Winter break is the perfect time to blend fun and learning with your children. Whether working on vocabulary, speech sounds, or social communication, holiday-themed games and activities from our Fort Myers speech language pathologists at FOCUS Therapy can help kids build essential skills while enjoying time with family and friends. These activities are engaging, easy to set up, and target common developmental goals for kids in speech therapy.

1. Holiday Scavenger Hunt

What You’ll Need:

• A list of holiday-themed items (e.g., candy canes, ornaments, mittens).
• Hidden items or pictures of these objects around your home.

How It Helps:

• Vocabulary Building: Label and describe each item as your child searches. Use descriptive language (e.g., “shiny red ornament” or “striped candy cane”).
• Speech Sounds: Focus on specific sounds by tailoring the scavenger hunt items to include words with your child’s target sounds. For example, if they’re practicing /s/, include “stockings” and “snowman.”
• Social Communication: Practice turn-taking and asking for help if they can’t find an item.

Pro Tip: Use a visual schedule or checklist to support children with additional needs or who benefit from structure.

2. Snowball Rhyming Game

What You’ll Need:

• White paper crumpled into “snowballs.”
• A list of rhyming words.

How to Play:
Write words on each snowball, then toss them into a bucket. Have your child pick one, read it aloud (or you read it for them), and come up with a rhyming word.

How It Helps:

• Phonological Awareness: Rhyming helps children recognize patterns in language, a critical pre-literacy skill (as noted in The Importance of Phonological Awareness in Literacy, Snow, Burns, & Griffin, 1998).
• Articulation: Repeated practice of specific sounds during rhyming games encourages clearer pronunciation.
• Social Communication: Play with siblings or friends to practice turn-taking and teamwork.

3. Gingerbread Storytelling

What You’ll Need:

• Gingerbread man or house craft kits.
• A few story prompts (e.g., “What happens when the gingerbread man escapes the oven?”).

How It Helps:

• Narrative Skills: Encourage kids to create and tell a story about their gingerbread creation, a skill critical for academic and social success (Narrative Development in Young Children, McCabe & Bliss, 2003).
• Vocabulary: Incorporate festive and sensory words like “spicy,” “crumbly,” or “frosty.”
• Speech Sounds: Choose story prompts containing target sounds for practice during storytelling.

Pro Tip: Record the story on your phone to play it back. Kids love hearing themselves, and it’s a great way to practice self-correction.

4. Hot Cocoa Conversation Cards

What You’ll Need:

• Hot cocoa mugs and conversation cards with prompts like “What’s your favorite holiday memory?” or “What would you name a reindeer if you had one?”

How It Helps:

• Social Communication: This activity focuses on skills like eye contact, taking turns in conversation, and responding to questions.
• Sentence Building: Encourage complete sentences and elaborate answers to strengthen expressive language skills.
• Pragmatic Language: Teach polite conversational turn-taking and topic maintenance.

Pro Tip: For younger kids or non-readers, use picture cards instead of text-based prompts.

5. DIY Ornament Sorting

What You’ll Need:

• A mix of ornaments with different shapes, colors, or textures.
• Sorting bins or bowls.

How It Helps:

• Categorization Skills: Sorting ornaments helps children group items by features, a foundational cognitive and language skill.
• Descriptive Language: Encourage your child to describe why they’re sorting items (e.g., “This one is round and shiny; it goes in the shiny bowl”).
• Speech Sounds: Choose ornaments with target sounds to reinforce articulation practice during sorting.

6. Holiday Charades

What You’ll Need:

• A jar filled with holiday-themed actions or items (e.g., “wrapping gifts,” “sledding”).

How It Helps:

• Expressive Language: Acting out holiday actions helps children learn verbs and practice describing actions.
• Social Skills: Take turns guessing, and practice cheering for others when they guess correctly.
• Problem-Solving: Kids use nonverbal communication to help others guess, a skill valuable for building empathy and perspective-taking.

Pro Tip: Adapt the difficulty level by offering hints or visuals for younger kids.

7.“Build a Snowman” Board Game

What You’ll Need:

• Printable snowman pieces.
• Dice or a spinner.

How It Helps:

• Turn-Taking: Playing with siblings or friends reinforces turn-taking and patience.
• Following Directions: Use multi-step instructions (e.g., “Roll a 6 to add a carrot nose”).
• Reinforce Vocabulary: Label and describe snowman parts (e.g., “Let’s add a black hat with a red stripe”).

Pro Tip: Use Velcro or magnets to make it interactive for kids who benefit from tactile activities.

8. Holiday Baking with a Twist

What You’ll Need:

• Simple cookie recipes and cookie cutters.

How It Helps:

• Sequencing Skills: Baking reinforces understanding of sequential steps, such as “First, we mix; then, we bake.”
• Vocabulary Expansion: Discuss sensory words like “sticky dough” or “sweet frosting.”
• Articulation Practice: Bake themed cookies (e.g., reindeer for practicing /r/) and repeat target words.

9. Winter Sing-Alongs

What You’ll Need:

• Holiday songs with simple, repetitive lyrics (e.g., “Jingle Bells”).

How It Helps:

• Auditory Memory: Singing helps children retain new words and patterns (The Power of Music in Speech Therapy, Thaut, 2005).
• Speech Sounds: Practice articulation by focusing on specific sounds in the lyrics.
• Social Skills: Group singing fosters teamwork and shared enjoyment.

Wrap-Up: Making Holiday Fun Meaningful

These activities are more than just festive fun—they’re opportunities for growth and connection. By incorporating their Fort Myers speech therapy goals into holiday traditions, you’re helping your child develop essential skills while creating cherished memories.

Happy holidays from all of us at FOCUS Therapy!

FOCUS Therapy offers pediatric speech therapy, ABA therapy, physical therapy, and occupational therapy to kids from Estero, Fort Myers, Cape Coral and throughout Southwest Florida. Call (239) 313.5049 or Contact Us online.

Additional Resources:

Speech and Language Developmental Milestones, National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders

More Blog Entries:

A Look at How Fort Myers Speech Therapy Supports Child Literacy