Parents, you have made it to the middle of summer! Yay! Some of you may have finished your vacations, road trips, camping, and lake time. Some of you are anxiously awaiting for your trips, and some of you may be doing staycations. How about those moments where there is downtime? How about some fun outdoors?
You find yourselves spending more time at home thinking of ideas and different activities for your children to do. I have come up with three ideas you can enjoy with your children outside, away from screen time to help promote their language skills.
Record your fun outing (ex. Park, museum, lake day, river fun, zoo, etc.)
- Take pictures with your phones or camera so you can print them later. You can use construction paper or an old photo album. If you do not have access to construction paper or an album…just use the pictures on your phone!
- If your child is working on sequencing information you can have them answer “What did we do first?”, “second”, etc… If they need more cues to get to the answer, have a choice of 2-3 pictures to guide them.
- Or learning vocabulary, you can ask them about objects in the pictures or point to the objects.
- If your child is working on answering wh-questions, have them answer who, what, where questions.
- Is your child working on their social skills? Encourage them to share the book with friends and family.
You know the answer of “I don’t know” when you ask them “what did you do today?”. Here is your answer, as this activity is a great way to work on their memory skills. Cue them, “look at the pictures”.
Plan a Nature Scavenger Hunt
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Is your child reading? Write some clues down for him.- Is your child not reading yet? Give them verbally.
- Be aware, if your child is working on their working memory/attention skills, you may need to present the clues/or objects in 1-3 steps depending on their abilities.
- Clues/objects may be as simple as “leaf” to more complex as in “I am green or brown, and I grow on trees”.
- You can target skills such as reading, categorization, vocabulary, memory, attention, and expressive language (did they forget? Have them ask you to repeat information. A very important skill to repair communication breakdowns).
Make and Outdoor obstacle course.
- Great for children who can’t stop moving.
- You can build it and have them follow directions 1-5 steps at a time, depending on ability.
- Tasks could include, “run up the stairs, clap 5 times, and draw your name with chalk on the ground”.
- You can write them down to promote reading, have them write them to promote spelling, or verbally give them to promote auditory comprehension and memory skills.
- Have them come up with their own obstacle course to promote organization and planning, expressive language, sequencing, and working memory skills. You do the course and have them tell you if you did it the right way.
If you have any questions about your child’s speech or cannot understand what they’re saying. Please call us at (208) 375-7200 or email us below. – Jessica Palomo Speech Language Pathologist at Kaleidoscope Pediatric Therapy.