With summer comes barbecues, beaches and family road trips! You’ll be surprised at how many ways you can incorporate language learning into your vacation.
- Ask your child to help you make a packing list. Brainstorm the items you will need along the way, and at your destination; you can group items together, to work on word retrieval and categorization skills.
- Help your child use the internet to find out more about the places you will visit; you can even print out pictures and help them make an itinerary.
- Take a break from electronic devices and play some old-fashioned car games. Some classics include: “I Spy”, “20 Questions”, “I’m Going on a Picnic”, and “Car Bingo”. Your child will be working on categorizing, developing their memory skills, and expanding their descriptive vocabulary. You can find free car bingo templates from the Travel Channel here: https://www.travelchannel.com/interests/road-trips/articles/road-trip-bingo
- Silly stories: Work on sequencing and narrative skills as each member of the family takes a turn adding a sentence to build a story; the story can be as funny or crazy as your imagination allows! If you need some inspiration, try a set of story cards like the ones here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00YT39PX2/ref=psdc_166239011_t2_B06WD3WNJG
- Buy a notebook so your child can keep a travel journal, recording his favorite parts of your trip. For school-aged children, this is a great way to grow vocabulary and work on writing fluency. For preschoolers, ask them to dictate a journal entry about something that happened that day and then draw a picture about it.
These games and activities can help make the time pass quickly while you are also working on language, reading and writing skills in a fun and interesting way. Happy Summer!