Water Play Activities
One of my favorite things about summer are the water day activities available that create language opportunities. It’s a perfect time to work on requesting, describing, advocating, and social skills.
One possible activity is filling a plastic mini pool with water and adding sea creatures or waterguns inside. This gives our kids an opportunity to cool off and have interactive play with you, friends, or family. During this activity, we can model some statements to teach our kids how to advocate for themselves. (“I don’t like it”, “please stop”, “no more”, “all done”, “help me”) or even positive statements so they can explain to people they do like something (“this is fun”, “I like it”, “let’s do it again”). We can add comments during our play (“I got you”, “my turn”, “your turn”, “run away!”, “oh no!”).
Another fun water activity is water balloons. This can be made into a baseball game with the whole family, substituting the ball for water balloons. It can become a water balloon toss game, where you keep backing up to see how far you can go without dropping the water balloon. It can also just be a classic water balloon fight, throwing water balloons at each other for some friendly competition. These activities are great to continue teaching advocacy, comments and expressions. It can be helpful for following commands, rule following, or learning how to be a good sport. We can also model describing phrases (“it’s cold!”, “big balloon”, “red balloon”, etc). This activity also provides an opportunity to teach verbs (run, walk, throw, hit, kick, toss, pop).
Some additional water activities include waterslides, going to the waterpark, sprinkler play, or finding a park that has water play included. When we get ready for these activities, it’s a great time to model sequencing for our kids (first get your bathing suit, next put on sunscreen, last put on your hat). Letting your children help with following a list of supplies and crossing them off, or helping you pack the bag are some easy and functional ways to include working on expressive and receptive language skills.
Author: Amber Drew, C-SLPA