Another year is coming to an end, which means the long awaited school holidays are here!  Throughout this year, your child may have been working on various speech, language, social skills goals and more! So, during the holidays, why not keep up the practice by doing some fun activities!

Here are some of top tips to get the most out of your holiday routine:

Getting ready for the day

I’m sure you have many holiday outings planned, so why not target:

  • Vocabulary and categories: Model language and have your child talk about or label clothing items, foods, items in the bathroom. Put these items into categories (e.g. clothes for the beach vs clothes for going to the park).
  • Sequencing: When talking about your routine, use words such as first, then and last.
  • Phonological awareness: In the car, play a game of eye spy to work on initial sound identification.

Book reading and board games

If you are having some down time, and you’re reading a book or playing games with your child, why not target:

  • Answering questions: While reading a book, ask your child a variety of questions, include ‘wh’ questions (e.g. who, what, where, when), predicting questions (e.g. “what do you think will happen next?” “what will happen if…)
  • Speech sounds: if your child has been working with a speech pathologist on speech sounds target, use games as a fun opportunity to practice. For example, in a game of snakes and ladders, practice saying the target sound the number of times that is shown on the dice.

Shopping

If a trip to the shops is on the cards, why not target:

  • Prepositions and concepts: While looking scanning the shelves, use language to describe position (e.g. ‘on the top’, ‘at the bottom’, ‘next to’) and quantity and size (e.g. ‘lots of’, ‘full’, ‘large’).
  • Phonological awareness: When walking up and down the shopping aisles, try and spot all the foods you can that start with a ‘b’ sound! Can you work through the whole alphabet?

Craft

If you plan on getting crafty, why not target:

  • Following directions: Provide your child with one, two, or even three step directions for completing their craft.
  • Expressive recall: Have you child explain what they made, and how they made it. Encourage them to use language such a as ‘first’, ‘then’, ‘next’, ‘last’.

Video home practice program

Why not try our video home practice program on a 4 week subscription. This program has over 120 short therapy videos on a huge range of areas to help with your summer holiday practice. Email us anytime to find out more or arrange a subscription at admin@hanrahanhealth.com.au

Happy holidays to you all and happy practicing!