Holiday Baking for Listening, Spoken Language and Fun

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Holiday baking with children is a rich experience for listening and spoken language. Children love to measure, pour, stir and decorate. While it is messy, you are building memories alongside listening and spoken language skills.

Cooking Up Therapy is a blog post by a fellow AVT Elizabeth Rosenzweig MS CCC-SLP LSLS Cert. AVT who wrote, "Whatever your child needs to work on, you can target it in cooking with just a little bit of thought and preparation."

I recall one December when our daughters Kara and Joy were young baking a variety of cookies for Christmas. I don't recall the recipes or how the baked goods tasted, but we still talk about how Joy couldn't keep the beaters in the bowl and the flour and dough covered counters. Kara laughs about burning up two hand held mixers that year with all the mixing and beating. I wish I would have bought a Kitchenaid mixer back then. Today, I rarely bake, but both our daughters are married and love their Kitchenaids!

As an AVT, there was always lots of talking going on in my kitchen. Sweet Joy told me on many occasions, "Please Mom, I'm not one of 'the kids' you see for therapy." which was her way of asking me to hush! Oh, the memories.

There are many toys to carry over holiday cooking and baking Christmas cookies through imaginative play. Many would make great gift ideas. Go to HomemadeSpeech to view cookie toys that can help foster listening and spoken learning. 

Happy baking!