Winter in Minnesota and Wisconsin brings the snow and cold, short days, yet during this time there are still many fun outdoor activities to keep your kids busy while promoting their speech and language skills!
There are many ways to target their speech and language skills in a less structured and functional way. They won’t even realize they are building their language skills!
Outdoor Activities:
There are many great outdoor activities to do in Minnesota/Wisconsin throughout the winter such as playing in the snow, going sledding, building a snowman, ice skating, building a snow fort, and snow art. Some things you can do to promote language during these activities are:
- Talking about the actions you do while sledding, skating, or building, such as going/stopping, going fast or slow, pulling up the hills or sliding down the hill, spinning around, building the snowman or fort up and down.
- Talk about the actions that may occur as you build a snowman (rolling snow, melting, etc.). You could also discuss the body parts and clothing you may use while building the snowman.
- Use describing words like temperature, size, colors, etc., while playing in the snow, building your snowman, or sledding to build descriptive language.
- Take a winter nature walk and talk about things that are the same or different between winter and other seasons. What activities happen? What animals can you see? How is the temperature different? What clothes do you wear in Winter verses other seasons?
- Talk about the sequence of actions during these activities. What will you do first, next, and then last? Have you child help retell the steps to you.
- It is also a great time to encourage some creativity and introduce some pretend play by making up a game or story to go along with your outside fun!
No matter what outdoor activities you want to enjoy with your children don’t forget to warm up with the hot cocoa and mini marshmallows after!
Jillian Little, M.S., CCC-SLP
Speech-Language Pathologist
