Speak to me

Kids love bubbles!! Bubble blowing helps strengthen the mouth area and improves coordination of the respiratory system. It shows kids that the mouth can be used for something other than eating. It also helps kids who do not like to be touched around their face by alleviating some of the fears, since it is such a fun activity. It can be a very calming play toy, as well. It can also be great for adding vocabulary words to your child repertoire. Bubbles are usually nontoxic, so if they taste the bubble juice while learning it is not a big deal.

How to use bubbles: Blow a bubble and catch it on the bubble wand, then let the child pop it off the wand. They can pop it with or on their various body parts. Then you can work to have the child blow the bubble off the wand and eventually, blow the bubbles by themselves. If they have difficulty blowing on a regular wand because of difficulty with lip rounding/pucker, you can find the ones that have mouth pieces attached to the wand (that look like horns). These bubble blowers also prevent them from tasting the bubble juice as often. 

Vocabulary to use with bubble blowing to expand vocabulary: more, please, blow, your turn, my turn, bubble, outside, gone, all done, finished, where did they go, various body parts, prepositional phrases (on, under, in, etc), etc.  It is also good for getting kids to answer where questions.