Welcome back! Thanks for returning to discover our next social distancing-friendly activity of the summer. This week, try out a backyard scavenger hunt with your kiddos! Any open outdoor area, such as a public park or lawn, will work for this activity.
There are two ways you can conduct this activity:
★ 1) Take pictures of items in your background, show the pictures to your child, and go and find them with your child
★ 2) Take pictures of familiar objects and toys in the home, hide them outside your backyard, and then go and find them with your child.
Goals to Target:
Articulation: You can purposefully find objects that include the sounds that your child is working on! For example, if your child is working on the “b” sound, you can have him find words like “ball,” “bat,” “bell,” or “balloon.” If you’re not exactly sure which sounds are being targeted, make sure to ask your speech-language pathologist. It is also important to pay attention to the position of the sound being targeted (initial, medial, or final). If your child is practicing sounds at the sentence level, try to think of sentences using the object’s name after your child finds the object! For example, after you find a ball, you can say “The ball was behind the tree!”
Vocabulary: This is a great activity to target labeling! Show your child a picture of an item to find and have them label it! You can also give them two choices by saying, “Do you want to find the ball or the hula hoop?”
Positional Words: You can target words like on, in, under, next to, behind, over, and in between! Model the word in a sentence like “The hula hoop was under the bench!”
Give it a try and let us know how it goes! Check back in for the final post of Summer Fun Activities to Support Speech & Language. And if you're still wondering if your child is meeting speech/language and developmental milestones, sign up for a free development screening with licensed pediatric specialists!