Speech and Language Activities for Thanksgiving!

As some of you may know, I am expecting my first baby (It's a BOY!) and will be taking some time off from work and blogging before and after his arrival. During that time, there will be several guest bloggers/SLPs that will be featured on my blog. I am so excited to share all of the amazing, informative posts they have come up with. I can not thank them all enough for taking the time to write these posts! Just another one of the many reasons I love being part of the SLP world. I hope you all enjoy reading everything over the next several weeks. Please feel free to leave comments and post questions.

 

The next guest post is written by Carissa at Home Sweet Speech Room! Enjoy!

Happy Fall everyone!  Today, we're going to talk about an upcoming holiday- Thanksgiving!Thank you so much to Kristine the opportunity to post today and talk about this fun stuff! This will hopefully be a quick little post filled with some fun and simple activities for you to do.

First, let's start off with Thanksgiving vocabulary words.

Turkey, Stuffing, Potatoes, Sweet Potatoes, Corn, Gravy, Pie, Family, Pilgrims, Native Americans, Pumpkins, Thankful/Grateful, Biscuits/Rolls, Together, Celebrate, (insert any food item here)

I'm sure there are many more words that I could put up there, but those are generally the main ones that I know of. I recognize every family has their own traditions in terms of food or activities on Thanksgiving, so be sure to discuss those.   If your kids have articulation goals, have them practice words with their sound in them.  Make it fun, though- have everyone at the table practice some words!

Then, you can do some language fun!  You can do almost anything with language.   Here are some ideas for you:

1. Talk about your favorite memories or traditions with Thanksgiving.  Talk about what you have done in the past, what you are doing now, and what you have done in the future.

2. Name categories.  For example, name foods that are eaten at Thanksgiving.  Name fall colors.  Name games that people play on Thanksgiving.

3. Decorate.  Talk about the colors, shapes, sizes, textures, etc of the things you're decorating with.

4.  Cook or bake together.  Discuss the steps needed to make the given item.  Use words such as stir, mix, whisk, etc.

Then, you can work on phonological awareness.  Have the kids (or anyone at the table) name things that start with "T" (like turkey).  Everyone has to name things that start with "T".   Then, pick another letter.  You can do a similar game with rhyming.

For SLPs, these activities will work in school as well.  Just pretend you're sitting around the table, having a meal together!

I hope you enjoyed those quick and simple activities! You can find me over at Home Sweet Speech Room, on Facebook, and on Teachers Pay Teachers.