Playing With Words 365

Educating, inspiring, and empowering parents & professionals in supporting young children's overall development

  • Home
  • About
    • About Katie
      • Credentials, Training and Philosophy
      • How I Got Here
    • About This Blog
  • Blog
  • Child Development
    • Speech & Language Development from Birth to Five
    • Speech and Language 101
    • Toy Recommendations for Speech & Language Development
    • Sign Language 101
  • Speech Therapy
    • How to Help Your Child Talk
    • What You Can Expect From Speech Therapy {A Guide for Parents}
    • How to find an SLP
    • Speech Therapy Tips & Activities
    • Materials & Product Recommendations
    • SLP Forms, Charts, and Data Sheets
    • How To Elicit {Teach} Speech Sounds Series
    • Freebies!
  • Resources
    • for Parents & Caregivers
    • for SLPs
  • About My Life (Blog)

Freebie Friday: Snowflake Gross Motor Learning

January 26, 2012 by Katie Filed Under: Freebie Friday, Language Enrichment Activities for Parents, Therapy Ideas and Activities 14 Comments

So this past week, I saw two similar activities that I really LOVED. The first one, is from Roots of Simplicity. She created a great gross motor reading activity by writing words on snowflakes and taping them to the ground (check out her post for details). Then, Emma at Mummy Mummy Mum linked up a very similar activity using dinosaur foot prints that I just had to feature this week at Thrifty Thursday.

Why do I love these activities? For one, they get kids UP AND MOVING while learning. Not only is this great for winter when we tend to spend more times indoors, but children really benefit from learning activities that are multisensory. And two, these activities can be adapted and tailored to target ALL kinds of objectives! Think about it…you can target letters, numbers, words, shapes, prepositions, basic concepts, irregular verbs, answering or asking WH questions…the possibilities are endless.

I decided to make my own set of snowflakes with letters and numbers on them, since my daughter is working on letter and number ID (Images thanks to Office Images.)

What we did with them:

  • We printed them out, cut them out, and placed them on the floor (numbers first). Then my daughter walked and jumped from one to another while saying the next one (with my help).
  • We matched the numbers and letters on my kid’s blocks, to the ones on the snowflakes (My daughter actually started doing this on her own! It was so much fun. She needed my help though).
  • Because my daughter LOVES “little books” we actually stapled the letters together in order and stapled them together to make a little book!

 

What else you can do with them

  • Musical Numbers/letters: Place the snowflakes on the floor and play “musical chairs” having the child(ren) say the letter/number they land on when the music stops (or have them say a word that begins with that letter, or ends with that letter…etc).
  • Counting cotton balls: Place the number snowflakes on the table and have your child count and place cotton balls (or M&Ms or anything small) on each one.
  • Sorting: Place the letter snowflakes on the table and have your child match items or pictures of items to the letter that it starts with. you could use farm animals or other small toys for this.
  • Articulation Practice: You can put the letters on the ground, and have the children play the musical chairs game, and whatever number they land on, they have to say that many words..OR, they have to say that many words multiplied by 2 or 3 or 4 (i.e. they land on 5, 5×3=15 so they have to say 15 words with their target sound).

What you can do with the blank ones: I also made a set of blank snowflakes that you can use in many ways. Though the possibilities are endless, I will give you a few ideas of how to use them. You can print them out and write/draw directly on the snowflake or you can laminate them and write on them with dry erase marker. From there, you can write any of the following on them to use in gross motor games:

  • Spelling or sight words
  • Shapes
  • Math equations
  • Articulation words (or pictures)
  • Vocabulary words (or pictures)
  • Animals

TIP: Print out on card-stock and laminate for durability

I hope you enjoy! You can print them out by following the links below (Images thanks to Office Images):

Snowflake ABCs
Snowflake Numbers
Snowflake Blank

Cheers! HAPPY FRIDAY!

About Katie

Katie is a licensed, credentialed and certified pediatric speech-language pathologist and mom to four (8, 6, 3 and 6 months). Her passion for educating, inspiring and empowering parents of children with all abilities led her to start her blog playing with words 365 where she shares information about speech & language development & intervention strategies, parenting, photography and a little about her family life too. Katie has been working in the field of speech pathology for 12 years and is certified in The Hanen Centre’s It Takes Two to Talk ® and Target Word ® programs and holds a certificate in Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA). In addition to blogging and being a mommy, Katie works part time in her small private practice in the San Francisco Bay Area. You can follow her on Facebook, Pinterest and Twitter.

Comments

  1. Trina says

    January 26, 2012 at 6:48 pm

    Great ideas!!! I love them all! I may have to try to make my first printable with heart shaped letters and numbers. Although I have no clue how to make a printable to post. 🙂 thanks for sharing!

    Reply
    • Katie says

      January 26, 2012 at 7:20 pm

      Trina, I was thinking of doing hearts too! It’s not hard! 😀 You should try it!

      Reply
      • Christina says

        January 26, 2012 at 9:44 pm

        Hi. I have been following your posts for a couple of weeks now and I am finally commenting. I included my website/blog but it has nothing to do with speech but just running.

        Anyway, I thought about making hearts and putting numbers onto them too. In addition, I bought some gummy candy and Valentine candy from the Dollar Store, along with little bags. My plan is to work on numbers concept or more/most/few/least concept. I got a tong for it so the kids can have some fine motor practice (not a speech goal, but kids need to learn and practice that skill).

        Reply
        • Katie says

          January 27, 2012 at 12:49 pm

          Christina that sounds like so much fun! Great ideas!

          Reply
  2. Leeanne A says

    January 27, 2012 at 3:21 am

    I love this activity – thanks for posting the freebies!

    Reply
  3. Emma @mummymummymum says

    January 27, 2012 at 6:10 am

    I love the snowflakes! thanks for the mention too. xx

    Reply
  4. wasif.noor says

    January 20, 2013 at 8:54 am

    thank you

    Reply
    • Katie says

      January 20, 2013 at 7:34 pm

      You are welcome!

      Reply
  5. D says

    November 17, 2016 at 10:25 am

    Very helpful sight. Thank you so much for all the ideas to make my work easier and promote fun learning for the children I work with.

    Blessings
    DK

    Reply

Trackbacks

  1. Freebie Friday: St. Patrick’s Day Ideas | Mommy Blogs @ JustMommies says:
    March 2, 2012 at 12:08 pm

    […] book recommendations, and even SNACK ideas! 39 pages of great ideas. AND…do you remember my Snowflake Gross Motor Activity that I shared a few weeks ago? I had considered making a similar one with shamrocks, but guess […]

    Reply
  2. Snowflake Gross Motor Learning | PediaStaff Pediatric SLP, OT and PT Blog says:
    February 17, 2016 at 10:37 am

    […] Learn All About this Game and Download the Free Template on Playing with Words 365 […]

    Reply
  3. Snowflake Gross Motor Learning | PediaStaff - Therapy Jobs and Resources says:
    February 17, 2016 at 10:38 am

    […] Learn All About this Game and Download the Free Template on Playing with Words 365 […]

    Reply
  4. Snowflake sight words fun! | Simply Mommie says:
    August 7, 2016 at 6:49 am

    […] got the free printable blank snowflakes from Playing with words 365. I printed a total of only eight snowflakes as too many would just cause my girl to be unable to […]

    Reply
  5. Fun advent activities for kids 2012 | Simply Mommie says:
    August 16, 2016 at 2:43 am

    […] Snowflake gross motor learning (using the free printables from Playing with words 365, you can decide what you’d like to teach) – I opted to print the empty snowflakes for […]

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

CommentLuv badgeShow more posts

Looking for something?

Popular Posts

  • Top 10 Summer Top 10 Summer Activities to Encourage Your Toddler’s Speech Development {A Summer Challenge}
  • How to Elicit the k&g sounds How to Elicit (Teach) the K & G Sounds {Part One: Elicitation Techniques}
  • Freebie Friday: Snowflake Gross Motor Learning
  • Freebie Friday: Chinese (Lunar) New Year Memory Game
  • My Tricks to Teaching the R Sound My Tricks to Teaching the /r/ Sound
  • Top Toys & How They Can Support Speech & Language Development (Part One)
  • Home
  • About
  • Blog
  • Child Development
  • Speech Therapy
  • Resources
  • About My Life (Blog)

Copyright © 2023 · Swank WordPress Theme By, PDCD