a house of language

when the day comes that alexander talks back to me,

i will surely regret (for a minute)
all of the hard work we have invested into

his language development.
for now, we will continue to saturate him in a

language rich environment.

goodness, he is lucky i like to talk.

in every moment of the day,

there is a chance to incorporate some type of
language development.
here are some ideas for your 6 month old and beyond

you may find helpful at home.

meal mats

i finally finished this laminated meal mat for alexander.
my friend, Marielle's mom sent me the link.
thanks so much, we have really enjoyed it!

it has 2 sides to it. this particular one is for a 6-12 month-old.
for now we point to a picture and make the sound.
i am just beginning to give him a cheerio and asking him to
"put it on the fire engine, woo woo woo".
my goal is for him to repeat the sound and locate the fire engine.

if you would like to make one click here.
if you would like to make one for your 12-24 month-old click here

it is working!

experience books

alexander's audiologist suggested i make an experience book.

an experience book is a photo book that is comprised of a group of photos
all focused on one topic or a group of topics with one outcome.
or it can really be anything you want it to be.

i made a few different ones to see what would work the best.
the first one was made by cutting up extra 12x12 pieces of paper into 4th's.
then with the scrapes i make 30+ background pages ready for pictures to be glued to them.

in an effort to have my 2 older boys read the book with alexander i included pictures of them in the book.


the focus of the book is
basic listening sounds.
here are a few of the pages:


"look, it is a duck. quack, quack, quack. yes, quack says the duck"

"mmmm, yummy. you're eating cake, yummy"

"shhh, it is a baby. shhh the baby is sleeping"

"ahh aha ahh, it is an airplane. it goes up, up,up dooooooooown"

"neigh! neigh says the horse"

here is another quick and easy photo book (target $2).

the focus of the book is farm animals and their noises.

we went to our local farm, snapped a few pictures,

printed them out and slide them in.

this is a great book for the car or to keep in a purse.

this is an example photo used in the book.
i plan to make a whole basket of them.
we recently went to the aquarium in baltimore,

so hopefully i will do that one next.
the important part is recreating the experiences the kids have had
through photos then talking about them

over and over again.

art folder


what do you do with all of the art project the kids bring home?
put them on the already crowded fridge?
throw them away?

here is an idea, an art folder to slip under their bed or in a closet.

what you do:

• purchase the largest size of poster board.
• fold it in half.
• staple the side edges together or hole punch the sides and let you crafty child sew with yarn the sides.
• let them decorate their new art work folder how ever they want too.

my 3-year-old wanted to use his hand artwork

to decorate the outside of his art folder.
the hand art is made on sunday's at church.

my thoughtful sister-in-law, stephanie,
surprised the kids with this book for christmas.
maybe your children are angels at church,
so you don't need this book suggestion.
stephanie has sat with us too many times
to know my boys need something to do while they listen.

what shape is it?

Sometimes it is difficult to remember which shape
is the rectangle and which is the square?
my 3-year-old has been mixing up the shapes
lately so i decided to make a game out of it.

(the idea was adapted from logan's mom)

what you need:

• tape
• bean bags or other toys

begin
as i taped them down i would say what shape i was making
and then i would make up a song to the tune of 'the more we get together'.

for instance, "this is the rectangle, the rectangle, the rectangle, this is the rectangle, it is very long." (i am sure you can add you own creativity too it)


game 1
i took a bin of animals and asked him to put an animal on the ____ (square or circle). this would help review the shapes.


game 2
then he got to stand on a line and throw bean bags into the shapes and he would tell me what shape it landed in. or i would put the bean bag on a shape and he would tell me which one i put it on.


game 3
he found objects around the house that were the shape of the rectangle, square, octagon, triangle, circle, oval and whatever else you want to work on. then he was asked to put them on the correct shape.

i left them there for a week and once he felt he knew the shape
we would do a shape dance, pull it off the carpet
and threw it away.



if you like these ideas, i will share more.
for now, enjoy!
monica