Ways to Work on Speech and Language During the Holidays
One of the most special things about the holidays is having time off to spend with your children. Time off might mean your child misses some of their speech-language therapy sessions, however you can take advantage of the time off by using holiday activities to work on your child’s speech & language skills to promote generalization and progress. The team at Bellflower Speech, Language, & Literacy has compiled a list of some holiday activities you do to work on your child’s speech & language skills during holiday activities.
Baking is a great way to practice vocabulary, reading, following directions, and sequencing
1. Bake Together
Kids love getting to help with grown-up activities. Keep your kids busy by helping you in the kitchen.
Work on baking vocabulary (i.e., ingredients, actions and supplies) such as: flour, rolling, spatula!
Work on reading recipes and following directions
Work on sequencing by talking about the steps using sequence words like “First…”, “Then…”, “Now…”
Work on describing different ingredients, dough, etc.
Practice speech and language skills with your children while driving around to look at holiday lights
2. Drive & Look at Holiday Lights Together
Nothing is more exciting for kids than dressing in holiday clothes, driving around, drinking hot chocolate and looking at holiday lights together! There are so many opportunities for children to practice their speech & language skills during this activity.
Sing-along to holiday music to work on differentiating tones, rhythms, beats, and pronunciation
Ask your child what they see what at each house to work on describing
Test your child’s memory when you get home by asking what their favorite lights looked like or what their favorite part of the evening was!
Make a game with your child where you make an obviously false statement that they have to correct with their own sentence. “The Santa is under the roof.” “No! The Santa is on the roof!”
For sounds alone, have your child find lights that start with their target sounds. Alternatively, when they are talking to you about their evening, you may have multiple opportunities to listen to their target sounds and provide corrections as needed.
Holiday activities provide endless opportunities to practice language skills, such as describing with location words, practicing sounds, work on greetings and names
3. Decorate Together
What kid doesn’t love decorating their house for the holidays? Whether you are putting lights outside or festive decoration inside, there are endless amounts of opportunities to target language skills.
Work on following directions (“Put the green ball on the bottom of the tree”)
Work on describing with location words (“I put the ornament up high.” “The Menorah is on the table.”)
Work on expanding phrases to sentences by using carrier phrases such as “I put the ornament…” or “My stocking has…”
Work on greetings and names of family members once family is around
For practice with sounds, consider practicing the name of a holiday (“Merry Christmas” offers good practice with /r/, /k/ “kuh” or /s/! “Happy Hanukkah” is great for /k/ “kuh”!)
Have an Elf on the Shelf? You can talk about WHERE he is each day to reinforce “where” questions as well as location terms. You can also practice making simple inferences (“How do you think he got there?”) and predictions (“Where do you think he will be tomorrow?”)
Start conversations with your child by reading holiday books. Use storytime to practice holiday questions, find pictures or words that address your child’s target sounds, and more!
4. Holiday Storytime
The holidays are a great time of year to introduce new books that include:
Making connections to your own holiday traditions
Opportunities for practicing practical holiday questions (“When does Santa come?”, “Why did the snowman melt?”)
Working on identifying key story grammar elements such as the characters, setting and problem
Finding pictures or words that address your child’s target sounds
Need book suggestions?? I love “The Polar Express” by Chris Van Allsburg for big kids and “Dream Snow” by Eric Carle for littles. “Snowmen at Night” by Caralyn Buehner is good for a variety of ages!
Bellflower Speech, Language, & Literacy wishes your family a happy & healthy holiday season! We can not wait to continue helping your children meet their communication goals in 2022!