Are you a parent looking for some strategies to help you work on speech and language skills at home? Or are you an SLP looking for early intervention resources to give to caregivers? Today I am going to teach you all about Core Vocabulary. But first, I need to answer the question: What Is Core Vocabulary?

Pretend you are suddenly forced to move to another country where you are unfamiliar with the language. What kind of words would you want to learn first? Do you think it would be more helpful to learn words like, “milk”, “cracker”, or “pencil”? Or would it be more important to learn words like “eat”, “go”, and “help”?

If you said eat, go, and help, you chose something called Core Vocabulary Words. Core Vocabulary Words are the words that are used most frequently in any given language. They are made (mostly) up of verbs and pronouns. These words can be used in many different ways across different situations. For example, you could use the word help with a few gestures to indicate that you need help opening something or that you need help finding something.

If you said milk, cracker, and pencil, you chose something called Fringe Vocabulary Words. These words are not used as often, and can really be used to talk about one thing. They also are usually nouns. If I say “pencil”, I can really only tell you about that pencil. Fringe Words are not a versatile as Core Words.

Now think about this. What words would help your child get the most bang for his buck? Probably the Core Vocabulary Words.

Fringe Words are not bad. We need them to help our phrases and sentences make sense- so don’t feel like you need to omit them. However, if you have to choose a word to emphasize-choose the Core word. For example, if you are helping your child put away cars, focus more on the word “put” instead of the word “car”. Put would be the Core Word. “Car” would be the fringe word.

This is most important for caregivers who are focusing on modeling 1–3-word phrases with their child. If you have to pick 1 word to model for your child, choose a Core Vocabulary Word. As your child learns more words, begin adding in the Fringe Vocabulary Words that are most functional for your child.

I also want to warn you about something. If you do a quick Google search to learn more about Core Vocabulary you will probably see a lot of articles about Alternative Augmentative Communication (AAC) systems. This is a great approach for children using these systems. It is also a great approach for any child learning language– so don’t let those articles confuse you or make you second guess yourself.

I really hope you found this helpful. I would love it if you would share this post with anyone who is looking for ways to easily work on speech therapy at home with their toddler or preschooler. Additionally, I have some parent handouts with over 20 different strategies. They were created by me (a Real SLP-Mom) so they are practical and effective. I walk you through each strategy and how to use it at home. There is also a Spanish version and an English version.  

**Quick Disclaimer: The ideas shared in this post are meant to educate and help caregivers feel more confident implementing speech therapy-type activities at home. They are not intended to be a substitute for speech therapy with a licensed SLP, as each child has unique needs.**

Easter Holiday + family time + fun activities = Speech therapy at home? Yes, you read that correctly! Today I want to share my 5 favorite Easter Egg-themed activities that you can use to target some speech therapy skills at home. Let me get you set up and then we can get to the fun part!

You will need:

• Boiled Eggs
• Stuff to dye the eggs (we usually get a kit, but here is how you can do it with food dye)
• Mayonnaise, mustard, or anything else you need to make your favorite boiled egg food

Before you get started with your toddler or preschooler, let’s think through each activity. Get your stuff set up and ready to grab so you aren’t wasting your child’s precious attention span running around the kitchen gathering your supplies. This principle is going to hold true for each of the Easter-themed speech therapy-inspired activities I will share with you today.

The secret to making any activity a speech therapy-type activity is being intentional with the words you use. This is going to vary depending on your child. When deciding what words to use with your child, I like to give parents two strategies to try and remember.

The first strategy is to try and only use 1-2 more words than your child currently uses. For example, if your child isn’t speaking try and only use 1-2 words when speaking to him or her. If your child usually speaks using 3-word phrases, then try and speak to him or her using 4-5 word phrases.

The second strategy is to speak using “functional” or “core” words. These are the words that make up the majority of any given language. Usually, they include words such as verbs, pronouns, location words, and some adjectives. Here is a list of a few of my favorite core words that would be great to focus on during these activities.

• More
• All Done/ Finished
• Want
• Go
• Look
• There
• I
• You
• It
• Se
• Put

Easter Speech Therapy Activity #1: Dye the Eggs

Potential Speech Therapy Targets:

• Following Directions
• Vocabulary

We are all pretty familiar with the activity of dying Easter eggs. For this blog post, dying eggs is going to be our baseline activity. All of our other activities are going to build off of this one. But, before we get to those other activities, let me walk you through how to turn the activity of dying Easter eggs into a speech and language activity.

I always recommend parents let their kiddos help as much as possible. Once you get all of your supplies set up and ready, let your child jump in! Each time you do anything, make sure you are talking about it and labeling yours (or your child’s) actions. Remember, try and only use 1-2 more words than your child is currently using so that you aren’t overwhelming him/her with many new words s/he may not understand.

Once your eggs are decorated, you can move on to some of these other activities!

Easter Speech Therapy Activity #2 Hide the Eggs:

Potential Speech Therapy Targets:

• Location Words (on, in, under, by, etc.)
•  Following Directions
• Answering “where” questions

You’ve dyed your eggs, now you get to hide them! Want a quick mom hack? If you have more than one child, let them hide each other’s eggs! For us, that meant that my husband and son teamed up to hide eggs for my daughter. At the same time, my daughter and I hid the eggs for my son. This is a time-saver, and you get two times the opportunities to talk about location words! Also, if your child is focusing on where to hide the eggs, they won’t find it as easy to see where their eggs are hidden.

This easter egg activity is the best for practicing location words such as on, in, under, and by.  Read these next few paragraphs carefully, because they are important for helping you get the most out of your time!

There are two levels to this skill. The easier level is understanding. This is called receptive language. If your child is at this level, your child is working on following a direction that you give. For example, you could say “put the egg under that bush” or “put the egg on the swing”. Your child does not need to speak or answer questions at this level.

The more advanced level requires verbal output from your child. This requires your child to have an understanding of receptive language (understanding) and expressive language (verbal output). That means if you ask “Where is the egg?” your child is working on verbally answering “under the slide”.

Understanding this difference is important because it helps you provide the most customized experience for YOUR child. If your child isn’t at the more advanced level that is OK. Pushing your child to do more than s/he is ready for will only be frustrating for all of you. On the other hand, we always want to challenge our children to reach their full potential, so if you see your child is able to answer those more difficult questions-by all means ask them! Just test the waters and see what your child can do. Then, go from there.

If your child is not yet able to verbally answer the question “Where is the egg?”, you get to be the example for your child. You do this by labeling your actions and your child’s actions as you hide and find eggs. For example, “You put the egg in the pot”, or, “The egg is under the chair!”

Another mom tip- put your dogs inside while you do this activity! Otherwise, your dogs might end up eating your eggs before your child can find them! (Not that I am speaking from experience or anything…)

Easter Egg Speech Therapy Activity #3: Humpty Dumpty

You Will Need:

• Your dyed eggs
• Somewhere for your eggs to fall (preferably outside)

Potential Speech Therapy Targets:

• Teaching the verb “fall”
• Rhyming Words

Nursery rhymes are an amazing way to practice language skills at home. The rhyming words make them catchy and can potentially help with literacy skills as your child gets older. Children also tend to be drawn to them because they are silly and fun. I happen to have a way to help you make the nursery rhyme “Humpty Dumpty” come to life!

How to Do It: Take your boiled eggs and pretend they are Humpty Dumpty. Find a high place such as a table, slide, or jungle gym for Humpty to fall off. Sing the nursery rhyme with your child. When it is time for Humpty to fall, let your child give the egg a push. Watch the egg fall and then examine it. Does the egg have cracks? Is it broken? What happened? Talk about it with your child!

Activity #4: Peel the Eggs

Now that Humpty is all cracked and broken, you can peel the eggs! This activity is self-explanatory, but I still wanted to include it, because I don’t want you to overlook it. Peeling eggs is great for working on those fine motor skills, and kids usually think it is pretty fun. To make it more speech therapy-based- just do the same things we have already talked about. Label your actions and your child’s actions as you peel the eggs. Explore new words together such as peel, slippery, crack, or squishy.

Activity #5: Make an Egg Snack

Let me start by saying use your discretion. If your eggs have been out in the sun all day, don’t feel like you need to do this. Yuck. But if you have some extra boiled eggs that have been chilling in the fridge, this is one more way you can sneak in a language-building activity!

I would suggest making something like deviled eggs or egg salad using those eggs. If you don’t have a recipe on hand a quick internet search can give you some ideas. As always, let your child help as much as possible and be intentional by talking about what you are doing.

I hope you have found some great Easter themed speech therapy activities to do at home with your toddler or preschooler! I also hope you are leaving feeling more confident and excited then when you landed on this page. If you are a caregiver trying to find new and interesting ways to work on speech therapy at home-you’ve got this!  

If you are looking for more fun speech therapy at home ideas from an SLP-Mom, I’ve got you covered! I have these handouts that go over easy to use, at-home strategies and I also have this playlist of YouTube videos. These are both great resources for parents looking to incorporate speech therapy strategies at home!

**Quick Disclaimer: The ideas shared in this post are meant to educate and help caregivers feel more confident implementing speech therapy-type activities at home. They are not intended to be a substitute for speech therapy with a licensed SLP, as each child has unique needs.**

Have you ever sat down and wondered how do you strategically teach positional words and location concepts to the preschoolers you see in speech therapy?

If you have read many of my posts, you know they are riddled with confessions. I share these confessions because I want to show you my journey in a transparent and honest way. I also hope that when I share my mistakes, imperfections, and immaturity you will find relatability and see growth.

What is today’s confession? If you couldn’t guess from the intro it is all about teaching location words in a strategic way. You see, I used to be guilty of just jumping straight into drills and not actually teaching skills. This was frustrating for me and my students. It made us both feel like failures.

When you just drill, drill, drill you aren’t TEACHING a skill. You are just kind of hoping that your students will absorb it through multiple trials. Guess what? For our students, it doesn’t usually work that way. They need explicit teaching and strategic scaffolding to be successful.

So, how do you strategically teach location words and positional concepts to your preschoolers?

I have several activities that I do in a specific order. They increase in difficulty from the most concrete to more abstract. You can stay in each level as long as your student needs to feel successful. But, from my personal experience, I really wouldn’t recommend jumping around too much when you are just starting to teach these skills.

Before you start: Pick a few location words you need to practice. If you are just starting out, I recommend on, under, and in. These are the most concrete and are usually the earliest emerging of the prepositions. Get your visuals ready. Are you using signs, pictures, or something else? After you get set up, take about 3-5 minutes to pre-teach the visuals to your students.

Activity #1: Gross Motor Location Words

You Will Need: A box big enough for a child to sit, under, and on. The recycle bins most classrooms have work great for this!

How to Do It: First, you should use the box and the visuals to model each location word for the student. That’s right friend. You will be climbing on, in, and under that recycle bin. Your student will probably be super eager to hop in that box, so once they have seen you do it, let them have at it! I first give the direction for the student to follow (i.e. Get under the box). This will target their ability to receptively comprehend the location word. Show your visuals each time you give the directions.

Once they are in the right spot, I also ALWAYS model the question “Where are you?”. Even if this skill is too advanced, it gives the student the opportunity to practice and be exposed to the expressive component of this task. If the student can’t answer the question yet, I just model the answer for him/her.

By having the student manipulate and move on, in, and under the box, it helps them feel and connect the location word. This is the most concrete way I have found to teach this skill.

Activity #2: Big Box + Manipulatives

How to Do It: You are going to need to hang on to that recycle bin or big box a little bit longer. Once your student has a good feel for manipulating their own body and the box, we can make it a little more challenging. We do this by having the student manipulate an object and that big box they are familiar with. I prefer doing this with larger objects. Again, pair the verbal direction with your visuals and target both the receptive and expressive components. If you are lucky, you may even be able to get through Activity #1 and Activity #2 in the same session!

Activity #3: Little Box + Manipulatives

How to Do It: Find a small container with a lid. I prefer clear containers because it helps the student see inside the box. Continue on like you did in the previous activity. However, this time, since the container is different, the task is slightly more challenging. Do you see what we are doing here?  Keep on pairing the verbal direction with your visuals and target both the receptive and expressive components. Begin to fade cues as you can.

Activity #4: Hiding Objects Around the Room

How to Do It: As the title implies, you are going to be hiding objects around the room. This is so easy to turn into a hide-and-seek type game and kids LOVE it. However, this is slightly less structured than the boxes, so it becomes a little more challenging. You can keep doing this activity for as long as you want. Use the visuals as much as needed. Try and remember to target both the expressive and receptive components.

What about worksheet-type tasks that use paper, cutting, and gluing?

I am so glad you asked! In all honesty-I don’t like them. I wait and introduce worksheet tasks until my student is able to do these other functional activities. I find the cutting and glueing to be more abstract and difficult. Worksheets are great for reviewing and making things more challenging, but I would not use these activities during the teaching phase.  

Ok folks! That is going to wrap up today’s post. Thanks for hanging out with me! Drop a comment if you learned something new about teaching positional words to the preschoolers on your caseload! Also, if you liked my style and want to learn how to strategically teach other speech therapy skills be sure and check out these posts or my YouTube channel!  

Welcome friends! I am typing this while I am sitting outside on a perfect spring day. The sun is shining, there is a nice breeze, and it is neither too hot nor too cold. It is the perfect kind of day to do some planting with your toddlers! Planting flowers is one of my favorite spring themed speech therapy activities to do at home with my own toddlers. Let me get you set up and then I will break down how to turn this every day activity into a language rich activity.

Theme: Plants

Activity: Painting a terracotta pot and planting seeds

Book: The Tiny Seed, by Eric Carle

Best Time to Do It: On a Gorgeous Spring Day

Speech and Language Skills You Can Target: Sequencing, Following Directions, Plant Vocabulary, Past, Present, and Future Tense

You Will Need:

• A terracotta pot
• Paint
• Paintbrushes
• Potting Soil
• Seeds

How to Do It: Buy a terracotta flower pot. I got a 12” one because that is what my packet of seeds told me to get (I really don’t have a green thumb hah!) Set up your pot and paints outside and prepare yourself for a mess-but also to have fun! Before you start, explain the process to your child exactly what you will be doing using simple instructions. For example:

1. First, we will paint the pot.
2. Next, we will let the pot dry.
3. Then, we will scoop soil in the pot.
4. After that, we will plant the seeds.
5. We will water the seeds.
6. Then we get to watch them grow!

Listing out each step like this is GREAT for teaching sequencing. Sequencing is a super important skill because it is the foundation of narratives. A narrative is just a fancy word for stories. If you have ever wanted your child to to “tell you about their day”- you really are wanting to hear a narrative about their day!

Now that your are all set up, it is time to start painting!  As you paint, talk about what you are doing and what your child is doing using simple words. A good rule of thumb is to try and use about 1-2 more words than your child is currently using when he/she speaks.

Let the pot dry, then come back, pour in your soil and plant and water your seeds. Let your child “help” as much as possible. Continue being mindful of your speech. Label your actions and your child’s actions throughout each step. Try and focus more on verbs (action words) instead of nouns (objects). We do this, because verbs are considered to be more “functional”. That means that we can use verbs in more ways than we can use nouns. When we focus on verbs we get the most bang for our buck.

Once you have planted your seeds, review the sequence from before. This time use the past tense of the verbs. For example:

1. First, we painted the pot.
2. Next, the paint dried.
3. Then, we scooped soil in the pot.
4. After that, we planted the seeds.
5. Then we watered the seeds.

This review step is important for a couple of reasons. First, it exposes your child to the vocabulary words for a 3 time. (You really can’t repeat too much). Second, it exposes your child to the past tense form of the verb. Third, it reviews the sequence again. If your child has enough language, encourage him/her to tell you the steps in order.

Another mom tip-instead of dumping the soil into the pot all at once, try and find something small for your child to scoop the dirt. We used small plastic cups, but small shovels would also work. This does three things. First, it gives you the opportunity to model and practice the word scoop several times. Second, it is great for building fine motor strength in little hands. Third, it’s a good time killer. I find that when my kids have a structured task in front of them, the tantrums and whining are at a minimum. Less whining is always a win in my book.

To tie it all together I love strategically incorporating books and YouTube videos. It’s just one more way to expose your child to similar vocabulary words in a different way. For this activity, I love reading “The Tiny Seed” by Eric Carle. After you read the story, help your child retell the planting sequence one more time!

For the YouTube video, I love anything by Cocomelon. This Cocomelon “Gardening Song” is a perfect way to review the activity. I am a parent and I know most of us use TV to entertain our kids (no judgement). I feel like if we are doing it anyways, we might as well do it strategically.  

One more thing! This activity also makes a perfect gift for grandparents or loved ones! I am pretty sure we will be making painted pots for my mom and mother-in-law for Mother’s Day this year!

If you are looking for more speech therapy at home ideas from an SLP-Mom, I’ve got you covered! I have these handouts that go over easy to use, at-home strategies and I also have this playlist of YouTube videos. These are great resources for parents looking to incorporate speech therapy strategies with their toddlers at home!

**Quick Disclaimer: The ideas shared in this post are meant to educate and help caregivers feel more confident implementing speech therapy-type activities at home. They are not intended to be a substitute for speech therapy with a licensed SLP, as each child has unique needs.**

Have you been combing the internet looking for spring speech therapy at home activities? You are in the right place! I am so excited to share this speech therapy activity you can do at home! I have been eagerly waiting for the day my son was old enough to truly understand and appreciate it. Let me break it down for you.

Theme: Caterpillars and Butterflies

Activity: Watching Caterpillars Turn Into Butterflies

Book: The Very Hungry Caterpillar, by Eric Carle

Best Time to Do It: During the Spring or Early Summer

Best Ages: 2+

Speech and Language Skills You Can Target: Sequencing, Caterpillar/Butterfly Vocabulary

You Will Need:

• Caterpillars (I ordered mine online from here)

How to Do It: Purchase the caterpillars. When they arrive, tell your child what is going to happen to the caterpillars.  For example:

1. First, the caterpillars are going to eat the food.
2. Then, they will get big.
3. After that, they will make a chrysalis.
4. When they come out of the chrysalis, they will be a butterfly!

SLP-Mom Tips For Doing These Spring Speech Therapy Activities

Listing out each step like this is GREAT for teaching sequencing. Sequencing is a super important skill because it is the foundation of narratives. A narrative is just a fancy word for stories. So, when we want our children to “tell us about their day”- we really are wanting them to tell us a narrative about their day!

Check on your caterpillars every day. Talk about the changes you see. Are they growing? Do they look hairy? What are they doing? Each time you check on them, remember to review the sequence of a caterpillar turning into a butterfly. This review step is important for a couple of reasons. First, it exposes your child to the vocabulary words each time. (You really can’t repeat too much). Second, it reviews the sequence again. If your child has enough language, encourage him/her to tell you the steps in order.

Continue being mindful of your speech. A good rule of thumb is to try and use only 1-2 more words than your child is currently using.

Now, to tie this spring speech therapy at home activity together, I love strategically incorporating books and YouTube videos. It’s just one more way to expose your child to similar vocabulary words in a slightly different way. For this activity, I love reading “The Very Hungry Caterpillar” by Eric Carle. After you read the story, you help your child retell the caterpillar sequence one more time!

For the YouTube video, this “Butterfly Dance Song” is a perfect way to review the activity. I am a parent and I know most of use TV to entertain our kids (no judgement). I feel like if we are doing it anyways, we might as well do it strategically.   

If you are looking for more fun speech therapy at home ideas from an SLP-Mom, I’ve got you covered! I have these handouts that go over easy to use, at-home strategies and I also have this playlist of YouTube videos. These are both great resources for parents looking to incorporate speech therapy strategies at home!

**Quick Disclaimer: The ideas shared in this post are meant to educate and help caregivers feel more confident implementing speech therapy-type activities at home. They are not intended to be a substitute for speech therapy with a licensed SLP, as each child has unique needs.**