Take Speech Outside!
This is a post written by one of our speech therapists, Jeannine A, SLP.
Summertime is one of my favorite times of the year! With having littles, going outside and playing is super fun and exciting and is an easy way to incorporate some speech skills. My kids love exploring and just being outside.
The ideas listed below are not new or anything extravagant. Chances are, you have most of this stuff already! These activities are ones your child/children are already doing. Today I am going to give suggestions on how to build upon the communication they already have.
1. Sand- If you have a sandbox already, perfect! If not you can easily make one with a bucket and a bag of sand.
• Concepts to target include: wet vs dry, build vs destroy (knock down), bury vs dig.
• Vocabulary you can use: dig, bury, build, wet, pour, pack, soft, castle
• Following directions: give instructions to your child, have them give instructions
• Take turns using the items or building. Ask for different items and have them ask you for different toys
2. Chalk- Find any side walk chalk and draw! You can use lots of language by simply being creative
• As you are drawing, narrate to your child what you are doing to put words to the actions you are doing.
• Vocabulary: really anything!!! You can use different color words to focus on the colors, or draw different shapes to target colors and shapes (blue circle)
• Take turns drawing different pictures and guess what is being drawn
• Following directions: give instructions to your child, have them give instructions
3. Bubbles- simply blow bubbles!
• Vocabulary: pop, blow, bubble, wind, chase
• Concepts: up vs down, big vs little, blow vs pop
• Following directions: pop the little bubble, jump and pop the bubbles up high, pop the bubbles down low
• Take turns blowing and popping the bubbles
4. Balls- gather different types of balls, basketballs, golf balls, tennis balls, bouncy balls and play different games with them. Could be simple such as rolling back and forth for younger ones, or more complicated games for older children.
• Concepts: stop vs go, throw vs catch, up vs down
• Vocabulary: Stop, roll, throw, catch, go
• Following directions: give them a direction such as throw the little ball, throw the green ball
5. Water- What child doesn’t love to play in water? Okay, some don’t, but most love it! Ideas could be a water table, sprinklers, watering flowers, getting cups and buckets
• Concepts: wet vs dry, sink vs float
• Vocabulary: pour, spray, splash, warm, cold
• Taking turns playing in the water
Meet the Author
This guide was created by Jeannine A, SLP.
Jeannine has over 6 years of experience. She specializes in articulation, language, early intervention, and feeding therapy.