It’s been 4 months since Covid-19 has hit the world. The truth is, the first few months were all a blur. It took that long to reorganize, regroup and recharge. One piece of advice I got was to make time for something you love; make time for yourself. Let’s be honest, in the beginning, I was making sure we had everything we needed at home. Then, I spent a long time disinfecting and preparing fabric masks (that’s another story, but I’ve met some amazing people because of it!).

I felt there was a missing piece to telepractice. I was having a hard time organizing all the links for kids and I just didn’t love some of the games I found. They weren’t made for speech and language, or they weren’t fully polished. And voila! I am just so thrilled that I have the opportunity to merge my knowledge of design with the field of speech-language pathology. Who knew that being forced into telepractice would kick start my design again?

My first Boom Card was Monster House. It started off as the set of rounded doors and their respective monsters. But as I continued, it became addicting and I kept coming up with more additions. I’ve been playing this at home with my son and he absolutely adores it! I make the sound effects instead of putting them into the file — I feel it keeps the magic and the “pretend” a part of the playTOK boards. 🙂

When I make Boom CardsTM, I draw from real life and think of the activities that my children love to do. We love making pizza together at home, and my son loves opening and closing his garage doors and cars toy. It’s really that simple — I think of what works in the real world and how I can make it open-ended and adaptable to Boom Cards. Having these tools in telepractice brings back the “fun” that I so much relied on from my stash of toys.  And, it’ll be nice knowing that I won’t have to disinfect so many toys when I am back in-centre!

 

 

It’s been just so fun — making pizza, doughnuts, macarons (of course, another obsession), monster house, monster garage, making burgers, bbq & picnic! I hope you enjoy the games as much as I do, and I would love to hear any feedback you may have! Keep your eyes posted because the playTOK First/Then board will be launching soon. I’ve got to test it out first with my clients, but I will let you know how it goes!

So, now you know what motivates me! 🙂 As speech-language pathologists, we work so hard to motivate our clients and their families; we really should be taking care of ourselves and our interests too! This is my wish for you — find what you love, make a plan, and go for it!

Find this and other items on Boom LearningTM – We’re “playTOK”! https://wow.boomlearning.com/author/playtok?ref=1