Tupperware - At Home Speech & Language Activities

So many of us have a drawer/cabinet/basket/bin full of tupperware in our kitchen or stashed in our garage--who knew it would be such an easy kid’s toy, with the potential to keep them entertained for a LONG time. And build their play and language skills too! Forget buying birthday presents, just bring out the tupperware! 

There are lots of different reusable plastic containers out there. The brand or size doesn’t really matter, although for ease of this plan I’ll refer to them as tupperware. For the activities we describe to work it’s important that you find, purchase, or create a item that is:

• Lightweight plastic

• Has removable lid

• able to get wet/washable

 

Add-ins that you may use to expand the play 

• spoon or other stick liked item

• A few small items of toys that can get wet/washed

• small towel

 

How to Play and What to Say: 

Not all children are communicating and playing the same way. 

Go to: toddlertalk.com/blog/3-stages-of-play to see what communication style best describes your child, then read below for ideas specific to their stage.

Explorers

How to Play: Physics Exploration: Little Explorers love to get into everything. So giving them some items that they can get into without being told “no” is wonderful. If you keep your tupperware in a drawer/cabinet/box/basket that they can have access to, it’s a great safe exploration activity. 

Personal note: We keep our tupperware cabinet locked when we need to for our sanity, but sometimes we leave it open and let our little Explorer disastrify it. 

Give your child access to some tupperware, it can be various sizes, with or without lids, whatever you have is fine. This is physics exploration—let them pick it up and drop it from various heights, push it across the floor, throw it, put smaller pieces inside bigger pieces, get their foot “stuck” inside. 

Model some of these actions for your Explorer. Once they’re content exploring, you can give them some independent time for a few minutes. 

You can also try: wearing it as a hat, pretending to “sneeze” it off your head, wearing it as a shoe, or hiding small (safe) play items inside it.  If you have different sizes with lids, you can also use these as stacking blocks—building a tower and knocking it down. 

What to Say:  Say action words that match what you/your child are doing. “oooooh throw! Big throw” or “drop it, boom” or “shake shake shake”. Don’t feel the need to over-explain what is happening, keep the language simple. 

 

Pioneers

How to Play: Stir + Eat -In addition to your tupperware container, you’ll need a spoon or another stick shaped item (fork, block, stick, etc). Different “spoon” items of different textures (metal spoon, wooden spoon, silicone teether) can expand the activity. 

For your Pioneer, use the tupperware container as a bowl. Model pretending to stir something (a few times) and then pretend to eat it. Repeat this a few times feeding yourself or taking turns feeding your child. When your Pioneer is ready, give them the spoon (or other similar item ) to have them stir and eat. 

What to Say: Name the actions you are doing, each time you do them. You will use lots of repetition.  Also use sound effects or exclamations. You are narrating for your child what you and/or they are doing. 

Mix mix mix mix mix mix . Ready! Let’s eat. Yummmmmmmm 

Stir Stir Stir Stir. Mama’s ready. Yum! Oh, you want some? You’re ready. Yum. 

Mmmm yum. Some for Taylor-Taylor eats. Yum Mmm mmm mmm 

If your Pioneer is loving this play activity, you can expand the actions, such as pretending to add in more items (such as “pour in pretend water”)  or expand your tasting reactions, pretending it’s HOT or SPICY or too COLD 

Stir stir stir stir stir it up. Yummy. Eat. eat it. OOOh it’s hot! Blow on it. Bloooow. 

Builders

How to Play:  Tupperware bed - You are going to use that tupperware container to pretend it is a bed for other toys/items. 

You will need another toy/item that you can pretend to put to bed. Tell your child that it’s toy’s bedtime “Shhhh it’s Spiderman’s bedtime. Let’s put him to bed”. Prepare the tupperware bed together. This can mean placing a tissue or paper towel or washcloth in the bottom. Then get Spiderman ready for bed-rock him to sleep, sing a lullaby, read a book, give hugs and kisses, and then put him in bed. Cover him up with another tissue, paper towel or washcloth. Kiss and “shhhhh” him a little more. There may be other toys that then need to be put to bed as well. Repeat as long as your Conversationalist is interested. 

 

Expand: You can also use the tupperware as a bathtub to “wash” some toys/items, or as a pool for the toys/items to play in. Basic scenario is the same, but this time you would add some water, or allow your Conversationalist to add some water to the tupperware container. The toy/item can be washed with a washcloth or clean toothbrush, the toy/item can “jump” in the pool and swim etc.  Have a paper towel or washcloth ready to dry the items off at the end. 

What to Say: Talk about what the toy/item needs, and see if your child can fill in the blank. 

“Oh Spiderman is so so so tired. He didn't take a nap today. He’s so tired, he needs… (PAUSE and wait here, see if your Conversationalist says something about sleeping. If not, you can model it for them). The more you play this with repetition, keep using that same PAUSE technique and see if your child begins to verbalize that Spiderman needs to “sleep” or “go nite night” or “shhhhh” or “tired” etc. 

The same is true with the extension activity--see if by mentioning that your toy is “dirty or messy or muddy” ( then PAUSE) , if your child will verbalize that he needs a bath/wash/clean up etc. 

“Oh he’s wet and wants to get out, he's done with his bath/swim, he needs… (PAUSE) for your child to say towel, or dry off etc  

Or if your toy is so hot and he loves to swim, oh we see a pool over there, our toy wants to…. PAUSE , go swimming! 

If your child says something when you pause and it makes some sense, then model it back to them and add what you were looking for. 

“No nap today, Spiderman is….” < “bed” >  “Oh yea he wants his bed, he’s tired!” 

If your child says something that doesn’t really relate, you can model what you were looking for and redirect back to what you said 

“No nap today, Spiderman is….” < “watch TV” >  “Look, Spiderman wants to sleep. Night night Spiderman, shhhh”

 

© 2020-2023. Stephanie Keffer, MS CCC-SLP. All Rights Reserved.

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