by: Annika Tribby, CCC-SLP

1  –  Outdoor Play: Get rugged up, put your hats on and play outside.

Ride Scooters

• For early language, use simple words like ‘go’, ‘stop’, ‘fast’, ‘fall’, ‘on’
• Practice that tricky ‘SK’ blend by saying SSScooter

Build Snow People

• Planning skills, write or draw a list of the things you’ll need (snow, sticks, stones, carrot etc.)
• Sequencing skills, talk about the steps as you do them (1st we need a big body, 2nd we need a smaller head).
• Practice some ‘S’ sounds. Snow, Stick, Sun, Smile…

Kick a Soccer Ball

• Turn taking skills – waiting a turn while the other person kicks, saying ‘Your turn’/’My turn’
• Concept learning – understanding ‘left’, ‘right’, ‘faster’, ‘higher’

2  –  Books: Choose a Winter themed book and read together under a cozy blanket

Some book recommendations:

Got to Get to Bear’s! by Brian Lies	Brave Irene by William Steig	The Thing About Yetis by Vin Vogel

Winter is Here by Kevin Henkes	Snow by Sam Usher

Vocabulary – Label things you see, talk about how the page and characters looks (cold, bright, excited, happy). 

Inference skills – Have a guess what will happen next. 

Recall/memory – Try and have your child tell you what happened when you finish reading. Prompt them with clues if they need. Ask what their favorite part was. 

Speech – Choose a sound they are working on in speech and search for a picture in the book that has that sound in it (remember the sound may be hiding in the middle of the word.

3  –  Cooking: (hot chocolates, sugar cookies, soup, etc.)

Following directions – Use pictures to help sequence the steps (SEE BELOW FOR EXAMPLE). Use sequence words like ‘next’, ‘then’, ‘last’. 

Describing – A great way to add to vocabulary. Use words to describe texture, looks, smells, sticky, wet, soft, squishy, hot, sweet, sour, crunchy etc.

Verbs – Verbs are so important when developing language skills. Use ‘action’ words as you cook (mix, pour, stir, place, cut, pull etc.)