The Gift of Experience

Providing your child with new experiences naturally exposes her to new vocabulary. These experiences can capture your child’s attention and provide an opportunity for you to model new vocabulary in the appropriate setting. These experiences can happen anywhere, whether it be heading out about town to visit a new place or participate in a class, or having a fun activity delivered straight to your door. In addition to promoting language development, these experiences support your child’s cognition, sensory, fine motor, and creativity. Christmas is a great time to give the gift of experiences, many of which will last well beyond the holiday season.

Below are some suggestions on how to give the gift of experience.

Goldfish Swim School: Give the gift of swimming lessons with Goldfish Swim School. Your child will benefit from weekly opportunities to learn the basics of swimming, water safety, and expand her vocabulary and ability to follow directions. Children as young as 4 months of age can begin swimming lessons. Early exposure can reduce your child’s fear of water while also providing the foundation for a safe relationship with water from an early age.

The Story Box: Do you remember how exciting it was to receive mail addressed to you when you were a kid? The Story Box is a book-by-mail subscription that gives your child the experience of receiving mail each month and is perfect for children ages 0-6.  Each month, your child will receive two books that are carefully selected by a Speech Language Pathologist to help facilitate your child’s communication development and emergent literacy skills. There are three different package levels to accommodate different reading levels. The levels include: the board book package; the picture book package; and the family book package (contains one board book and one picture book for families with multiple children of different ages). Monthly tips, activities and challenges to promote reading and language development are included in your box.

Paper Moon Art Studio provides developmentally appropriate art classes for children ages 18 months and up. The focus of this art studio is “where the art is all about the process…Come play!” By giving the gift of art classes, your child’s inner creativity will be encouraged through a variety of structured and unstructured activities. Winter sessions begin January 2nd and classes can be gifted by heading to Paper Moon Art Studio’s website to sign up for classes for your child or purchasing a gift certificate for another family.

Franklin Park Conservatory: A membership to the Franklin Park Conservatory provides your family with unlimited access to the beautifully designed indoor and outdoor gardens. Each season brings with it a redesign of the park that includes “multi-faceted, art- and nature-based exhibitions.” In addition, there are weekly activities for families that are free with admission, including performances, cooking, and arts and crafts.

Columbus Zoo and Aquarium: Give the gift of a Columbus Zoo and Aquarium membership. This gift will provide your child with endless opportunities to experience animals of the wild and many ways to promote her language development with each visit. The Columbus Zoo provides seasonal events, such as Wildlights, and structured educational classes for children of all ages throughout the year.

Have you given the gift of experience before? Please share in the comment section below your favorite experience to give.

Disclaimer: We were provided free swimming lessons by Goldfish Swim School and a month of books from The Story Box in exchange for collaborating blog posts. As always, all thoughts and opinions are my own.