Speech therapist recommended activities in Brooklyn- November 2025

Each month we curate a selection of free or low cost activities in Brooklyn and Lower Manhattan that are language enriching and, as speech therapists, we recommend to support development. Here are a few activities happening in November:

• Brooklyn Children's Book Fair; November 9th, 11 am-3:30 pm

  • Location: Brooklyn Museum Plaza; Eastern Parkway- Prospect Heights, Brooklyn

  • The Brooklyn Children's Book Fair is an annual event that brings together children's book authors to read aloud their stories, share insight into their writing process, and engage in conversation with participants. There will also be coloring and drawing activities and an immersive experience based on Oliver Jeffers Life at Sea.

  • Why we recommend it as speech therapists:

    • Shared reading experiences are beneficial to a child's literacy, comprehension, social-emotional, and vocabulary development. It also provides an opportunity for children to develop perspective-taking skills by hearing the way others relate to a story or experience it, while also expressing their own experience.

• Plymouth Church's Yankee Fair; November 8th, 10 am - 3pm

  • Location: Plymouth Church campus and Orange Street in Brooklyn Heights, Brooklyn

  • Why we recommend it as speech therapists:

    • Previous years of the Plymouth Church Yankee Fair in Brooklyn Heights have included activities for preschool-aged kids, including face painting, pumpkin decorating, and arts and crafts. Creative activities, such as these, are wonderful ways to work on expressive language, perspective-taking, and collaboration, growth mindset and comprehension. Children have ample opportunities at a fair, such as this, to share their interests, wants, and needs. There's also an opportunity with arts and craft activities for children to use and be exposed to descriptive language (e.g., small, orange pumpkin), new vocabulary, understand the needs and wants of other children around them and how that impacts their experience and to navigate challenging moments (e.g., sharing, ending an activity, waiting in line).

• Stomp, Clap and Sing Classes; Tuesdays in November, 11:30 am

  • Location: Brooklyn Public Library, Central Location, Prospect Heights, Brooklyn

  • Why we recommend it as speech therapists:

    • Music is a powerful tool for learning and language development, in particular. Studies have shown that music plays a crucial role in language comprehension, particularly in the early childhood years. Music is engaging, often evokes emotion where it's to soothe, excite or lead to another feeling. It is also pattern based, often includes rhyme and rhythm that is easier to remember and participate in. In speech therapy, music is used to support children who are developing their first words as a tool to engage the child and expose them to high frequency, core words that are commonly the first words children say- these may include open, no, yea, hot, up, bye, hi. Music is also extremely important to the language development of gestalt language processors; oftentimes their first gestalts are nursery rhymes or other songs. When working with GLPs, we use songs and music to engage the client and encourage families to integrate it into their interactions with their gestalt language processor at home.

    • The musicians who participate in Stomp, Clap and Sing at the Brooklyn Public Library rotate each week. In November, the musicians include Bilingual Birdies and Sing with Olivia.

We hope you enjoy these free activities in Brooklyn this month!!