Christmas has come and gone. Most of you have packed up your decorations (or have plans to do so, but are afraid of that daunting task) and put them away until next year. But what do you do with those Christmas cards? You get a ton of them. Well, I've got some great ideas of how you can make them into therapy materials (aka - FREE materials).
First off, for all of these activities, I suggest cutting along the fold of the card and recycling the part that just has the writing. This way you are saving the fronts with the pretty stuff!
One great way to get our kids talking using the Christmas cards is for describing! There are several ways you could have the kids describe the items (it depends on the child's level). You could have your child just describe one aspect of the picture. If there are three animals, then just have the child pick one and describe that one. If your child can describe the whole scene (including the action and location), then have him/her go for it! Or, an even harder level would be for the child to compare and contrast two pictures. For instance, pick two cards with snowmen on them. The pictures will not be identical, but they will be similar. Have them pick out two to three ways that the snowmen are the same (they both have carrot noses, they both have buttons for eyes) and two to three ways that they are different (the first snowman has a red scarf and the second snowman has a blue scarf, there is a bird sitting on the first snowman and no bird on the second snowman). If you want a real challenge, let the kids pick out which ones they want to compare and contrast - they usually pick harder things than we do.