01/04/2026
☕️❄️ Hot Cocoa Stand Now Open! ❄️☕️
We’re warming things up in our therapy space with a brand-new Hot Cocoa Stand dramatic play area and it’s packed with purposeful learning through play! ✨
This setup creates endless opportunities for teaching and child-led imagination.
Teaching Opportunities Embedded in Play
🗣️ Language & Communication: requesting items, ordering from a menu, answering WH-questions, labeling ingredients, expanding sentences (“I want hot cocoa with marshmallows”)
🤝 Social Skills: turn-taking, waiting, role-playing (customer, cashier, barista), cooperative play, perspective-taking
🧩 Executive Functioning: following routines, sequencing steps (making hot cocoa), task initiation & completion
🔢 Math & Pre-Academics: counting money, punch cards, one-to-one correspondence, sizes (small/medium/large), writing numbers on receipts
✍️ Early Literacy: reading environmental print (menus, signs), writing orders, names on cups, surveys
🖐️ Fine & Gross Motor: scooping cocoa, using tongs/tweezers, pouring, cutting receipts, shoveling “snow”💬 Self-Advocacy & Regulation: asking for help, making choices, tolerating waiting, problem-solving during play
🧼 Daily Living Skills: handwashing routines, cleaning up, putting on winter gear
Natural Play Ideas:
• Call in a to-go order 📞
• Deliver cocoa with the “delivery truck” 🚚
• Create daily specials ✏️
• Build a snowman or snow fort ❄️
• Practice weather-based decisions 🌡️
Play-based learning allows skills to generalize naturally while keeping kids engaged, motivated, and having FUN! 💙
