New skills can be reinforced, practiced, and improved during daily routines.
There are countless examples of how children learn through play and daily routines. Each family can figure out what works best for them, and the positive results will encourage more interaction. During a home visit the Early Intervention specialist helps to support the family and child with ideas, strategies, and tips but, it is the work the family does between the home visits that will be most impactful. See some ideas below that may be helpful and fun.
- Motor planning– Marching, dancing, hopping and navigating stairs are great ways to strengthen skills
- Sound production—while in the bath, babbling, talking and singing will encourage children to vocalize
- Identification and memory—when in the car ask if they can point out items and objects. Do you see a tree, car, truck, brown house, etc.
- Self-care— At the dinner table practice feeding using fingers or utensils
- Stacking—Gather plastic containers and allow your child to practice making towers or ask to stack all lids in one area and bowls in another
- Expressive communication—During story time, ask if they can tell what is going on from the pictures in the book
- Matching—Dump the laundry basket and have fun paring up warm socks or like color items… “blue things in this pile”
~ Ellen Waddill, M.Ed.
Early Intervention Parent Liaison
