Snow Day? S’no Problem! 

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.