Playing Grocery Store for Language Therapy

Did you know that playing “grocery store” can target goals for language therapy? Many children have toy food and baskets at home. It’s also great to use real produce in your home, or to incorporate these ideas while shopping in real time with your kiddo. Grab a basket and work on your child’s language development in play.

Below, please find ideas for how pretending to shop can enhance language skills:

• Requesting: Allow your child to request a food item, such as apples
  

• Answering wh-questions: Ask questions about the foods, such as, “When do we eat cereal?” 
  

• Categories: First, shop for all of the fruits, and next, look for vegetables
  

• Sequencing: Describe how to make a sandwich, and act it out with toy food
  

• Prepositions: Put the food “in” the basket, and the money “on” the counter
  

• Verbs: During play, use ‘ing verbs to describe what you are doing
  

Readers: Have you used grocery shopping to work on language development?

About the Author: Melissa Goff, M.S, CCC-SLP, is the owner of Sunflower Speech & Myo Therapy, PLLC, in Charlotte, NC.