April 25th is a day to remember the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZACs). The ANZACS were a group of brave individuals who fought to capture the Gallipoli peninsula in 1915.
Remembrance Day celebrations are occurring across Victoria tomorrow, with Dawn services at the Shrine of Remembrance and an ANZAC day parade along St Kilda Road and Swanston Street from 9am.
For our children who perhaps won’t be awake for a Dawn service or spectate a parade, child friendly ANZAC day celebrations can occur at home with a bit of fun in the kitchen! The kitchen can be such a fun place to learn new skills and target current therapy goals, so why not make some ANZAC day biscuits! See our recommendations and suggestions below.
Recipe- choose any recipe that suit your families’ dietary requirements!
GOALS:
Language:
- Vocabulary expansion: model a wide range of words such as nouns (spoon, bowl, oven), verbs (mixing, squishing, pouring), adjectives (tastes, colours, texture)
- Inferencing: Ask your child “what do you think will happen next?”, “what do you think we will need to do with the eggs?”, “why do you think we need a big bowl, and not a small bowl?”
- Sequencing: what comes first, next and last (add more steps based on the level your child is at)
- Narrative retelling/recounting: Have your child tell you what they did to help you make the biscuits, use ‘wh’ questions (who, what, when, where, why), or other strategies provided by your speech pathologist to assist and prompt your child.
Speech sounds- target related words that include your child’s targeted speech sound at the level they are working at (sound, word, phrase, sentence, conversation etc):
- /s/- stir, spoon/spoonful, syrup, eggs, biscuits
- /b/- biscuit, bake, bowl
- /c/- cut, create, take, make
- /g/- go, get, gather, golden (syrup)
- /m/- mix, make, melt
Fluency:
- Cooking in the kitchen could be a great opportunity to have a fluency practice session.
Occupational therapy goals:
- Handwriting/letter formation: Assist your child to write down targeted letters which appear in the recipe at each step of the way.
- Fine motor/gross motor skills: mixing with a spoon, rolling out the dough, measuring/manipulating ingredients.
- Following directions: Give your child some directions which will assist with them completing the recipe (e.g., first get the eggs out of the fridge, then the blue bowl) Target you direction to which ever level your child is working at (e.g., 1 step, 2 step etc)
- Daily living skills: making a shopping list, going to the supermarket, finding ingredients (and maybe asking someone where an ingredient could be!), and paying for everything at the end of the shopping trip.
Read more Therapy Tips & Tricks on our blog – Therapy Tips and Tricks Archives – Dee Wardrop