With warm weather usually comes the opening of Farmer’s Markets.  If you do not live in an area where Farmer’s Markets are present, I’m very sorry for you!  They’re so much fun!  But you can have your own Farmer’s Market at home, with real or pretend food, or you can go to the grocery store and do these same tasks with a slightly different method. Try these Farmer’s Market activities with your kids!

Farmer’s Market Activities One:

Social Scripts for Buying Things

I’ve talked before about how important it is for children with speech and language delays to know how to participate in daily social interactions.  The earlier you start teaching your child the scripts for such situations, the more confident she will be and the better she will be able to function later on.  Learning how to purchase something is made much easier by practicing at a Farmer’s Market because the people that work these booths are usually very friendly and patient.  Before you go, teach your child the typical script for purchasing something.  It usually goes something like this:

• Customer: I’d like to buy this watermelon.  How much is it?
• Seller: That’ll be $5 dollars.
• Customer: Ok!
• Seller: Thank you!
• Customer: You’re welcome

Not too hard, right?  You can totally teach your child to follow this script.  Once your child is good at that, you can throw in extra things that a seller might say, like “do you want any tomatoes to go with that?” or “how old are you?” just to help your child be prepared for breaks in the script.  Once you get to the Farmer’s Market, have your child pick out one thing that she wants and help her through the script to buy it.  You may need to prompt her through it at first but soon she’ll get the hang of it.

Farmer’s Market Activities Two:

Increase Farmer’s Market Vocabulary

There are tons of great words that you can practice with your child while at the Farmer’s Market.  First of all, you can go around and label all of the foods and items that are for sale.  That is a lot of vocabulary to learn!  If your child is doing pretty well with the names of those things, try using descriptive vocabulary words to talk about how the foods look, smell, taste, feel, etc.  You may have to buy some samples to do some of these things but it will be totally worth it.   See if your child will try a new food that he’s never tasted before!

Farmer’s Market Activities Three:

Scavenger Hunt!: Descriptive Vocabulary

Send your child on a scavenger hunt (with you by her side of course!) through the Farmer’s Market!  Give your child a list of things to find based on various descriptors.  For example, write “something red” or “something that costs $5”.  When your child finds it, she can take a picture of the item, draw a picture of it, or write the word.  If your child struggles with this, try just using the names of things, like “find an apple”.

I love going to the Farmer’s Market and it’s a great way to get your kids out of the house to experience something new.  I hope you enjoyed these farmer’s market activities and if you don’t have a Farmer’s Market near you, go online and show your child pictures of some so they know what they’re like.  For more great speech and language activities and resources, join my Facebook group at www.SpeechAndLanguageKids.com/facebook-group!

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