SPRING INTO SPRING

Activities to Promote Speech and Language Skills at Home

 

• Read!-Visit a library or bookstore and search for books about Spring. Many authors use spring themes in their books. Reading to children helps increase their vocabulary, encourages imagination, and helps with articulation and pronunciation skills. The Tiny Seed by Eric Carle is a great example. You can also try the Spring Changes iPad Book App. This is a simple but thorough 32-page app for children aged 3-7. The most important changes of the spring season are told in beautiful seasonal photographs.

 

• Scavenger hunts- provide many opportunities for active fun while learning. You and your child can search for items that start with each letter of the alphabet. Start with A and go all the way to Z. You can also make a list of objects to find (include pictures) and check off each item as the child finds them.

 

• Planting flowers or seeds- Give your child one-step or two-step directions depending on their level. One step directions can include: get a pot, put in dirt, poke a hole, put in seed/flower, water. Two step directions can include: Get the brown pot and fill with dirt, pick up the shovel and dig a small hole, put in the flower/seed and cover with dirt, water and clean up. Watering the flowers can be a daily task for the child. Make sure you talk about any changes that are occurring such as the stem is starting to poke through or the flower is growing bigger.

 

• Play outside-Target simple actions such as throw, kick, and roll.  Work on simple concepts such as up, down, in, out, on and off (throw the ball up in the air, put the ball in a bucket, place the ball on the table).  Practice turn taking skills such as my turn and your turn.

 

• Visit the playground-While your child navigates the playground, you can model many different types of verbs to describe your child’s play. Vocabulary such as “swinging,” “jumping,” “sliding,” and “climbing” can be used to label actions and comment on these fun activities. The playground offers many opportunities to introduce your child to prepositions and location concepts in a natural way. Identifying when your child is under the tree, beside the swing, or between the slide and the ladder, can help your child understand spatial terms. Playgrounds also provide opportunities to work on pragmatic skills such as conversing with other kids and turn taking.

 

I hope these suggestions offer you some opportunities to get your children outdoors as well as practice and increase their speech and language skills at home. I am excited to see the progress all of the students are making this year. Remember, we are a team working together to continue to promote growth in speech and language development!