Working on the /p/ sound

For me starting with the /p/ sound is just natural. It is an early developing sound but it also is perfect for bubbles. Who doesn't like bubbles? I can tell you, your child likes bubbles since all of my kiddos like bubbles. "Pop" is often one of the first words I work on and if they even just try to close their lips and mouth it, I'm excited. If the child can say the /p/ sound then they can do the /b/ sound too and hello "bubble".

I've made /p/ sound flashcards (you can find it under printables) that you can go over with your child but you can just play. Do bubbles work on "pop" or "up", the bubbles go up.

While playing with blocks you can "dump" the blocks, build "up, on top". You can play construction with your blocks, having a "Dump" truck that dumps the blocks for you to build. You can make the dump truck say "Beep, beep" as it backs up and then say "Dump".

You can play a racing game to get out all that energy from being stuck inside. You can work on go and "stop", which also is following directions. You can have a dance party when the music stops, you "Stop". Always making sure to say "Stop". You can make one of the kids the "cop". The cop gets to say when they need to "Stop". Of course, they would need to take turns and turn-taking is a great skill to work on especially among siblings.

At snack time or while pretending to play kitchen, you can use a "cup". You can have an "apple", maybe "dip" it in peanut butter or caramel dip. Kids like to dip their food. My son likes to dip everything in ketchup, sometimes that's how I got him to eat his veggies when he was little. At the daycare I used to work at, my director put cheese on veggies or for kids to dip veggies in.

Play with animals, play with the Farm with a "pig" and "pup". Play Zoo or have an interesting Farm with a "hippo". To each their own. It works with imagination right? It all goes with our /p/ sound.

When you do you go outside it's still chilly here so you can work on "Zip" while zipping and unzipping coats. Sometimes feeted PJs have a zipper. I usually used the bags I kept toys in, to work on "zip".

Right now especially handwashing is so important, so you can work on "Soap". We wet our hands, then add "soap", wash wash with "soap". I know everyone loves Baby Shark, it will never die. I heard it's a good song to help kids wash their hands for long enough.

For the last word to talk about on the /p/ printable, "cap". It has a baseball cap but it may be more meaningful for a cap to the markers. You can say take the cap off, put the cap back on, do you need help with the cap. Other things have caps, pens, bottles. Calling a baseball cap a "cap" seems more like a word my grandpa would have used, now a kid would probably say "hat".

There are other great /p/ words that aren't on my printable that you can also work on like "help, beep, peep, pen, pet, paw". I put "beep" up with the construction activity for "dump" when the dump truck backs up, but cars and tractors say "beep, beep" too. When playing farm the chicks say "peep". You can "pet" the "pup" and find his "paw". Kids always need "help" and I'm sure they're not supposed to play with that "pen". There are words in everything we do and it's all about emphasizing the sound they may need to work on.

Now I must point out these words are to work on the /p/ sound. We want lipclosure and some of the sounds in these words are later developing sounds. /S/ and /z/ sounds are later sounds, so those may not be so clear but if they get the /p/ at the ends awesome. "Apple" may be more like "appoh" and that's totally fine, age-appropriate even.

I like to use cueing to show my /p/ sound really popping. You cue by tapping your mouth while you make the /p/ sound. I usually do it right under my mouth so they can really see what my mouth is doing. A lot of time they start with just doing the cue and not really making the sound but that /p/ sound comes out eventually.

Here's a list of /p/ words

-pop

-up

-top

-pig

-hippo

-apple

-soap

-pup

-zip

-dip

-stop

-cup

-cap

-dump

-cop

-help

-beep

-peep

-pen

-paw

-pet