Since summer and travel season is upon us, I am going to write a series of posts about traveling with your kids! I take road trips with my children every year and there are tons of fun activities to do in the car (or on a plane) that will stimulate speech and language skills.
The ABC Game!
There are two variations of this game that I love to play in the car with my kiddos to pass the time but at the same time promoting language skills.
Start with the youngest kid and they get to pick a category (such as animals, foods, boy names, cities ect...). After that, each person takes a letter in the alphabet (go in order) and has to name an item in the category. For example: If the category is animals; the first person would be 'A' and could say "alligator," the next person would be "B" and they could say "bear," (then C-Z ect...). This activity targets categories, nouns and pre-literacy skills (you could even take it further and have them say the letter sound before they name their item!!). Have fun with it! Give everyone a turn to pick the category and reverse the order so each round you have different letters!!
The second variation of the Alphabet Game is to find words on signs or buildings with the letters. This is great for older kids because it is more challenging (they need to have good vision and reading skills for this version). Take turns going first and go through the alphabet in order or backwards! For example: "A" for Auto-zone, "B" for Brownsville, "C" for Costco ect... Another way to play this is for everyone to have a paper with the alphabet on it and when you see words with letters you need you call it out. Once a sign or item has been called out, no one else can use it. Cross off each letter if you are the first to find it. The person who finds a word for each of the 26 letters first wins!! This activity targets phonological awareness, reading, letter recognition, and direction words.
Images by Smarty Symbols www.smartysymbols.com