Playing With Words 365

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

Meet Our New Reindeer Friend

by Filed Under: Language Enrichment Activities for Parents, Therapy Ideas and Activities 40 Comments

Introducing: Mr. Reindeer

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

He doesn’t have a proper name yet, so Mr. Reindeer will have to do. I got the inspiration for him over at another blog I visit frequently, Mom to 2 Posh Lil Divas, where they made their very own Monster to go with the book There Was an Old Monster. When I saw her post, I immediately made sure to save my next empty tissue box.

I decided we were going to feed Mr. Reindeer carrot letters and lettuce numbers, so I went ahead and made them and printed them on card stock.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

E really enjoyed “feeding” the reindeer each carrot and head of lettuce as we worked on her letter and number identification, naming and counting skills.

 

 

We also took turns picking a head of lettuce and then counting out that many carrots. There are SO MANY things you can target with this simple little game, and kids LOVE “feeding” things to “animals”.

How to make your own Reindeer:

You’ll need:

  • An empty tissue box
  • Another smaller box to go on top (I used a popcorn box)
  • Large red pom pom for nose
  • Brown felt or construction paper to cover the boxes and make the antlers
  • White and black felt or construction paper for eyes
  • Card stock or cardboard
  • Pipe cleaners (not needed if you use cardboard for the antlers)
  • Glue (I used both hot glue and tacky glue)
  • Scissors

How I made Mr. Reindeer:

  • I covered the boxes in felt using hot glue. You could also use construction paper, however I want to be able to save this and use it year after year with my children and students, so I used felt.
  • To create the ears, I basically used the same strategy I did when making the ears on my Owl Finger Puppets
  • I cut out eyes from felt, and hot glued the large red pom pom nose
  • I drew antlers on card stock, and glued them to the felt with tacky glue.  (You could use card board also) I then cut out the felt around the card stock. Since they were a little flimsy, I hot glued a pipe cleaner on the back of each one for support. I then hot glued the antlers to the back of the head.

What you can target with the “food”

  • Letter identification (receptive)
  • Letter naming (expressive)
  • Counting & 1:1 correspondence
  • Spelling (print out several copies of the carrots)

Activity Ideas

  • Have your child name each letter as he/she feeds them to the reindeer
  • Give your child 2-4 carrots and have him/her find a specific letter, and then feed to the reindeer
  • Turn the lettuce cards over and place in a pile. Take turns picking a card, and then feeding the reindeer the number of carrots on the lettuce.
  • Print out two copies of the carrots and/or lettuce on card stock and play memory!
  • Use the carrots to target spelling simple words
  • Laminate the carrots and write target vocabulary (or target articulation words, if you are an SLP) on the back with dry erase marker. (I added this in a few hours after I published this post…somehow this had gotten erased before it was published).

Tips

  • Print the carrots and lettuce on card stock rather than paper
  • If you want the cards to last, laminate them.

Download tour own set of carrots/lettuce HERE.

Make sure to stop by on Friday…I have another activity that can be paired with Mr. Reindeer!

Cheers!

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

  5. Beth says

    This is WAAAAAAAAAAAY cute!! What a fun, creative, learning activity that is sure to delight! I see a reindeer in our future too =-) Thanks for the free downloand – we’ll be using it! Thanks for linking up to TGIF!! Can’t wait to see what you come up with next week!!!
    Beth =-)

    Reply

    • Katie says

      Deb, thanks so much for featuring it your Facebook page and Pinning! And also…I’ll add the button right now, I’m so sorry I forgot! Thanks so much for the reminder! 😀

      Reply

  16. Hilary says

    These printables would work beautifully with a “bunny” leading up to Easter!! I think I will make it now! Thanks! 🙂

    Reply

  17. The Activity Mom says

    LOVE!
    I would love to include this activity in my 2013 Christmas Activity Advent Countdown. I would include a pic and a link to your site for the directions. If you don’t want me to share this, please let me know.

    Thanks!
    Nicole

    Reply

  18. Sheryl P says

    I was so excited to see this activity and wanted to download the book The Very Hungry Reindeer as well – but it seems like it is no longer available. Any chance I could get a copy somehow? Thanks!

    Reply

  19. Karen says

    This is adorable. I will definitely be using this during my circle time for my 3 year olds. Thanks for sharing such a cute idea.

    Reply

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