Egg-Citing Spring Conversation Activities For Listening and Language

Kids love these Egg-Citing Spring Conversation activities and so do parents, listening and spoken language therapists, and teachers of the deaf and hard of hearing. This resource targets seasonal vocabulary, back-and-forth conversational, and social skills. It's perfect to level up and down and for mixed groups of kids and to play at home while building listening and spoken language while having fun!

This EGG-Citing game includes a variety of starters: NAME - DESCRIBE - TELL - WOULD YOU RATHER -TONGUE TWISTERS AND RIDDLES.

Three-Ways To Play

1. Hide the plastic eggs in your classroom, therapy room, home, or yard. Begin the hunt and have the child find and collect all the eggs in the carton or a basket.

2. Add following direction listening clues while hunting for the conversational eggs. Look for an egg by where you hang your jacket, under the table, and so on. Examples are provided.

3. At play with family and friends at their holiday get-together. Encourage the child to lead the conversation starters. Spend plenty of time practicing so the game is entertaining and fun for all. It’s a terrific confidence and language-building opportunity for the child.

This Egg-Citing resource includes

• 18 Egg Conversation Starters in holidays shapes

• Egg carton label to hold plastic eggs

• Listening and Spoken Language playing tips

• Serve and Return prompts to expand a conversation

• A role play example back-and-forth conversation with the adult serving as a conversational starter with the child’s returns

Check out the two money-saving Spring Bundles and over 20 Spring listening and language-building games and activities.

Math Activities - Easy As Pie for Kids with Hearing Loss - Pi Day March 14th

Pi Day is celebrated on March 14th around the world. Pi (Greek letter “π”) is the symbol used in mathematics to represent a constant — the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter — which is approximately 3.14159.

Explore math-inspired activities for kids that are deaf and hard of hearing with this blog post from the Central Institute For The Deaf then join me and eat a slice of pie. My favorite is cherry. What’s your favorite?

Planting Flowers A Barrier Game For Kids With Hearing Loss

Nothing is much more fun than siblings competing while playing a barrier game and planting flowers. The barrier keeps both players from seeing each other’s garden and focus on listening alone. The TALKER gives verbal directions to help the LISTENER choose the critical elements describing the stems, leaves, and flowers to plant their flower garden in exactly the same way. A spring and summer favorite activity that targets auditory comprehension and expressive language skills such as:

🌼 Listening carefully to directions and details.

🌺 Giving clear and concise directions.

🌸 Questioning for clarification and accuracy.

🌼 Comprehending and expressing basic concepts.

🌺 Using and understanding vocabulary.

🌸 Using describing words such as adjectives, adverbs, and prepositions.

🌼 Discussing and reflecting on an activity.

Recycling, Reusing Earth Day Therapy Resources

♻️ I've mastered the reuse of Earth Day resources but need to focus on recycling and reducing! It's crazy how many Earth Day-related therapy games, activities, and books I own and all for only one day.

🌎 Anne Rockwell's Our Earth is my favorite book to introduce our planet and early science concepts for little listeners.

🌳 Grover's 10 Terrific Ways to Help Our Wonderful World is a Sesame Street book about how the world gives us everything that we need to live -food, water, and air. Grover the World Ranger describes 10 ways to help the world, from planting trees to recycling trash.

🐾 In addition to Earth Day, I'm celebrating our sweet dog, Jade's 12th birthday!

Auditory Egg Hunt With Localization Goals For Children That Are Deaf and Hard of Hearing

Auditory Egg Hunt with eggs that talk and call out* to give hints of their hiding spots.

Here's how to play:
➼ Hide the noise-making toy eggs.
➼ Ask, WHAT do you hear?
➼ Then, WHERE is the sound is coming from?

✧ Keep the choices simple. "Do you hear the sound near the windows or closer to the fireplace?"
✧ It is so much easier to "look and find" so this Little Listener chose to wear the no-peeking mask. He found all the eggs by localizing and through hearing alone. ❤ This took practice and is a challenging task for many.

Sound Localization
The ability to localize sounds develops over time. The earlier your child has received their bilateral cochlear implants/hearing aids, the sooner they will start picking up sound cues and gains valuable experiences localizing sounds.

Tips For Children Learning To Locate Sound Sources

- Using two different musical toys, hidden from the child’s view, locating one to the left of the child and one to the right side of the child. Then, make a sound with each instrument in varied sequence, ask your child to identify which instrument is on which side. You can do this with Mom's vs. Dad's voice as well.

- At the dinner table or while playing games help your child locate who is speaking. Your entire family can help the child learn to locate and follow the natural flow of conversation.

- Playing hide-and-seek indoors (e.g. room or house), hiding yourself, and calling out to your child to find you. This task may be varied by taking turns between hiding and searching

- Games in a group, such as “Blindman’s Buff ” or “I Spy” (with sounds), and hand-clapping games are ideal for practicing sound localization in a playful way.

Safety and Sound Localization

Teach your child that is deaf or hard of hearing to be extra alert visually in crowds, walking near cars, crossing streets, riding bicycles, and in group games. Remind your child to look for traffic and not to depend on hearing oncoming vehicles. If your child rides a bicycle, consider rear-view mirrors to help him see traffic he might not hear.

Localization GOAL with Benchmarks
GOAL: Child will auditory locate with bilateral cochlear implants or hearing aids:
- a sound presented at ear level within a 3-foot radius in front or on either side
- a sound presented at ear level within a 6-foot radius from behind
- understand and verify gross, environmental, music, or speech sounds within 9 feet, then 12 feet, and finally, within the same room in all directions.
- Understand sounds with a specific location or direction outside.

* JoJo & Friends Electronic Easter Egg Hunt by Ouaps Company