Language

• Word Scavenger Hunt: Have a teacher or family member make a list of items to find. Search for them in your house or outside.

• Play-Doh/Slime Describing: Make dough or slime creations and describe them to a family member or teacher. Talk about color, shape, size, and texture.

• Reading Practice: Pick your favorite book to read with a family member. Describe the story as you read and retell it to a partner.

• Simon Says: Practice giving and following short directions with a family member while playing Simon Says.

• Board Game Fun: Play a board game with a family member. Practice following the rules, taking turns, and being a good sport.

• Arts & Crafts: Use paper, glue, and scissors to make a craft. Describe the steps you are taking and the colors you’re using.

• Chef Speech: Prepare a snack or a meal with a family member. Follow a simple recipe or make up a new creation!

There are many everyday activities that can build language skills! Here are some tips and strategies below:

• PLAY: Many language skills can be targeted through playing together with an adult! Choose an activity such as Lego blocks, Play-doh, catch, dinosaurs, or action figures, and follow your child’s lead. Have your characters interact & talk with each other, narrate aloud what you are doing or creating, or sort things into groups that are alike (ex: all the big dinosaurs, or all the red pieces).

• BOOKS: Reading books together is one of the best ways to build language skills!

  • Choose a picture book to read together. Read the words, but also talk about the pictures; read books more than once!

  • Point out details you notice, and try to guess together what might happen next (ex: “Look, she has a raincoat and rain boots. What kind of weather do you think it is outside? What season is it?”).

  • Connect details from the book to your life (ex: “Look, they are going to the petting zoo! Remember when we went? What were your favorite animals?”).

  • Talk about how the characters might be feeling (ex: “Oh, she lost her favorite toy! How would that make you feel?) in the different situations in the story.

• GAMES: Playing simple games such as Sneaky Snacky Squirrel, Memory, Hi Ho Cherry-o, Go Fish, & Uno can provide great opportunities to practice turn taking skills, following directions, asking and answering questions, using full sentences, understanding concepts such as more/less and next/first/last, and many more skills!

• INTERACTIONS: When interacting with each other, model full sentences and expand on what your child says (add 1-2 words).

  • Child: “Her can fly.”

  • Adult: “Yes, she can fly fast!”

  • Child: “Here a cookie.”

  • Adult: “That is a big cookie! Can you make a small cookie too?”

  • Child: “Here!”

  • Adult: “Thank you! I love chocolate cookies.”

  • Child: “Uh oh! Tower all gone.”

  • Adult: “Oh, the tower fell down! How can we fix it?”

There are many everyday activities that can build language skills! Here are some tips and strategies below:

• • VIDEOS/MOVIES: Watch short videos (such as Simon’s Cat on YouTube) together. Have your child identify the different characters, and retell what happened, using whole sentences (which can target summarizing, main idea, past tense verbs, and sequencing). You can also do this for longer shows or movies!

• • BOOKS: Choose a book to read together; consider reading one chapter or section at a time. As you read, or after you finish a section, talk about things like:

    • Who is the main character? How would you describe him/her (appearance, personality, etc.)? Do you have anything in common? What problems do the characters face? How did they (or how could you) solve them? How are they feeling

    • What is the setting? (where the story takes place)

    • Were there any words you didn’t recognize in this part? Let’s go back and see if we can figure out what it means using the words around it (or the context).

    • Did you notice any multiple meaning words? What do they mean? (Examples: trunk, club, fly, last, check, handle)

    • What do you think will happen in the next chapter or sections?

• • GAMES: Many board and card games work on valuable language skills like turn taking, using complete sentences, describing, comparing/contrasting, perspective taking, & more. Games such as Scattergories, Apples to Apples, Bubble Talk, Guess Who, Clue, Uno, Catch Phrase, & Catan Junior are all good choices!