activity, we counted the links! 

Easy and fun! 

Skills addressed:
Colors
Sorting
Sequencing/Patterns
Concept vocabulary (next to, after, through, end, middle)
Following directions
Counting

How to teach toddlers their colors, interesting article I found on pinterest.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=why-johnny-name-colors

On pinterest, I ran across this interesting article.  It basically says that children learn their colors faster by saying "the balloon is read" instead of "the red balloon."  In English, we usually put the adjective before the noun, so our kiddos don't get a lot of practice with learning it this way.

I thought it was interesting from an SLP standpoint too though, because many language processing kiddos struggle with describing activities anyway.  In therapy, we do exactly this.  We sort items and then say "the puppy is little, the elephant is big etc.  Only after they get the concept, can they start practicing putting the adjective in front of the noun.  Makes sense for learning colors too.