It’s Turkey Time!

The holidays present many wonderful opportunities for learning. In the spirit of Thanksgiving we’re busy incorporating turkeys into our sessions giving the children ways to work on their speech and fine motor, along with other skills in their time with us.

We have different variations turkeys hanging out with us this month. We’re talking about colors that we want our turkeys to be, how long their legs should be, what shapes we are using, how we should attach the various pieces of the turkeys together, and so on.

For our first turkey we used half of a paper plate, tissue paper squares, a construction paper circle, and construction paper for the beak and giblet. Depending on the age of the kiddo and the skill set that they have, we’ll let them cut out the different pieces needed; such as cutting the plate in half, the tissue paper into squares, and the construction paper into the shapes needed for the head, beak and giblet.

  

For our second turkey we used half a paper plate, construction paper for the body, head, eyes, beak, giblet and legs. We colored the feathers onto the edges of the plate, and glued the various body parts of the turkey to the plate. We worked on our folding skills with giving the legs a little dimension, and cut the ends for feet.

Both of these activities are really easy to do with the kiddos with only a minimal mess to clean up at the end, and covers speech, gross motor skills, fine motor skills, decision making, and creativity.

Skills Addressed with Carving a Pumpkin

Carving a pumpkin creates a great way for children to work on their occupational, physical, and speech-language skills through the use of a fun task right at home. Skills including gross motor, fine motor, visual motor, speech, social skills, decision making, bilateral coordination, imagination and creativity are all skills that are used while carving a pumpkin.

Choosing a pumpkin creates an opportunity for a child to use their decision making skills and their social skills. If they are given the opportunity to choose a pumpkin on their own it creates an environment where they not only will have to weigh the options of which pumpkin to pick, but they will also be using their independence to pick out their pumpkin, and to be confident in their selection. Picking out a pumpkin also allows you (or others) to have a conversation with your child to get them speaking. Language such as “shall we get the big pumpkin or the little pumpkin?” and, “Which one do you want?” gives children the opportunity to interact and describe which size and look of pumpkin they would like.  They are also given the chance to use their gross motor skills through this process by picking up pumpkins, pushing them around, and carrying them to the car.

After a child has made the decision on which pumpkin they would like to carve, they need to clean out the inside of the pumpkin. Tactile input can be incorporated by using their hands to clean out the pumpkin, as the guts are cold and squishy. Then bilateral skills and upper body strength can be incorporated by holding the pumpkin with one hand and using a spoon to scrape with the other hand. You can incorporate speech by asking them to describe how the insides of the pumpkin feel to them. Do they feel slimy or squishy? Are they cold or warm?

Fine motor skills are incorporated when drawing on the pumpkin to decide where to cut out for the eyes, nose and mouth. This also is another opportunity for the child to use their imagination and creativity, along with decision making. Depending on the age of a child you might want to do the cutting yourself and let them watch, but overall the end result will be that your child put to use many of their skills to get to the end point of carving a pumpkin, and they can be proud of the results too!