CIU 20 Early Intervention: Engaging Ideas

Early Intervention: Engaging Ideas

Welcome to the

CIU20 Early Intervention Newsletter!

February 2024

This month's theme

is winter sports!

In this month's newsletter, we would like to share some winter sports-themed ideas and fun activities that your family may enjoy participating in and completing.

These are some suggestions for activities for you to try along with your child. We understand every child is at varying levels in the skill areas. If your child is not yet engaging in the activities independently, please use exposure, modeling, and/or shaping to modify and adapt the activities for your individual child.

Activities to foster gross and fine motor skill development

20 Winter Fine Motor Activities for Kids

As winter is in the air, a lot of our learning activities have a fun seasonal twist to them. One thing we are always focusing on is developing our fine motor skills because we know that they are so crucial as kids develop and become writers.

Read more
thekindergartenconnection.com

Learn about winter sports and the winter olympics

Winter Olympics For Kids! | Kids Fun Learning

Winter Sports! Learning Names of Different Winter Sports Recreation Activities for Kids

Dance and move along with the songs!

Winter Dance & Brain Breaks Songs for Kids ♫ Snowflakes Song ♫ Kids Songs by The Learning Station

Move Like the Winter Olympians Do | Jack Hartmann

Snow Ninja Challenge - Virtual Winter Workout (Get Active Games)

Snow Adventure for Kids | Follow the Actions with Coach Josh (Ages 2+)

Activities to help build language and communication

Ten on the Sled Read Aloud Book

Strategies:

Attention: Go on a picture walk! This is for those children who can not sit for a whole story. Talk about the pictures rather than reading all the words on the pages.
Core Language: Have your Core Word Board out to allow your child to request for turning pages by saying/pointing to "turn" or to ask you to look by saying or pointing to "look."
Receptive Language: Name different pictures on the page and encourage your child to point to each picture.
Expressive Language: Ask your child “What’s this?” while pointing to pictures on the page.
Engaging in the story: Use stuffed animals, objects, and other related items from the story to help your child make connections.

Winter Song (Fun in the Snow) | CoComelon Nursery Rhymes & Kids Songs

Fun in the Snow! Song

Strategies:

Core Language: Play the song on youtube! Stop the song at various parts of the song to have your child use their Core Word Board to request “turn," “again,” “look,” or “go” to continue playing the song.
Receptive Language: Name different pictures on the page and encourage your child to point to each picture.
Expressive Language: Ask your child “What’s this?” while pointing to pictures on the page.

Activity Bag

Gather the following pictures of items and place them in a bag:

Snow Tube
Sled
Ice Skate
Ski
Snow Board
Helmet

Strategies:

Core Language: Place the items in the bag, have your child request “look,” “more,” “want,” or “do,” to take the items out of the bag.

Receptive Language: Have your child point to the item you name when in a group of three.

Expressive Language: As your child takes an item out of the bag, have them name the item, describe how it looks or what you do with it (i.e, “You put these on your feet to skate on the ice”)

Out & About Activities

Playing in the Snow!

Core Language: Model the words “Turn” by saying, "I want a turn to go on the snow tube."

Receptive Language: Have your child point to the item you name

Expressive Language: Have your child request a "turn" digging in the snow or using a snow tube to play!

Activities to help develop sensory and self-help skills

10 Winter Sensory Table Ideas - Little Bins for Little Hands

When the weather outside gets cold, our these winter sensory table ideas are sure to delight! We love to experiment with hands-on sensory play ideas with simple materials. Create your own winter sensory bin or winter sensory table this season for ...

Read more
littlebinsforlittlehands.com

Ice Skating Bears

Materials:

Storage bin
Blue food coloring
Muffin pan
Counting bears, action figures, or similar types of toys
Please be sure to supervise your child while participating with this activity due to the potential choking hazard of playing with the small toys

Directions

Pour water 3/4 the way into the muffin pan.
Freeze.
Add the bears upright to stand on the frozen circles.
Add cold water to fill the remaining 1/4 of the way.
Freeze again.
Add a few drops of blue food coloring to the water bin
Allow child to play with the frozen bears in the water

February is Dental Health Month!

If parents know how to brush toddler teeth, “fun” may not be the word they use to describe it. In fact, brushing your toddler’s teeth may feel like a downright battle. If this is the case for you, try out some of the techniques below with your toddler; brushing teeth might become fun instead of a power struggle!

Take turns brushing your child’s teeth, so that your child feels more involved and/or independent. You can brush your child’s teeth first and then let your child practice brushing after, or you can reverse the order.
Bring in a favorite stuffed animal or doll, and let your child “brush” the toy’s teeth (without toothpaste, of course) while you brush your child’s teeth.
Play some music while brushing. Turn on a fun song that lasts about two minutes, and let your child know that when the song is done, it will be time to rinse. Alternatively, sing a song specifically related to tooth brushing. For example, we often sing, “Brush, brush, brush your teeth / Brush them every day / Father, mother, sister, brother / Brush them every day!” to the tune of “Row, Row, Row Your Boat”.
Tell silly stories as you brush to make things fun.
Let your child pick a toothbrush that he or she loves – one in your child’s favorite color or with a picture of a favorite movie character on it – to make the routine more exciting. Trying a fun flavor of toothpaste can help, too.

Activities for Dental Health Month

Activities to help develop social and emotional skills

Winter can get very boring for children! Here is a game. All you need are popsicle sticks, a container and dice. Have your child roll the dice, and put that many sticks in the container. Or make cards up with colors on them. Have your child choose a card, and put that color stick in the jar. Adults can play too! This is a great and easy social game!

Read-Aloud Book from YouTube

GOODNIGHT HOCKEY Read Aloud ~ Kids Sports ~ Read Along Books

SNOWMAN PAUL AT THE WINTER OLYMPICS Read Aloud ~ Winter Olympics Stories ~ Read Along Books

A great book for tackling emotions

I Was So Mad by Mercer Mayer - Little Critter - Read Aloud Books for Children - Storytime

Activities to build cognitive skills

Indoor Snowball Fight

Materials needed:

Several pieces of white paper
Marker
Masking tape

On each piece of white paper, draw a different shape, letter, number, color, or word (depending on what skill your child might be working on). Have your child crumble up each piece of paper into the shape of a ball. Make a line on the floor with masking tape and have your child stay on one side of the tape while you or a sibling stay on the other side. Start the snowball fight! Set a timer for 30 seconds and tell your child that when the timer goes off they should stop throwing the snowballs. When the timer goes off, have your child try to identify what is on each piece of paper that is on their side of the masking tape.

Visit our Early Intervention website for more resources

Follow us on our social media channels to learn more about the resiliency of #AmazingIU20Kids and creative approaches to learning that our #AmazingIU20Staff have implemented!

At Colonial IU 20, we believe in RELATIONSHIPS that support student growth, RESPONSIVENESS to stakeholders crucial needs, RESULTS demonstrated through effective services and programs, and INNOVATION to improve student outcomes.

Colonial IU 20 provides educational, administrative, and management services to 13 school districts and 3 career and technical centers in Northampton, Monroe, and Pike Counties. As one of the community’s largest employers and contributors, the 1,400 full and part-time staff at CIU 20 provides direct and indirect services to 79,000 public school children; 9,000 non-public school children; and 7,000 professional staff in our service region of 1,200 square miles.