Help your nieces and nephews prepare for the inevitable question: "What did you do over summer vacation?"

Younger children may remember the last special activity they did or provide a vague answer, such as: “I went to camp.”

As a speech and language pathologist, I am often encouraging children to elaborate on a topic and provide details to enhance their expressive language skills and build greater world knowledge that is useful for comprehension skills. Aside from the big family vacation, there are probably so many other meaningful, fun and exciting details from this summer to remember.

If their parents have any pictures, take time to look at a few together and see what specific details they remember.  For the bigger events, help them draw out more details by asking questions like, “What did you do there? Who were you with?  What did you see?" That way instead of their answer, "I went to Cape Cod," it might have one or two more details such as "I went to Cape Cod, made a castle at the beach and got sunburned."

For the less obvious memories, ask questions that might help young nieces and nephews recall other exciting events. Was there a 'first' from this summer? Did they ride a two-wheel bicycle or finally learn how to master that skateboarding trick they had been practicing for months?  As you are talking with them, keep track of a few of the highlights.  Afterwards they can draw a picture to represent each of their memories. Encourage them to include as many details in their pictures as possible. It is helpful if you give them cues. For example, if they are drawing about the new hamster they adopted right after school ended, remind them they can draw a picture of the pet in its cage where it sits in their home. Is the hamster eating, drinking or running on its little wheel? They can keep all of these drawings, so when they are back at school and on to new events, they have these as reminders.