A good barn and lots of Learning to Listen Sound animal toys can be used for a million different therapy activities. But what about families who do not have a barn or animal toys at home? Why not make your own in therapy?
WHAT YOU’LL NEED
Two disposable cups (paper or styrofoam)
Clip art of Learning to Listen Sound animals
Popsicle sticks/tongue depressors
Clip art of a barn
Cardstock
Scissors
Glue or tape
Print out the clip art barn (either directly onto cardstock or glue it on), cut out flaps for the doors. Cut slits into the tops of two disposable cups to create the stand for the barn. Glue animal clip art to popsicle sticks/tongue depressors, and store them in the cups.
BEGINNING LISTENERS
Detection of Learning to Listen Sounds
Discrimination between LTLS differing in duration (mooooo vs. quack quack quack)
Sing Old MacDonald — does the child respond physically to music? Does he attempt to “sing” along?
THE NEXT STEPS
Receptively and expressively identifiying the animals by their names
2 CE directions (give the duck to Mom, I want the big cow)
Two word combinations (attribute + entity: big cow, action + object: kiss the cow, agent + action: bunny jump, possessor + posession: Mommy[‘s] duck, etc.)
Hide the animals around the room. Give directions with prepositions (“the cow is UNDER the blue chair”).
MAKE IT EVEN HARDER
Vocabulary: talk about baby and adult animal pair names
Have an older child help you make the barn. You can work on giving and following ocmplex directions with a variety of concepts (inclusion/exculsion: I want all of the animals EXCEPT the cow, conditional: IF you have brown hair, give me the ducks, temporal: put on the glue BEFORE you get the scissors)
Have the child tell the entire
Use the barn as the backdrop for a puppet show — the dialogue of the “show” can target whichever language or articulation goals you have
Elizabeth A. Rosenzweig 