Speech therapy activities for Raksha Bandhan

Introduction

Festivals bring the family together. In our childhood, it was mostly restricted to following rituals, meeting friends and family, and enjoying delicacies. However, festivals should not be restricted to just following rituals. Doing interactive Speech therapy activities will help children learn and enjoy more. It will create a better bonding between you and your child or their siblings. They might be super excited about festivals and not run away from them! This holds for not just typically developing kids but also kids having speech delay or speech and language issues.

Schools in India organize fun activities. Even parents want to teach kids about Indian culture actively through other activities. With Raksha Bandhan coming up this week, we have drawn up interesting Speech therapy activities revolving around this festival. This also highlights the skills learned in each activity.

What is Raksha Bandhan?

This Indian festival celebrates the love and respect between brothers and sisters. The sister ties a rakhi around her brother’s wrist. A rakhi is a thread with beads and other decorated items attached to it. The sister also prays for his good health and prosperity. In return, the brother promises to protect her and treats her with a gift, delicacies, and money.

Speech therapy activities for Raksha Bandhan

ACTIVITY SET 1

1. Make a photo collage: Firstly, take a printout or Xerox of sibling photos. You can even use the same photos if you want. Secondly, you can let them decide how they want to make it. Whether they want to stick it on a chart paper or stick photos on a thread. This is a fun personalized creative activity. Older and younger kids can perform this activity.

Concepts you can target: You can work on clarity. Suppose they have an error in the k or s sound, make them say 2 words and stick a photo. Language skills such as picture description can be targeted. You can give them prompts or start the sentence for them. Social skills such as turn-taking, teaching emotions, and topic initiation can be worked on.

2. A conversation about photos and guessing game: This activity can be a carry forward from the previous activity or it can be done separately. Pick out the photos and play heads up with them. In this, the player who is guessing has to keep the photos in their head. The speaker has to describe the scenario. You can guess the place where the photo was clicked, the scene for example if it’s a birthday party or anniversary or holiday. Alternatively, this can be a great conversation starter with your kids. You can tell old stories and have a question-answer game competition on it later.

Concepts you can target Social skills such as initiation, and maintenance. Memory such as auditory and visual. Language skills such as description. For younger kids vocabulary building.

ACTIVITY SET 2

3. Make a DIY rakhi: This is a simple creative activity. Materials required are thread, paper, pencil, glue, and decorative items or colors.

Concepts you can target Vocabulary and use of objects for younger kids. Sequencing and project narration for older kids. Have lots of fun and mess!

4. Make a greeting card: Siblings can make a card for each other. You can go where the creativity takes you with this.

Concepts you can target: Encouraging sibling bonds and reducing sibling rivalry. Articulation practice can be done with this activity.

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5. Make the Pooja thali or decorate it: with this activity, you can teach your rituals to kids. It may happen that you do not have the time to do this Speech therapy activity on the day of the festival. Hence, perform this prior. Use the same thali and not another one; it will instill confidence in your kid.

Concepts you can target: Skills stated with previous Speech therapy activities. Apart from this adjectives and spatial concepts such as on in under can be taught.

6. Write down your sibling’s best quality or their favorites: Younger and older kids can perform this activity. They can write it or say it. This is a great activity to promote the thought process and strengthen the sibling bond.

Concepts you can target: critical thinking, vocabulary building, sentence formation, and structure.

ACTIVITY SET 3

7. Gift wrapping activity: Brother and sister can buy a gift and wrap it at home. All you need is gift paper, scissors, a sellotape, and a pen. Be careful with scissors for younger kids!

Concepts you can target: this activity not only targets speech but also targets fine motor skills, problem-solving, and thinking. How to wrap the paper in the most optimized way, if we do not have a sellotape what to do? Teaching spatial concepts such as vertical and horizontal. Who would have thought a simple activity like this can target so many concepts?

8. Role play for buying a gift or rakhi: kids love role plays. In this, one of you can be a shopkeeper and another customer. Make it as real as possible by building a setup of a shop, keeping real money, and some options.

Concepts you can target: This speech therapy activity targets lots of concepts such as sentence formation, vocabulary, decision making, choosing, bargaining, life skills, etc.

9. Social skills with Raksha Bandhan: you can play lots of games such as musical chairs, Pictionary, memory games, and outdoor games as a family.

Concepts you can target: Social skills are a vital part of growing up. Festivals are a good opportunity to target these. In whichever games you play you can encourage teamwork, decision-making skills, negotiations, and healthy competition. Teaching the concept of congratulating the winner, it’s okay to win next time etc. You can show a social story about the skill you want to teach before starting the game.

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ACTIVITY SET 4

10. Playdough sweets making: what are festivals without sweets? If you can involve them in real sweet-making tasks at home do that. But I understand it cannot be everyone’s cup of tea. it is messy or the time does not permit it. Hence, you can do this with play dough.

Concepts you can target: this is a great activity for younger kids and older kids. We can work on everything under the roof such as articulation drills, and language skills. For instance, color concepts, shape concepts, vocabulary, adjectives, prepositions, etc.

11. Poem or story writing: last but not the least, make a poem for your sibling or write the story behind Raksha Bandhan. You can play the video first regarding the story and then let them write it. Make sure to give prompts and help them whenever required.

Concepts you can target: This encourages literacy skills.

Conclusion:

In conclusion, rakhi is also about having fun and encouraging sibling bonds. These are my favourite activities. Let me know in the comments which one is yours. These Speech therapy activities will encourage speech and language skills and teach us about our rituals. A common mistake I see parents making is, that they get serious about the mess or the activity. Make sure you are relaxed and having fun while doing this. Give prompts and help them whenever required. Nothing can encourage learning more than play and fun!

Happy learning!

 

 

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