If you’re looking for a fun local event to delight and surprise your kiddos (and let’s face it, you’re always going to be looking for something that your kids find joy in but also enriches their lives), then look no further than the Point Defiance Zoo and Aquarium! 
The Zoo is a great place to spend your weekend. Take a stroll around the zoo, or plan out each exhibit and the best path by using a map.
Different Attractions
There are dozens of exhibits and hundreds of animals to see. Visit the nurse, sandbar, and blacktip reef sharks, just to name a few, in the Outer Reef. Let your kids run their hands along the backs of different stingrays in Stingray Cove. 
Check out tigers feeding, elephants being bathed, and clouded leopards climbing the trees in the Asian Forest Sanctuary. In the Red Wolf Woods look for a species that were on the brink of extinction until the Zoo stepped in. 
All of the animals, whether they fly in the air, live on land, or swim in the water, are perfect tools to continue to improve your child’s speech and language skills.
Previous Lessons
In the last blog we improved upon your child’s ability to name what she sees, using longer sentences, and understanding what words mean, among other things.
Adjectives
This week we will be looking at adjectives. Adjectives are important to add variety to her vocabulary. For example, before she would say “I see a tiger.” But at the zoo we can work on her saying, “I see a fast tiger, or “I see a hungry tiger.”
“That is a fat elephant.” 🐘
“I see a slimy snake.” 🐍
“That is a scary shark.” 🦈
What Adjectives Do
Adjectives aid with language expansion. If your child can only name things, she won’t be able to create sentences and have conversations with other people.
Get your money’s worth when it comes to fun and building up her adjectives at the Kids’ Zone. Your child can lay her hands on meerkats, goats, insects, fish, wallabies, and other animals. Now, she can try out adjectives like “heavy,” “hairy,” “scratchy,” “soft,” “fluffy,” etc. 
Record
And of course, while you sample everything the zoo and aquarium has to offer, take as many pictures and videos as possible, so that you can go through them again. 📸
Repeat
It’s also very helpful to talk about your trip before you even step into the zoo by reading books on zoos or animals. She can already practice saying things like “I see a long giraffe,” or “That is a green snake,” and so on. 
Repetition, before and after going to the zoo, is key.