The summer is a great time to work on speech and language skills! There are many fun activities that can help kids improve their speech and language abilities, specifically their expressive and receptive language skills. In this blog post, we will discuss some of the best speech therapy activities for the summer. We will also provide you with a few ideas to get you started!

Make a Summer-Themed Snack with your Child

One way to work on speech and language skills is to make a summer-themed snack! This can be a great opportunity to work on following easy one step directions. For example, you could make a fruit salad with different kinds of fruits, or an ice cream sundae with different toppings and ask your child to hand you each ingredient.

Take a Trip To The Zoo

Visiting the zoo is a great way to work on speech and language skills! You can talk about the different animals, their habitats, and the sounds they make. This can be a great opportunity to work on pointing out and labeling the animals that you see. You can also work on expanding on your child’s utterances.

For example, if your child says that they see a brown bear, you can say “I see a big brown bear!” to help expand their vocabulary. It is important to keep in mind you want to match where your child is at with their expressive language skills. So, if your child is using one- or two-word utterances you would want to work on adding one or two more words to them like we did in the example of seeing the brown bear.

Take a Trip To The Beach

The beach is a great place to work on speech and language skills! You can talk about the different types of shells, the waves, and the sand. This can be a great way to work on targeting verbs that are relevant to your visit to the beach. Verbs such as swimming, floating, and splashing to help your child make the connections for words in action.

On the way home you can ask open-ended questions about your visit to the beach such as “What was your favorite thing we did at the beach today?” This can help with your child’s receptive language skills by using your visit to the beach to make connections through words.

Have a Campfire

Camping is a great way to work on speech and language skills! You can talk about the different types of animals, the stars, and the fire. This can be a great opportunity to target sequencing events. Using words like “first” and “next” to help your child better understand how events are sequenced.

For example, you might be roasting marshmallows over the campfire and might tell your child “First we’re going to roast the marshmallow, after that we can put it on the graham cracker!” Another great idea is to sing songs around the campfire! Songs are a great way to increase your child’s vocabulary in a way that is engaging for them.

Another great target to work on for expressive language is through telling stories. By telling stories you can again work on sequencing skills while also working on narrative skills.

Read a Book

Reading is a great way to work on speech and language skills! You can talk about the different characters, the setting, and the plot. This can be a great opportunity to not only promote language but also literacy skills. Find a book that your child is interested in and work on asking “wh” questions such as:

  • “What do you think is going to happen?”
  • “Where are they going?”
  • “Who is sitting on the chair?”

By having your child take an active role and get engaged with the story you can help them to think critically about what is going in the story and increase their reading comprehension.

These are just a few fun ideas to help increase your child’s expressive language and receptive language while enjoying the summer!

Want to help nurture your child’s language skills from a professional? Our neurodiversity affirming speech language pathologists are here to assist your family and child with their expressive and receptive language skills, and much more! Visit our speech therapy services page to find out more.

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