School is out for the summer, but that doesn’t mean the learning has to stop! Summer can be a great time to connect with your kids while helping them grow their speech and language skills.
Here are some fun activities that can be incorporated into play while targeting language or articulation.
Scavenger Hunt
Go for nature walks and look for items such as leaves, flowers, rocks, bugs, or animals. Practice describing them using age appropriate adjectives (e.g. bumpy, smooth, spikey, rough, etc). You can use a bingo card with adjectives and try to find one item that matches each descriptor word. Use this free bingo card generator to include words your child is working on in speech therapy. If your child is working on their speech sounds, include words that target their sounds. For example, if your child is working on L-Blends, put words like “flower” “cloud” “glow bug” on their card.
- Free bingo card generator: https://
myfreebingocards.com/bingo- card-generator - Pre-made nature bingo card: https://www.
firefliesandmudpies.com/ nature-scavenger-hunt/
Make Popsicles
Getting in the kitchen and creating something together is a great way to bond and work on important skills such as following directions and sequencing. Allow your child to take the lead as you support them in making some of these tasty popsicle treats. Talk about what order things are going to happen in and then allow them to repeat the steps as you move through them together. Use words such as “first” “next” “before” “after” and “last” to help them describe what step they are on. Practice inferencing by first coming up with a list of what ingredients they think they will need for this activity.
- Kid friendly popsicle recipes: https://www.kids-
cooking-activities.com/ Popsicle-recipes.html
Water Play
There is nothing more satisfying than playing with water on a hot summer day! Buckets of water can provide hours of entertainment for little ones. Target vocabulary by practicing verbs such as “pouring” “splashing” “dumping” as you perform the action, nouns such as “bucket” “duck” “boat”, or prepositions such as “under/above (the water)” “next to” “in” “out”. There are endless possibilities for targeting vocabulary with this activity. Practice following directions and understanding prepositions and adjectives by setting up a water obstacle course. For example, you could have your child jump “over” the sprinkler, spray the “big” rock with the hose, fill the red cup “then” fill the blue cup, crawl “slowly” to the pool “before” you dunk the sponge. The Hanen Centre has a great resource for how to target vocabulary with toddlers.
- Water play with toddlers: http://www.hanen.
org/Helpful-Info/Fun- Activities/Water-Play-with- Toddlers-The-Hanen-Way.aspx
Get Crafty
On days when it is a bit too cloudy for outside activities, staying indoors and creating some arts and crafts together is a great way to have a tangible memory from the summer. Pinterest is a fantastic tool for finding age appropriate arts and crafts. These fun activities can be used to further target following directions and vocabulary. Start a galley wall and pick 1-2 crafts per week to do together. Watch your child’s confidence grow as they see their hard work displayed as the summer progresses! Here are some favorite, summer themed, preschool age crafts:
- Paper plate ice cream cone: https://www.
easypeasyandfun.com/paper- plate-ice-cream-craft/ - Bow tie noodle butterflies: https://www.
craftymorning.com/bow-tie- noodle-butterfly-craft-for- kids - Soda bottle firefly: https://
onelittleproject.com/pop- bottle-firefly/
Go “Camping”
Bring the fun of camping indoors this summer! Building couch forts full of blankets and comfy pillows is a great way to allow your child to get creative and work on problem solving. For older kids, simply working on speech sounds inside a blanket fort can offer a fun perspective to those sometimes redundant articulation cards. Tape or pin articulation cards to the inside walls of the blanket tent and use a flashlight to look for them. Have your child say each word 10x when you find it. Peek-a-boo and hide and seek using blankets are also great games to get late talkers engaged and working on important skills such as joint attention.