Ball Pop Activity
This is one of those things that is so simple, it’s almost silly to post about it… but it’s also too fun not to share!
Grab your inflatable beach ball (you know, the one that’s in your one-bag AVT kit). Blow it up about three-quarters full. Squash the top down to make a “nest” for a small toy. Quickly push the horizontal sides of the ball together and… POP! The toy goes flying.
How could you use this to target therapy goals?
- Pre-verbal communicators: vocalization for action (1… 2… 3… pop!)
- Patterns contrasting in duration, intensity, and pitch (DIP): up up up doooooown, one two three gooooo, wheeee!, etc.
- Requesting adverb-time “again”
- Put Learning to Listen Sound figurines on top and say their sound before making them fly
- Put a few different toys on the table then describe one (“Put an animal on the ball that is big and gray with large ears and a long trunk”) and have the child find it or give a critical element direction and have the child select the correct one (“Get the big, red car and put it on top of the ball”)
- Prepositions: describe where the object falls (it’s behind the desk) or the flight path it took (it flew over Mommy’s head)
- Choose toys that target a particular phoneme (e.g., for a child working on the initial /b/ sound we’re going to put a bear, bunny, bus, etc. on the ball and make them fly) or phonological pattern (e.g., for a child working on s-blends, make a skunk, star, snake, spider, etc. fly)
The possibilities are endless, and this is the kind of activity that is sure to add some laughs to your session!
