Carmen Knight, M.A.T., Early Childhood and Special Education

Children love stickers! They love being able to peel them off and place them on different surfaces. Stickers are not only fun but very educational for children as well. SmileMakers offers Sticker Play Scenes that can be used to work for many different areas of development. These multi-functional sticker scenes would be a great staple in the kit of early interventionists, occupational therapists, and speech therapists. 

Fine Motor Skills:

The act of taking a sticker off a backer requires good fine motor skills. It is an area in which a child needs assistance. The practice of sticker placement can be a fun and enjoyable activity. You can begin by pulling a small piece of the sticker up so it is easier to pull and then transitioning to allowing the child to pull and place the entire sticker without assistance. 

Receptive Language: 

You can request that the child select a specific sticker and place them in areas on the sticker scene. Ask the child, "get the horse and place him beside the barn."  This allows you to assess the child's receptive language quickly. If the child has a difficult time with this task, you can provide the educational direction to assist the child.

Expressive Language:

Encouraging the child to make the sounds of the animals in the scenes will help with the child's expressive language. You can increase communication by talking to the child and asking questions about the items on the sticker scene. You can use imaginative play to work on increasing vocabulary with the child.

Each visit with the child will be a different way to play with these sticker activities. The On the Farm Sticker Play Scene and the Sea Life Sticker Play Scene come in a group of 50 each and are portable and affordable ways to work on many different developmental areas. Why not leave a few of these learning activities with the family for learning opportunities until the next visit?