We’ve been spending lots of time at the beach this summer, so here are some ideas for how to incorporate language learning into beach time.

First up, for me personally, this is textbook “follow the child’s lead” – because I am not a fan of sand, the beach is not my destination of choice, but both the kids love it. Take time to notice what your child enjoys doing at the beach, perhaps they want to make sandcastles but perhaps not. Collecting and arranging pebbles, digging holes, mark making with sticks, are also fun options. What inspires your child?

Next consider how much you talk when you play with your child. Experiment with leaving more silence, continue to follow your child’s lead and contribute when they ‘ask’ you to. They might use a direct question, give you an instruction, or simply look at you, to indicate they’re ready for your input. If more silence feels unnatural, try imagining someone chattering to you when you’re concentrating on writing a tricky email. The person comments on what you’re doing, asks you questions and makes suggestions you didn’t ask for – distracting and annoying, right?

Today my 3 year old and I talked about “sprinkling” the sand, and how wet and dry sand is different colours, as he buried his hands and feet. The 1 year old found out there is a limit to my ability to follow his lead, and we worked on his comprehension of ‘no’ – I must have said: “no eating” (sand) about a hundred times!

What does your child like to do at the beach? Any tips for stopping sand eating?!

Here’s the first post in a new series, Real Life Language Ideas. Therapy targets need to be worked on frequently between therapy sessions, this is easiest for the family and most functional for the child, if it can be incorporated into activities they do anyway. In this series, each post will explain how a child can practise various language and speech skills during a particular activity. First up: blackberry picking!

My 3 year old inspired this post, he loves picking blackberries. It’s an activity we can do as a family (the baby is more of an eater, than a picker) and fits with my intentions for the year of moving more and getting outside. Locals in our new home town have been keen to direct us to the best bushes, I encourage you to go forth and get picking!

Here’s some ideas for how you can support your child’s speech or language development at the same time as having fun as a family.

Waiting for face watching

This is more a practise area for the adult! As part of parent child interaction therapy I often work with adults on waiting for their child to indicate he or she is ready to hear language, by waiting for the child to watch the adult’s face. So get down to your child’s level at the blackberry bushes and wait for them to look at you, no picking, tasting or talking until your child watches your face.

Vocabulary

Working on verbs in therapy? You could model, emphasise, and then repeat, repeat, repeat: picking, eating, tasting, squashing, pulling, throwing.

If your child is practising concepts, you can incorporate those too. Use different size pots, to practise size concepts, or talk about:

• empty and full
• high and low
• tasty and disgusting
• healthy and ill (my 3 yr old and I discuss this a lot, in relation to how many we eat whilst picking!)

Questions

Model relevant questions for your child and give them plenty of time to practise asking you back.

• “Who should pick this blackberry?”
• “Where shall we look for more blackberries?”
• “How many shall I pick?”
• “Can I taste one?”

Sequencing and Narratives

Today we came home and my son helped his dad make a pie with our blackberries. Cooking is a great opportunity for practising: first, next, and last.

Speech sounds

If your child is working at single sound level, you could ask them to say the target sound 3 times each time they pick a berry, eat a berry, put one in the pot, or spot a juicy one. Do the same with vowel consonant, or consonant vowel combinations. If your child is working at word level, try and find a word or two that work for blackberry picking, for example: for /k/ in word final position: you could work on ‘pick’ or ‘sick’.

Let me know if you go out picking, or think of other targets that lend themselves to blackberry picking! And now for more pie pictures.