Using a Kitchen or Grocery Store to Teach Speech/Language Skills

Hi, everyone! Hope you are all having a great week getting ready for Thanksgiving! My school district is off all week, so I am enjoying extra time, snuggles and play with sweet C. Later this week, we will be traveling to see my father-in-law!

I know many people will be swarming to grocery stores to buy last minute Thanksgiving food.  The grocery store and kitchen are both great places to teach children new vocabulary words. Playing little games/having children notice things in the store can also keep them entertained and engaged in the activity (buying you time at a busy store :)).You can also use toy kitchens and grocery sets to work on similar skills. Below are several of my favorite toys to target these skills and 8 ways to improve your child’s speech/language skills in the kitchen!

At the Grocery Store:

1. Describe the foods

One way to improve your child’s speech and language skills is to expose them to new vocabulary and teach them to add descriptors to things they may already be saying. A child that says “I like sour lemons” sounds much more advanced than a child that just says “I like lemons.” Grocery stores also provide opportunities to talk about unique descriptors, such as salty, sour and savory. If you have a very young child, you can model this description for them by talking about foods they point out in 2 word utterances (salty pretzels, sweet bananas). If your child is talking to you about foods that they see or want, say their sentence back to them using a descriptive word (i.e., your child says “Look, goldfish!” you say “salty goldfish”).

2. Work on Categories

Categorization is an important early vocabulary skill. The brain classifies words, and children with language delays often lack that skill. If your child is very young, pointing out categories will expose and draw their attention. For instance, in the produce section, you could talk with your child about how bananas, apples and oranges are all kinds of fruit, but potatoes, green beans and squash are all kinds of vegetables. If your child is older, you could have him or her point out or find the different types of categories for you. This skill could work all around the store, categorizing different types of food (fruit, veggies, starches, meats, sweets), different tastes (sweet, sour, salty, savory), different temperatures (hot versus cold) , colors of both food and their packages and even healthy versus not healthy choices.

3. Practice Prepositions

Over, under, on top, beside, below… prepositions are everywhere, especially at the grocery store! Ask your child to pick up certain foods based on location (get the vegetable next to the corn, look beside the Cinnamon Toast Crunch to get the Apple Jacks). You can also have your child give the directions to you for a new twist! :)

In the Kitchen:

4. Counting

Following recipes lends itself beautifully to counting. If your child is helping you in the kitchen, count out loud the number of eggs those cookies will take. If your child is older or more advanced, have him or her help you count the number of potatoes to peel for the mashed potatoes. If your child falls in between the two (that is where C is right now), pause while counting to see if your child can fill in the missing number! If you’ve been counting with your child for a while, he or she might surprise you!

5. Narrate Your Actions

Even very young children can engage and learn language through you speaking to them. Narrating what you are doing in the kitchen is a great and easy way to model sentence structure, intonation and vocabulary words. Vary your types of sentences (“Where is the bowl? Oh, it’s inside the cabinet”) to model different syntactical structures. If your child is older and more familiar with cooking, you can have they tell you what to do next or have them tell a friend/family member what you did in the kitchen. Which brings me to my next tip...

6. Sequencing

Sequencing is an EXTREMELY important skill at the early elementary level. It synthesizes many lower level skills, such as speaking in sentences and organizing thoughts. It can also help children with tasks like telling about their day or relaying a book that they read in class. Cooking and baking require sequencing skills in recipes, so it’s a great way to help children practice. Model this skill for your child by using sequencing words (First, Next, Then, After that, Finally) while you are cooking. Asking your child “what will we do next?” can also help with planning. Cueing your child with sequencing or transition words will help with their language organization while telling someone else what you did.

In Your Playroom:

Many of the skills that I’ve talked about at the grocery store and in the kitchen are also easy targets in your play room. Categorization, using descriptions, practicing prepositions, sequencing, narrating your actions and counting can easily be adapted and work with play sets, along with these two other helpful ideas…

7. Multi-Step Directions

Following directions is a crucial skill in the school setting. Teachers depend on a child’s ability to process spoken language and carry out direction in order to maintain order and help children learn. This is a wonderful skill to target in play, but especially with foods. You can start with related directions ( i.e., pick up the bananas and put them in your shopping cart, pick out three foods and put them in the bag) and move to more complex, unrelated directions. Remember, the more words that you use, the more difficult the language load for your child to understand, remember and carry out.

8. Pretend Play

If you have a child on the autism spectrum or a child who struggles to think outside of the box, this is for you! Pretend play is an important developmental milestone that most children develop around between 18 and 24 months. It also helps to breed a variety of other skills. When I worked with early childhood students, one of my favorite Thanksgiving activities was to have the children cook Thanksgiving dinner for each other. We would use pretend food and grocery shop, prepare the food in the kitchen and then sit down and pretend to eat at the table. I loved seeing what the kids perceived as Thanksgiving food (we “ate” hamburgers once for our Thanksgiving dinner). It can also introduce to a child that struggles with change that a “different” meal is coming. My son currently struggles with eating many foods (we keep joking that he is a fruitatarian, as fruit is about all he will consistently request), so we have been reading books and pretending to eat thanksgiving dinner while talking about the foods he will probably see (turkey, mashed potatoes, rolls).

Some of my favorite toys for pretend play involving food are linked below! Links are Amazon Affiliate Links.

I hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving!!