Greetings

Speech and language therapy

﻿Hello everybody. My name is Emma and welcome to today's lesson. I'm looking forward to today's session and I hope you are too. I can't wait to get started. But before we do just a quick reminder, we here at Oak are here to support any approaches you might already be using and any work you might have already been set. We know this lesson is going out to so many different children and families. So if you're not sure or have any questions, please do contact your child's school or usual speech and language therapy team. In today's session, I'm going to be talking about greetings. Together you and your talking partner are going to think about when and how we use greetings and then we're going to have a go, giving it a practise. Throughout the activities I'll also be sharing some hints and tips for how you can continue to work on your greetings when you're out and about and around other people. So for today's session, you'll need some writing equipment, a photo album, if you have one, or pictures on your phone will do fine, and the downloadable resource that's available on the Oak website with this lesson. But before we begin, please find a quiet place where you won't be disturbed for the lesson. Turn off any distractions or notifications that you might have running on the device that you're using for this lesson. And then make sure that you and your adult are both seated comfortably. When you're ready, let's begin. Okay. Let's start by doing some thinking and talking about greetings. A greeting is how we say hello or goodbye when we're talking to other people. Waving, is one of the first greetings that we learn as a child. We learn to wave at people to say hello. There are lots of different ways to greet people, but there are also some rules about how to greet people in certain situations and what greetings are appropriate with certain people. Pause the video to get yourself ready because in a second, I'm going to show you some hellos and goodbyes. Whilst you're watching me, I'd like you to think about what you notice when I wave hello and goodbye. What do I do with my hand, with my face and what do I say? You can pause the video after each greeting that I give to think about it with your adult and then when you've worked through all of the activities, press play to continue with the lesson. Hello. Goodbye. Hi. Bye. Now it's your turn. Pause the video to have a go, waving hello and goodbye with your adult. As we know, there are more greetings than just saying hello, goodbye, waving. Hello, goodbye and waving tend to be good greetings but when we are meeting new people, we're seeing people that we know. We can shorten these greetings though if we like. The word hi is short for hello, means the same thing. The word bye is short for goodbye. So, if we know someone quite well, or we see someone often we could shorten our greeting and say hi or bye. We can also try high-fiving people if we're already familiar with them. If we are meeting new people in a formal setting, for example, in a meeting or an interview, our greetings need to be a little different. It's polite to say hello and goodbye, but we might want to try shaking hands as a greeting as well. So now it's time to have a little bit of thinking and then some acting. With your adult or talking partner, I'd like you to have a think about what greeting you might use if you saw a friend in the park, a neighbour in the supermarket, and then if you were meeting your new teacher for the first time. Once you've had a minute to think about these things, why don't you try acting out your greetings? When you finished you could even think of a few more situations that you might want to try acting out. When you've completed this activity come back to the video and press play and we'll continue with the lesson. It's also polite to use someone's name when we're greeting them as well. So if I would saying hello to my friend Charlie, I might say, "Hello Charlie." Using the greeting, the wave and his name. Now, we're going to try another activity where we're thinking about greetings with names. With your adult or talking partner, look at your photo album or the photos that you've prepared on your phone. Practise and think about the greetings that you would use with people who are in your photo albums because you know them quite well. Practise greeting these people with their name. You can use the downloadable resource to make your own greetings prompt kit if you'd like. This is something that you could use to remind you of how to greet people when you're out and about. Try and get as much practise greeting familiar people or people in your family when you see them when you're out and about or in your home. There are some very special types of greeting that we need to be aware of because these are appropriate with certain people but not appropriate with all types of people. Here I've got a few examples. Kissing on the cheek, for example, could be a greeting that is used between family members because it is a type of greeting that we usually do with someone we know very, very well. With your adult or talking partner, think about the special greetings that I've just shared on the previous page. Who do you use special greetings with. Use the downloadable resource to make a list and have a talk with your adult about what greetings would be appropriate with these people. Don't forget to continue to use the downloadable resource for more ideas on how to make your greetings or your greeting prompt kit. Try and get as much practise as you can greeting people that you know when you see them or out and about. The key to practising greetings and getting them right, is to make them a routine. Adults, make greetings part of your everyday with you and the child and as many other people as possible. Well, that brings us to the end of today's lesson. A really big well done on all the fantastic learning you've achieved today on greetings. I've just got two things I'd like you to do now. First adults, look back on your notes from today and identify a few important things that you've learnt. Second, if you're able to please take a picture of some of the work that you've done on greetings and ask your parent or carer to share this with your teacher at school so that they can see the fantastic progress that you're making with your interaction and communication skills. If you'd like you could also ask your parent or carer to send a picture of your work @OakNational on Twitter so I can see your lovely progress too. Well, all that's left for me to say is thank you. So take care and enjoy the rest of your learning today. Bye bye.

Greetings

Greetings

These resources will be removed by the end of the Spring Term 2026.

Lesson slides

Lesson details

Key learning points

Equipment

Licence

Lesson video

Worksheet