Happy spring everyone! Spring is my favorite time of year because the weather starts to warm up and the flowers begin to bloom. Spring is an excellent time to foster your child’s speech and language development using these fun season-themed activities.

Gardening

Gardening is one of my favorite things to do in the spring.  While you’re gardening, you can have your child help and at the same time you can work on a variety of language skills, including:

• Sequencing- have them help determine the steps needed to plant a garden

• Following directions- for example, “Fill the gardening bucket with water and bring it to the garden beds

• Vocabulary- determine which fruits, vegetables, herbs flowers etc. to grow and the associated vocabulary with the plant life cycle

 Nature Walk

Nature walks can be both relaxing and educational.  First, start with taking a walk in nature or around the 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 /l/ in sentences you could find things like “leaf”, “leash”, “ladybug”, “lamp”, and “lake.” As you find /l/ words on your walk have them put the /l/ words into sentences.

Make Flowers

Making flower-themed arts and crafts is a great opportunity to work on various language skills.  You can work on:

• Following directions- for example, “Put the leaf on the stem of the flower.”

• Prepositions- for example, “Put the flower under the sun.”

• Adjectives- for example, have your child describe the flower they created, “The flower is big and pink

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 items 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!

 Spring Books

There are several books about spring that you can choose to read depending on your child’s reading level.  Some of my favorites include:

1. The Tiny Seed by Eric Carle

2. Planting a Rainbow by Louis Ehlert

3. Up in the Garden and Down in the Dirt by Kate Mesner

4. When Spring Comes by Kevin Henkes

5. It’s Spring by Susan Swan

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.

I hope that you and your child enjoy these spring 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