Gardening & Language at home!

Gardening & Language at home!

One of my Visions on my Vision Board was to grow a garden.  We just started with a small plant that our aunt had gifted us, she loves gardening! She gave us an Elephant Bush Succulent it is so pretty.  Aria enjoyed this activity being able to pour the soil and transferring the plant into a bigger pot and watering the plant with her new watering can she got for Christmas. 

Our next plan is to grow a small garden and learn about where food comes from! 

This activity besides providing motor skills provided a great opportunity for language and direction following.  Aria was a little sick and impatient for this activity but she enjoyed a little fresh air and transferring the plant. 

Language used here:
"Aria let's transfer the soil into the pot."
This allows you to introduce a new word like transfer and still lets aria  know what she is doing but avoids simple language like," put this in here. "




Aria Transferring soil into a plant.  

Language used Here:
Dad:
"Aria do you want to help transfer the plant?"

Aria:
"I want to try it"

Here dad used a question to include her in the process and provoke a response instead of telling her what to do which would just include her and not promote language.  

With Language Development:

With this activity we talked a lot about the steps that we were taking during the whole process.  When we talk to aria we try to use full sentences and encourage her to use language.  We also ask her questions and introduce new words every chance we get.  She mostly repeats back what we say but it is great to hear her recall words and applying them in proper context  later, usually it's when we least expect it.