Happy New Year!!  I know you’re looking forward to the new year and all the growth and changes your child will make over the next year, especially in the areas of speech and language!  Here are some New Year’s activities that you can do with your child this week that are all about looking back on the past and making plans for the coming year.

New Year’s Activities #1:

Recalling Past Events:

Now is a great time to look back at the previous year and talk about the highlights.  Sit down with your child and create a list of all the great things your child did over the past year.  Start by asking your child some of his favorite things and see if he can come up with any on his own.  If your child struggles with this, try coming up with some prompts that will help him remember what he did.  For example, you could say “what part of our trip to Florida did you like the best?”  or “what was your favorite thing you did with Grandma? this summer?”.  Recalling past events is a great  way to improve your child’s language and memory skills.  If your child is doing pretty well with this, try sequencing events from the year.  For example, you could get out three pictures of events that happened over the course of the year and see if your child can put them in order of which happened first, next, and last.

New Year’s Activities #2:

Labeling Actions, Objects, and People:

Get out pictures of things that happened in the past year.  See if your child can name the people, objects, and actions in the pictures.  If your child struggles with this, see if she can point to objects, actions, or people that you name.  For example, you could say “show me who is jumping” or “Where’s Mommy?”

New Year’s Activities #3:

Planning for the Coming Year:

This is a great activity to do with your child because not only will your child be working on formulating future tense sentences, but you will also get to hear about his hopes and dreams for the coming year.  Sit down with your child and tell him you are going to write some New Year’s Resolutions.  You can start by making a list of your own New Year’s Resolutions.  This will give your child an example of what is expected and will help your child get comfortable with sharing this information with you.  Make sure that all of your resolutions use future tense verbs and correct grammar.  For example, your list might say “I will go to the gym three times per week” instead of “go to gym more”.   This will help your child gain a better grasp on the future tense.  If your child is struggling with coming up with ideas, try asking your child what things he likes to do.  Then say, “Do you want to do that again this year?”  If he says yes, go ahead and formulate the sentence for him and write it down.  It’s good to write these down for your child even if he can’t read yet so he gets exposure to writing and text.

New Year’s Activities #4:

Asking Questions, Social Skills:

Have your child ask other people about their New Year’s Resolutions.  Asking questions with the correct word order and meaning is something that is often difficult for children with speech and language delays.  Help your child practice the question “What are your New Year’s resolutions” or “What are you going to do this year?”  Then, have your child go ask that question to a variety of familiar people.  This will be a great way to improve your child’s ability to ask questions as well as her social skills!

I hope the New Year brings you joy and happiness and great speech and language development!  I also hope these New Year’s activities will help you get there.  Don’t forget to sign up for our newsletter so you can have weekly speech and language activities delivered right to your mailbox!

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