Exploring places in your neighborhood can be a fantastic way to enrich your child’s speech and language skills! We’ve compiled a list of some of our favorite places to visit and promote speech through exposure to new and fun environments. Plus, who doesn’t love a fun activity out of the house?
Each of these places offers unique experiences that promote language development while making learning fun, and without adding extra “work” for you!
🐯 Read a story about zoo animals and talk about the different species. Explore their natural habitats, temperaments, and physical traits, and compare them to other animals. Then, plan a visit to the local zoo and connect your experiences to the story you read! While at the zoo, you can also play “I Spy”, target actions, verbs, and “WH” questions.
- “What sound does the elephant make?”
- “Where do tigers live?”
- “What color are zebras?”
- “Do you remember the ‘Brown Bear’ from the story?”
🛝 Go to the local park! Playgrounds and nature trails provide perfect opportunities for imaginative play and social interaction with peers. You can narrate their play with verbs like slide, swing, run, and jump! Explore your surroundings to play “I Spy” and find flowers, rocks, and plants, and talk about how they feel and look. You can even make a game out of it with an old piece of cardboard and place objects with different textures on it that you find along your visit. (Ex: The rock is bumpy! The grass is soft.) Parks are also great places to grow our socialization skills with peers and model language:
- Greeting: hello, goodbye
- Advocating: it’s my turn, please stop, I need space
- Commenting: I like your shoes/shirt/bag
Cardboard Flower Vase Nature Craft: Using scissors, a screw driver or pen, poke holes into the cardboard above each vase. Here comes the fun part! Go out to the park, the backyard or where ever wild flowers are to be found. Create beautiful flower art by sticking the flower stalks through the holes so that the flowers are on display in your vase.
🐠 Go to your local aquarium! Plan your visit ahead of time and prepare them by reading a book about ocean animals, like The Rainbow Fish or the Pout-Pout Fish. Discuss the sealife’s size, color, and other unique parts, like tentacles or fins. Ask them which ocean animal is their favorite, and when you take them to the aquarium, they can compare the animals they see with those from the story! Similar to the zoo, practice nouns, verbs, and answering questions.
- “What color is the fish?”
- “What size is a seahorse?”
- “Where do sharks live?”
- “Which fish is your favorite?”
- “Do fish have legs”
📕 Go to your local library! Local libraries are so much fun and free! Storytimes ignite imagination and encourage conversation. Some libraries also have story time, which is a great opportunity to interact with other peers and families, as well as work on our listening skills. Each month, GentleCare hosts a Sensory Storytime at the Waterford Township Library in Atco, NJ for families to come and enjoy!
Sensory story times are a fun and engaging experience where children interact with a variety of sensory materials—such as textures, sounds, and scents—while listening to a story, enhancing their understanding and enjoyment of the narrative through a multi-sensory approach. Learn more!
🏖️ Go to the beach! Label your child’s actions such as “jump”, “build”, and “dig”. The beach is also a great place to practice vocabulary, basic concepts, verbs and answering questions such as:
- “What color is the water?”
- “Where do you apply sunscreen?”
- “What color are seagulls?”
- “Do you feel hot or cold?”
There are also so many new smells and foods to discover and textures to explore, such as sand, sunscreen, water and more!
🐮 Go to your local farmers market or farm! Before you go, discuss the types of animals they might see and what those animals provide us (e.g., chicken = eggs). Once you arrive, you can name the animals you see. Talk about their size, color, sounds, and more! Engaging with vendors and learning about fresh produce can spark curiosity and new vocabulary. There are so many new smells and foods to discover and textures to explore, such as hay, pumpkins, apples, and more!
Supporting families in Cherry Hill, Voorhees, Camden, Mount Laurel, Gloucester, Deptford, Burlington, Marlton and throughout Burlington, Camden and Gloucester Counties. We’re currently enrolling! Contact us to learn more and to get started.
