Our Community- Summer Theme

I'm going to have one theme for the summer. Everyone is busy, and Our Community can be a big theme. I won't even do the holidays here as I have for the monthly themes. You can see some little holidays we celebrate on my Facebook or Instagram where I post pictures all the time of the activities we're doing.

This time I will break things down by mini-theme instead of holiday or type of activity like I normally would. Each mini-theme will still have sensory activities,

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Construction-

I learned about a new kind of box called a Tinker Box and I love it. It's similar to a sensory bin, but you give them materials to create instead of just digging in. For Our Community theme, we'll do a Construction Tinker box. You can include items you already have like construction vehicles, little cardboard boxes, popsicle sticks, Play-Doh, whatever you can find to build a structure with. Even if you want to use twigs from outside.

My little one has a Construction Kinetic sand play set but you can put one together with construction vehicles and either kinetic sand or in a sandbox. My little one likes Kentic sand and can make bricks and smash them like Rhino. Kinetic sand is a pretty cool texture even I like to play with it.

I love Little People stuff and we have a Construction site. My little one likes to play with the trucks and the boulders. It talks but I often don't turn it on and will model the truck sounds, "beep beep, vroom, back it up, dump."

Things around the town-

We will have bins and areas with different pretend play items for things you would have around the town, Doctors, stores, and fire stations.

We like to do pretend play a lot. We have a Dr/Vet play box with a Doctor Dress up set and a toy animal to play vet with. We keep it in a bin on our shelf which was recently rotated out, so we'll keep it out for the summer. We take our dog to the vet and go to the doctor and it's often good to play that out especially if a child has trouble with going to the doctor. We don't have one but there are dentist pretend play kits as well. If you haven't yet, it's important to get kids in the dentist early so they can get used to someone in their mouths. My little one has been going since he turned 1.

We have things for a store. We have a small shelf area that will turn into the store again. We have a little Target cart and register. We just got a small Grilling pretend play set from Melissa and Doug that can be a part of our store area. Our store has a cutting food set and food categories set. In the beginning, we used it to name familiar foods. If they can learn the foods through play, they can learn to request the real foods in the kitchen. For my little one now, we will use it for pretend play because he's really into it now. You can use it for labeling, requesting, and following directions during pretend play.

We have a Vtech Fire Station similar to our Little People Construction Site. The vehicle for this can talk, again I don't turn them on so we can make our sounds. We just took it out even though it was a Christmas gift. We like to spread out opening new gifts since his Birthday and Christmas are so close together and he gets so much stuff. That way we can have new interesting toys opening all year long. He still has more toys in his new toy bin. It helps with our toy rotation as well. Sometimes I'll have a theme based on new toys we have in the box.

He also has some Vtech tracks which are Mickey Mouse themed and it's like a whole town with a train station, bakery, fire station, and many connecting roads. We'll build it in the living room and usually leave it out most of the day to play for hours. These cars also talk but again I just won't turn them on. I also model how to play and make the play sounds to go with it. Some kids I have seem to imitate better from toys or TV because they repeat the same phrase over and over again.

We will be getting out into our community as well. Most libraries have a summer reading program you can join. Usually, you track your reading and get prizes. They'll have Story times which I love for little ones even if they don't sit for the whole thing. Min never sits and is the leader of the run-around bunch. We will be going to parades and will walk in one this summer too. Many towns have Touch a Truck events which are so cool to explore the big Fire trucks and Construction vehicles. We recently did a tour of a local police station with our Homeschool group. Go check out the parks in your community. I've seen some cool local parks while flipping through IG reels. One is just a town over and looks like so much fun. We will go park hopping this summer.

This Summer we are really going to try to do an activity a day. We're doing Make It Monday and we'll be doing an art project. Tasty Tuesday, we'll be cooking up something. Wonder Wednesday, we'll explore something new. Tinker Thursday, we will probably working with our Tinker Boxes or things to build and explore. Fun Friday, we often do field trips with our homeschool friends on Friday. Otherwise we will check out new parks or places to play. I will try to post on my Intagram or Facebook at the beginning of the week for our weekly plans.

Here is an Idea List on Amazon with the toys listed here and some others that fit the community theme.

Speech Goals from The Rosetti Infant-Toddler Language Scale.

9-12 months

Says "mama" or "dada" meaningfully

Imitates consonant and vowel combinations

Imitates non-speech sounds

Vocalizes with intent frequently

Uses a word to call a person

Says one to two words spontaneously

Vocalizes a desire for a change in activities

Imitates the name of familiar objects

Attends to new words

Gives objects upon verbal request

Looks at the person saying the child's name

Performs a routine activity upon verbal request

Looks at familiar objects mentioned during a conversation

Follows simple commands occasionally

Understands simple questions

Gestures in response to verbal requests

 Verbalizes or vocalizes in response to verbal requests

Participates in speech-routine games

Identifies two body parts

12-15 months

Shakes head "no"

Says or imitates eight to ten words spontaneously

Names objects frequently

Imitates new words spontaneously

Combines vocalization and gesture to obtain a desired object

Produces three animal sounds

Wakes with a communicative call

Sings independently

Takes turns vocalizing with children

Expresses early developing modifiers

Follow one-step commands during play

Responds to requests to say words

Maintains attention to pictures

Enjoys rhymes and finger plays

Responds to "give me" command

Points to two action words in pictures

Understands some prepositions

Understands new words

Identifies three body parts on self or a doll

15-18 months

Says 15 meaningful words

Uses consonant sounds, such as /t,d,n,h/

Talks rather than uses gestures

Imitates words overheard in conversation

Asks "What's that?"

Asks for "more"

Names five to seven familiar objects upon request

Identifies six body parts or clothing items on a doll

Finds familiar objects upon request

Identifies objects by category

Understands 50 words

18-21 months

Uses single words frequently

Uses sentence-like intonational patterns

Imitates environmental noises

Verbalizes two different needs

Uses two-word phrases occasionally

Identifies four body parts and clothing items on self

Understands the commands "sit down" and "come here"

Chooses five familiar objects upon request

Understands the meaning of action words

Identifies pictures when named

21-24 months

Uses two-word phrases frequently

Uses 50 different words

Uses new words regularly

Relates personal experiences

Uses three-word phrases occasionally

Refers to self by name

Uses early pronouns occasionally

Chooses one object from a group of five upon verbal request

Follows novel commands

Follows a two-step related directions

Understands new words rapidly

24-27 months

Imitates two numbers or unrelated words upon request

Uses three-word phrases frequently

Asks for assistance with personal needs

Uses action words

Points to four words in pictures

Recognizes family member's names

Understands the concept of one

Understands size concepts

27-30 months

Names one color

Refers to self by pronoun consistently

Uses two sentence types

Responds to greetings consistently

Uses negation

Responds to simple questions

Identifies four objects by function

Understands location phrases

30-33 months

Answers questions with "yes" or "no'

Imitates a series of three numbers or unrelated words

Uses plurals

Uses prepositions

Understands five common action words

Follow two-step unrelated commands

Understands the concepts one and all

Answers yes and no questions correctly

33-36 months 

Relates recent experiences through verbalization

Uses verb forms

Expresses physical states

Converses in sentences

Counts to three

Shows interest in why and how things work

Follows a three-step unrelated command

Identifies parts of an object

Responds to wh- questions

Follows commands with two familiar attributes