Happy fall everyone!  The weather is starting to cool off, Halloween decorations are going up and the leaves are beginning to change color. Fall is an excellent time to foster your child’s speech and language development using these fun season-themed activities.

Create a picture scene

Gather some stickers or window decals and create a fun picture scene.  There are several different language skills you can work on while creating your child’s masterpiece. Have your child describe and label objects in the picture, ask him or her wh-questions (“Where is the pumpkin?”), make up a fun story, or working on following directions as the create the picture.

Nature Walk

Nature walks can be both relaxing and educational.  First, start with taking a walk in nature or around your neighborhood and see how many things you can find that start with the letter your child is working on for his or her articulation skills.  For example, if your child is working on producing /r/ in sentences you could find things like “red”, “rabbit”, “rain”, “rake”, and “road.” As you find /r/ words on your walk have them put the /r/ words into sentences.

Scavenger Hunt

Scavenger hunts give an opportunity to expand your child’s receptive vocabulary and expose him/her to new adjectives.  Write a list of adjectives to find that includes adjectives (for example, “something smooth,” “something hard,” and “something round”).  Give your child the checklist of items and head outside to find them!

Fall Themed Crafts

Making fall-themed arts and crafts is a great opportunity to work on various language skills. One of my favorite resources for finding crafts is DLTK’s Crafts for Kids

 You can work on:

• Following Directions-for example, “Color the leaf brown and red.”

• Prepositions- for example, “Put the pumpkin under the tree.”

• Adjectives - for example, have your child describe the craft they created, “The scarecrow is tall and scary”

• Express Wants and Needs- for example, have your child the materials they need for the craft, “I need the blue crayon and pink marker.”

Fall Books

There are several books about fall that you can choose to read depending on your child’s reading level.  Check out our blog post about our favorite fall books for language development. As you read each story ask questions related to the book and have your child identify the objects in pictures.  This will also help improve vocabulary.

Have fun with these fall speech and language activities! Additionally, feel free to contact In Home Speech Solutions if you have questions or concerns or if there’s anything we can help with.

Jennifer Price M.S., CCC-SLP Lead Speech-Language Pathologist & Owner