Pin for the Wednesday: Great speech therapy game

Welcome to Pin for the Wednesdays! I can’t wait to see what fun pins you are winning with this week! Mine is nothing crafty but it’s still really cool.  I love to use Pinterest to search for activities, games, and apps that are good for speech or occupational therapy or just for making learning fun.  Even though Sophie is out of therapy, I am still passionate about sharing these resources with parents whose kiddos are still receiving therapy.

I’ve reviewed plenty of apps from Super Duper Publications and I was pleased to find out from Ashley (who is a faithful PinFTW-er but also works for Super Duper) that Super Duper is also on Pinterest!  YAY!  So I went to check out their boards and was pleased to see that they had pinned this amazing speech therapy game, Lids & Lizards.  I re-pinned it to my board, here.

Lucky for me, Super Duper sent me Lids and Lizards to review, so Sophie and I got it out to play to determine whether or not it was a WIN.  (All opinions on the game are my own although Super Duper did provide the game for me.) I am happy to say that it is a BIG WIN!  Lids and Lizards is a game that teaches kids what categories things go in – which for Sophie was a concept that took some time to learn.  Our brain naturally wants to categorize things, but kids with a language delay like Sophie had have a hard time learning what things go in what groups.  Lids and Lizards teaches these concepts in a simple and fun way that is easy for a parent to facilitate and that a child will want to play.

Lids & Lizards comes with lids that you hide magnetic pictures under. The pictures are of all different categories.  You also randomly hide lizards under some of the lids. So it’s fun to a) discover what picture is under your lid and correctly name what category it goes into and b) find out if you’ve also got a lizard under that lid!  Whoever collects the most lizards wins the game.

There are also lots of ways to adapt this game for other speech activities – vocabulary, isolating one category at a time, inferences (where you describe the picture under your lid and see if your child or student can guess what it is) -it’s a just an excellent tool!

Sophie and I loved playing this together. Even though she knows all the categories and things now, she’s still excited to hunt for those lizards!  I can’t wait to share this game with another mom or dad who can use it at home to help their kiddo with language.

So, that’s my winning pin! What did you come up with? Leave your link below!  There are just a couple rules:

 

1) In your post, please link to your original source – the pin you got the idea from.

2) Make sure and link back to our original Pin For the Wednesdays Post here at Mommin’ It Up! (please!)

3) In the Mr. Linky below, leave a direct link to your Pin FTWednesdays post, not to your main website.

4) Totally optional – grab our cute #PinFTW button! The code box is over there in our sidebar.

 

 

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Olympaholic Love: Coca-Cola 8-Pack of Athletes

As Emily mentioned last week, we are ambassadors or Coca-Cola’s Olympic 8-Pack of Atheletes program. We are both REALLY excited about this because we loooooove the Olympics and Coke! (Emily likes Diet, I like Vanilla!)

The Coca-Cola 8-pack of Athletes is a group of Olympic athletes who are now being featured on MyCokeRewards.com. You can log on to My Coke Rewards and take a quiz about the featured athletes at MyCokeRewards.com/theolympics.  Emily and I are SO COOL that we even have our very own athlete.  Ok, she’s not like, ours personally, but we do get to feature her which is pretty cool!  She is 23-year-old soccer forward Alex Morgan.

Alex played college soccer at UC Berkeley and is tied for third place all-time scorer in the state of California with 45 goals!   She was also the first California Golden Bears Women’s Soccer Player to be drafted in the first round of Women’s Professional Soccer, and  last summer she was the youngest player named to the United States’ World Cup team roster.  She ain’t messing around, folks. Alex’s favorite thing about soccer is that is a TEAM sport, and her theme for her Olympic experience and Coca-Cola 8-pack athlete experience is togetherness.  I love this because it’s such an important lesson that I’m working on with my kids right now; it’s a sporting lesson that can be applied to every area of life. As families, we are teams, I am working with my older two on how we have to do what’s best for our family as a whole, as a team, even if it may not be what we individually want to do at that moment! (Read: you cannot play upstairs when the baby is asleep.  Because it is the best thing for our family if the baby SLEEPS!)

Here’s a 30-second clip of Alex and some of her fellow Coca-Cola 8-packers talking about some amazing sporting moments in their lives:

Want to find out more about Alex?  Well, just head over to MyCokeRewards.com/theolympics and take her quiz!  While you’re there, check out the other great 8-pack athletes whose quizzes have already been unlocked.

GO Team USA, and good luck Alex and the US Women’s Olympic Soccer team!  Thanks Coca-Cola for supporting our Olympic athletes!

Stay tuned, on Friday we have a great Olympic giveaway coming to you from Coca-Cola.

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We’re working with Coca-Cola as  8-Pack Ambassadors.  All opinions expressed in the post are our own and not those of The Coca-Cola Company.

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Jenny’s Life Klass: What Not to Get on Your Tattoo

Welcome to Jenny’s Life Klass, Lesson #3:What Not to Get on Your Tattoo.  Listen up, people.  I know that tattoos are cool and trendy and what not. I have several friends with some very pretty tattoos, in fact.  (You know who you are!) And I’m not against them or anything, but they are not my thing.  However, when I go to the pool and I am one of only 20% of the adults there without one?  I know they are here to stay.  I also know that because they are permanent, ding dongs.  

You guys, did you know tattoos are like, FOREVER?  Unless you have lots of money for expensive and painful laser removal? TRUE STORY!

So, you still want one? Well, that’s cool.  But look before you leap, my lovelies.  Don’t get a tattoo without reading this.  I bring you, my people, the Jenny’s Life Klass list of things to not get stamped on your a$$ forever.

1) Your significant other’s name.  Guess what, America?  Relationships don’t last.  Just ask Angelina Jolie about her “Billy Bob” tattoo.  Which is now a FUGLY snake.  I’m sure Brad thinks it’s super-sexy.  So before you get “Kanye 4EVA” tattooed on your cleavage, Kim Kardashian, think twice! And don’t.

2) Expletives.  Hey, Klassy Lady at the pool?  Your “Sexy B*tch” tattoo is totally smokin’ and dag!! I know it must’ve been hard to resist getting that SWEET TAT!  But my adorable genius children?  CAN READ.  And “MOMMY WHAT DOES B*TCH MEAN??” is not what I want to hear coming out of their precious little mouths.  So either a) don’t get that crap tattooed on your “tramp stamp” designated area or b) don’t wear a bikini {because girl? I’ll be honest.  You shouldn’t be.  The “sexy” bit of your tattoo? NO LONGER APPLIES.} or c) get it tattooed on the bottom of your foot where my little baby’s innocent eyes won’t see it.

3) Celebrities’ faces.  Geez, I KNOW this one is hard to resist.  I have to fight back the urge to get Emily’s face tattooed across my shoulder blade on a daily basis.  However, what keeps me from making this grave mistake is this simple truth: FACES belong on heads and not on other body parts.  So even though you really want to get this on your bod:

not actually a Thriller

and this:

Your back tattoo's Life Class? SUCKS.

and this:

Who's the Boss? It's not this tattoo.

Do. NOT. DO IT.

And though I still bottom line, do NOT approve, if you absolutely MUST get a tattoo of a celebrity’s face on your bod, at least pick something we can all enjoy:

Buddy the Elf, what's your favorite color?

Remember people, think before you ink!

Your homework for this Life Klass: don’t get a tattoo that contains expletives, lover’s names, or other people’s faces.  Engaging in any of these actions will result in you failing Life Klass and getting sent straight to hell.  Seriously, I checked. You should probably trust me on this one.

Go forth and be Klassy!

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