July Activity Calendar (2022)
Summer is HERE and we hope you have been enjoying it so far! Though summer is here and (most) people aren't in school, communication development can continue.
Our July activity calendar features 31 days of activities that are engaging, flexible, and fun!
Summer Activities
There are endless opportunities for targeting speech, language, and communication skills outside of the classroom or therapy room. We created this activity calendar for July to provide semi-structured activities that can be used to target skill development as well.
How to Use the Activity Calendar
Themes
There are 6 different themes to represent each week in July! During water animals week, you can incorporate animal vocabulary into your activities. This may include a scavenger hunt where you can search for animals that live on or near bodies of water (e.g. frogs), read a book about the water animals, and play with water balloons. You can clean the bathroom or water plants, search for fish or even bugs swimming in the water, and create a picture scene with water animal stickers.
Manageable and flexible activities
Think of this calendar as a guide for your language learning at home without the structure of traditional intervention! If you do not have paint, or your loved one does not like to use chalk, you can be flexible and repeat activities or pick a similar one of interest (e.g. use crayons instead of paint). On Wednesdays, we have provided options for helping prepare a meal or completing a household chore, as we recognize some individuals are NPO or may have dietary restrictions where preparing a meal is not the most appropriate activity.
You can also modify these activities for different individuals! For example, if you are making a birdhouse, one individual can put the pieces together (more complex), and the other can decorate (less complex). One individual can read some or all the pages in a book, and one individual can point at pictures or turn the page.
Tips for Promoting Speech and Language
Child-centered language intervention using indirect language stimulation techniques is one treatment option for children with language delays or disorders. (Note: this can apply to adults as well.) In basic terms, this means that the individual engages in a preferred activity, and the caregiver uses a few techniques to help facilitate language development. These techniques include discussing vocabulary related to the activity, expanding what the individual says about it, or rephrasing what the individual has said in a different way. Other terms for this type of intervention include person-centered approach or client-centered approach.
Brief examples include:
Individual: “I see bird”
Caregiver: “Yes, I see two blue birds!”
Individual: “Pink chalk, I make flower.”
Caregiver: “You used pink chalk to draw a flower!”
Providing indirect language stimulation opportunities all day can be difficult when you are juggling a million other things to do; we get it. For this reason, we encourage you to use the activity of the day to try to focus on the techniques we mentioned above, and bonus points if you do it more times throughout the day!
Links for activities and materials:
- Books
Even Superheroes Have Bad Days
We also love Readworks for passages
- Outdoors
- Create
- Active
Chalk for hopscotch
*We may make a small commission if you purchase any materials; though all opinions are our own :)
You can download and/or print out the calendar (with bonus language opportunity ideas) for free above or through Teachers Pay Teachers. We are also happy to email it to you - reach out to hello@communicationcommunity.com.
We hope that you find this calendar useful, engaging, and fun. Let us know how you used it, and if you have any ideas for August!
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