Summertime Activities to Support Therapy Goals 

Now that it’s time to transition into the warm weather mindset, you may be wondering how you can incorporate your child’s therapy goals into your summer family traditions. We have you covered with our top 5 favorite therapeutic summer activities to target your child’s treatment goals that are also fun for the whole family. Let’s dive in! 

Beach Days for Sensory and Speech Therapy 

If you’re lucky enough to live close to a beach, then you know the many great sensory activities that can be enjoyed while spending the day by the shore. Activities like building sandcastles, splashing in the water, finding shells, and eating sandwiches make for a perfect beach day. 

The beach is an excellent place to talk about vocabulary and action words with your child. As you unpack your beach bag or wagon, have your child label each item taken out (e.g., chair, umbrella, bucket, hat, sunscreen, etc.). Does your child enjoy playing in the water or building sandcastles? Amazing! This is a great opportunity to model action words (e.g., jumping, splashing, running, swimming, scooping, dumping, filling). These activities also allow opportunities to target multi-step, temporal, or conditional directions using various language concepts. For example, if you are playing with sand with your child, give them a direction like “if you are wearing a blue bathing suit, pour one scoop of sand in the bucket!” 

The beach offers plenty of sensory opportunities for your child. Swimming in the water provides great proprioceptive input, and making sandcastles is a great tactile activity. If your child is avoidant of these, try putting some sand or water in a container for them to play with. Another favorite game is ‘jump over the waves’ at the shoreline to get their feet in the water and work on gross motor skills. Lastly, eating food on the beach provides a fun environment for kids to be exposed to new foods. Enjoying a picnic on the beach can help your child feel more comfortable exploring new foods. Try using bento boxes to incorporate different food groups for your next beach day! 

Quick Tip: Use baby powder to easily get sand off at the end of your beach trip!  

Use Camping To Target Therapy Goals 

Camping is a great way to get outdoors and enjoy nature and is a great activity for the whole family that can target many of your child’s occupational therapy goals. With camping comes a lot of preparation and set-up. Include your child in this process to work on executive functioning and motor planning skills. For a quick and easy experience, try camping in your own backyard!  

Getting ready to go on your camping trip incorporates a variety of executive functioning skills. When your child is packing their bag, they are working on planning, organizing, working memory, and inhibition! If they pack too much, their bag might be too heavy! Give your child a list to follow and have them mark off each item as they go. This self-monitoring strategy will help them make sure they have everything they need! Camping is also a great time to target narrative production skills. Sit around the campfire and have your child use the Story Grammar Marker, Five Finger Narrative, or a similar visual to tell a creative or even spooky story for all to enjoy.  

After packing for the trip and arriving at your destination, you need to set up your campsite! Let your child use their spatial planning skills to help decide where to put the tent, chairs, and other items you may have brought. Ask insightful questions such as ‘Is the ground flat enough here to put a tent?’  Motor planning, our ability to ideate, plan, and execute, plays a big role in trying and learning new activities. Setting up the tent, making the bed, and packing incorporate motor planning concepts. Find the ‘just right’ challenge to help your child problem solve through new activities while still being successful! 

Making S’mores for Therapy Success 

If you’re going camping or sitting by a fire pit this summer, making and eating s’mores is a must. Are you working on articulation with your child? Making s’mores is an excellent way to wake up those articulators and practice speech sounds at the same time! As your child is putting together their sweet treat, give them a phrase to practice with one of their target sounds. For example, if you are working on /s/ or /s/ blends, you can practice the following phrases: 

• Sweet chocolate 
• Smell yummy graham crackers 
• Sticky marshmallows  

Making s’mores is a great instrumental activity of daily living that targets feeding, safety awareness, and meal preparation. First, start by gathering the materials together, you can be creative and use several types of chocolate, toppings, and graham crackers! With close supervision, assist your child in toasting the marshmallow over an open flame while talking about the safety precautions you are taking, such as sitting at a safe distance, making sure the marshmallow does not catch fire, and blowing off the marshmallow before placing it on the graham cracker. Sequence putting the smore together by layering each piece to make a sandwich. For feeding kids, this is a wonderful opportunity to eat a mixed-textured food. If your child is not yet ready to eat the entire s’more, try exploring the foods separately! 

Reach Therapy Goals with Water Play

Water play is a fun way to cool down during those hot summer days. Put your bathtub toys and gardening tools in the water for some increased imaginative play and fun. If you don’t have a water table, you can use bins of water or a small pool!  

Water play is excellent for early language. You can model action words with your child (e.g., dumping, filling), or target pretend play with water by “washing” pretend food or giving dolls/action figures/toy animals a “bath.” Fill up your water bucket with items from a specific theme to target a topic of choice (e.g., animals, colors, shapes).  

Water play is calming for many children. Using different bins and tools, practice pouring, dumping, and scooping water for fine motor work. Get some great sensory input by pouring water over your child’s arms, legs, and back. Increase motor planning and imaginative play by creating play schemes with different toys.  

Have an Outdoor Game Night 

Outdoor games night is like a field day at home! Play games like Simon Says, wheel barrel races, and scavenger hunt.  

• Simon says: For speech, this game is an excellent way to target following directions. Give your child an extra challenge by adding in spatial concepts or making your directions multi-step. For occupational therapy, this game works on imitating actions, following directions, and gross motor skills. Try incorporating different movements such as jumping jacks, midline crossing, and 2-step sequence movements! 
• Wheelbarrel race: For occupational therapy, wheelbarrel races are great for upper extremity and postural strength. Additionally, it provides great problem solving to figure out how to get and maintain the position! 
• Scavenger hunt: For occupational therapy, scavenger hunts are a great way to use our different senses. Try finding things with different colors, smells, textures, and sounds in your backyard! When thinking about speech therapy targets, add items to your scavenger hunt list that are related to specific sounds, categories, or vocabulary themes! You can also have your child target prepositions by sharing where they found certain items (e.g., “near the tree,” “under the table”).  

There are so many ways you can fit your child’s therapy goals into your summertime schedule with these everyday activities. Can you think of other ways and activities you can do to incorporate the therapy goals into your child’s day? Let us know by leaving a comment below!

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