| Goals Targeted: | Language Activities: | Target Age: |
|---|---|---|
| Describing, question comprehension, figurative language, phonemic awareness, compare (similarities) and contrast (differences) | Listen to Music! | Upper elementary, middle, high school |
| Choose two of your child’s favorite songs and print out the lyrics (or view them on a tablet/computer). Students should listen carefully to each song and describe them. Which instruments are featured? What genre does the song belong to and what is the overall message? Where might this song be played? etc. Then compare and contrast the two songs to figure out how they are the same and how they are different. Look at the lyrics and identify any figurative language, including similes, metaphors, and idioms. Talk about the meaning behind each expression (ex. Katy Perry sings, “baby you’re a firework!” What does this mean? Is the person actually a firework?). Students can also listen for any rhyming words in order to practice phonemic awareness. | ||
| Inferencing, describing, sequencing, following directions, problem-solving | Cooking or Baking | All Ages |
| Choose a recipe to complete with your child and involve them in preparing daily meals. To practice inferencing, take out all of the ingredients that you will be using to make dinner and see if your child can guess what is being made. Then, have your child describe each step as it is being completed. Give directions using temporal (before, after) and conditional (if, then) terms, and ask ‘What would you do if…’ questions to practice problem-solving skills (i.e. ‘What would you do if you saw smoke coming from the oven?’). Once the food has been prepared, students can retell the steps using sequencing words (first, next/second, last, etc.) and describe the taste of the food using adjectives. | ||
| Describing, sentence formulation | What’s in the Bag? | All ages |
| Find a small item from around the house (i.e. hair brush, whisk, battery, etc.) and put it inside a brown paper bag without letting your child see what it is. Then give clues about the item and see if your child can guess what it is (i.e. for whisk: it is found in the kitchen, it is used for mixing, it’s made of metal, etc.). Once your child guesses what’s inside the bag, you can switch roles – have your child find an item and give you clues! | ||
| Sentence formulation, expressive language, perspective-taking | Create a Photo Album! | All ages |
| Using either family photos or photos taken by the student, create a digital or physical photo album. Using a word bank of either conjunctions, adjectives, irregular verbs, pronouns, or other parts of speech that the student is working on, write captions for each photo. Then share the album with family members and enjoy reminiscing on good memories! | ||
| Inferencing, describing, categories, sequencing, following directions, problem-solving, asking and answering questions | This Day in History | Middle or high school |
| Head to the history channel’s website to read articles about what happened onThis Day in History (https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history. These short passages describe significant events that have occurred on today’s date in a variety of different categories...art, politics, exploration, sports, wars, film, presidents, and more! Students can identify any unknown vocabulary words and practice using reading comprehension strategies such as paraphrasing, visualizing, asking questions, and making connections. | ||
| Inferencing, sentence formulation, perspective-taking, social skills, asking and answering questions | Whose Shoes? | Upper elementary, middle, or high school |
| Gather several pairs of shoes from around the house and have students make inferences about the type of person who would wear those shoes. Think about what career that person might have, what hobbies they may like, and identify personality traits. To practice perspective-taking and sentence structure, have your child write a few sentences or a paragraph from the point of view of the owner of the shoes. Students can also practice social skills by generating questions or comments they might make to the owner of the shoes (what you ask or say to the shoe owner). | ||
| Making inferences, perspective-taking, sentence formulation | What’s Going on in this Photo? | Upper elementary, middle, or high school |
| Head to the New York Times ‘What’s Going on in this Picture’ (https://www.nytimes.com/column/learning-whats-going-on-in-this-picture) website to view an entire library of images that have been stripped of their captions. Encourage your child to figure out what might be going on in the image by using what they see (clues) and what they know (background knowledge) to make an inference. Then, they can create their own caption for the photo. | ||
| Identifying parts of speech, editing, articulation/speech | Mad Libs | Upper elementary, middle, or high school |
| Mad libs are an entertaining way to practice speech and language skills! To practice articulation, students can only choose words with their sound in them. Identifying nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs are also a great way to practice parts of speech. Once students have finished filling in their words, they should read the passage and edit any errors. Check out thesefree online Mad Libs! (https://www.glowwordbooks.com/blog/category/kids-online-mad-libs/) | ||
| Describing, categories, attributes, articulation/speech | Scavenger Hunts | All ages |
| Go on a scavenger hunt throughout the house to find objects that contain your student’s articulation sounds; search for objects by attribute (size, shape, color, use, etc.); or find members of a specific category (fruits, electronics, furniture, etc.). | ||
| Reading comprehension strategies, vocabulary strategies, making inferences, answering comprehension questions, summarizing, main idea | Newsela Articles | Middle or high school |
| Create a free account withNewsela (https://newsela.com/) to access thousands of engaging, informational articles at a variety of reading levels. Reading these articles is a fantastic way to practice using context clues and other vocabulary strategies, as well as reading comprehension strategies such as paraphrasing, visualizing, asking questions, and making connections. Students can also summarize the article, identify the main idea, and respond to comprehension questions that are included following the article. While answering questions, have students identify whether the question is literal (the answer is RIGHT THERE in the text) or inferential (need to search for clues and use background knowledge to make an educated guess). | ||
| Vocabulary multiple meaning words, sentence formulation, humor | Multiple meaning words in comic strips | Elementary, middle and high school |
| Find comic strips that show use of and confusion with words with more than one meaning (example: word “coat” - Beetle Bailey comic strip found in a newspaper - Zero is painting a wall, Sarge tells Zero to put another coat on the wall, later when Sarge checks on Zero he sees that Zero tacked a winter coat to the wall), talk about what happened in the comic strip, why did character do what he did, why is it funny, look up definitions of the multiple meaning word, make your own sentences using that multiple meaning word | ||
| (Multiple meaning words - words with more than meaning: examples - . watch, pitcher, trip, duck, coat, row, bowl, foot, etc.). | ||
| Describing, compare and contrast, listening comprehension, sentence formulation, articulation/speech | Describing Stuffed Animals | All ages |
| Gather up stuffed animals and put them in a bag. Have the child select a stuffed animal, making sure to keep it hidden from other players. The student then gives clues to describe their animal until someone guesses what it is. Once the animal is guessed, the next person can select an animal and give their own clues. Students can practice articulation of sounds, describing (category/type of animal, what does it do, what does it look like, etc.), comparing & contrasting (ex. someone guesses ‘fish’ when the animal is a dolphin, so the student giving clues must describe how it is different from a fish), listening comprehension strategies (visualizing, repeating what was heard, paraphrasing), and using conjunctions while giving clues (ex. Although this animal is small, it is bigger than a frog; My animal is fast SO that it can escape from predators), etc. | ||
| Listening comprehension, summarizing, story retell, wh-questions | Listening to Stories | Upper elementary, middle, or high school |
| Practice listening comprehension with your child by listening to audio stories on several free websites.Storynory (https://www.storynory.com/) has a library of fairy tales, original stories, myths and poems from around the world andLit2Go (https://etc.usf.edu/lit2go/) has many free classic novels and other short stories. Frequently pause while listening and see if your child can repeat information; paraphrase into their own words; visualize and draw a picture of what was heard; make connections with the main characters or events; and identify the story elements of setting, characters, problem, and solution. Using a scale of 1-5, encourage your child to rate how well they understood what was heard and discuss ways they can improve that rating. | ||
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