Changes in a child’s environment are an exciting time and can be a great way to model new language and incorporate current speech and language goals in a child-led, play-based way.
Outside Activities:
If you can brave the cold weather, try some of these fun winter activities with ideas for how you can work on language skills below!
- Building a snowman, having a snowball fight, shoveling the walk or scraping your car, sledding, going for a winter walk
Following Directions:
- roll a ball
- put the carrot on the head
- first, put on your jacket and then your mittens
- find a long stick and bring it over here
Vocabulary:
- Nouns: snow, snowflake, snowball snowman, eyes, nose, mouth, carrot, rocks, branch, stick, hat, scarf, mittens, boots, sled, hill
- Verbs: throw, roll, make, build, catch, fall, slip, shovel, scoop
Concepts:
- Size: small, medium, big
- Spatial: bottom, middle, top
- Superlatives: big/bigger/biggest, fast/faster/fastest
- Descriptive: hot, cold, fast, slow, wet, dry, fluffy, slick, icy, slippery
Higher-Level Languages:
- Making predictions (e.g., When do you think it will stop snowing? Where do you think the animals are?)
- Using a “snow day” as a narrative writing prompt for a story or journal entry
- Talking about how snow or weather changes make us feel and why.
- Reading about inclement weather in our area
Early-Language Strategies:
- +1 (e.g., your child says, “snow!” you say “snow falling!” or “cold snow!”) – add one word to their single-word utterance to expand their phrase length.
- Narrate your day (e.g., First coat on, then boots. I’m wearing a warm hat, let’s find you a warm hat for your head. It’s cold outside, we are getting dressed in warm clothes, etc.) – talking about what you are doing in order to mode language in a clear, concise way and model various vocabulary.
- Encouraging and modeling core/high-frequency words (e.g., “help” building a snowman or getting dressed; “go” to be pushed on a sled or thrown in a snow pile; “all done” when ready to go inside)
- Using environmental sounds and words (e.g., wee, brrrr, wow)
- Singing songs and rhymes (e.g., “Icy toes, chilly nose, winter time is here, my teeth chatter, doesn’t matter, winter time is here!” – to the tune of “Jingle Bells”)
Jillian Ankutowicz, Speech Language Pathologist, Fountain City, TN.