5 Ways To Get Your Little Ones’ Tongues Wagging
5 of our favourite activities to encourage speech and language development
It’s national English language day, so what better way to celebrate than to share with you some of our favourite speech and language related activities to get your little ones’ tongues wagging. We already mentioned a couple of great ways to encourage speech through Doll’s play in our recent blog – ‘6 Reason’s why doll’s play will never go out of fashion’, but here’s a few more that you may not have thought of 😊
- What’s in the basket? https://nurturestore.co.uk/discovery-baskets-for-baby-and-toddler
Discovery baskets are a wonderful way to provide your baby or toddler with a variety of interesting materials to explore and talk about. Follow the link for some favourite ideas and inspiration on how to use discovery baskets for sensory play and language activities. A simple but effective way to make use of everyday objects and engage your kids in language practice. And it’s free – bonus!
2. Syllable sticks - https://intheplayroom.co.uk/2015/02/05/syllable-sticks-craft-help-clapping-syllables/
My personal favourite. Who’d have thought sticks could be so educational? Clapping out syllables helps children to develop their phonological awareness. This means learning to hear, understand and process the sounds in words and this is a basic skill that’s needed before they are ready to move on to sounding out words and blending. Give these a go, siblings can test each other too!
3. DIY alphabet pocket chart - http://lalymom.com/diy-alphabet-pocket-chart/
This one’s great for all ages and stages of development, and also a super fun craft activity! You may have to be slightly more crafty in the design phase on this one but once it's made... it's made! This is awesome for keeping the kids entertained and it can be combined with a treasure hunt type activity to make it more active.
4. Homemade musical shakers - http://intheplayroom.co.uk/2014/03/20/toddler-games-with-musical-shakers/
Making musical shakers with little ones is such an easy activity with lots of play and learning potential. The focus with these toddler games with musical shakers is speech and language, although picking up the pasta pieces one by one and filling up the bottle is also great for developing fine motor skills and precision.
5. Top 10 repetitive books for speech and language therapy - http://homesweetspeechroom.blogspot.co.uk/2017/01/top-10-repetitive-books-for-speech-and.html?m=1
A nice simple one to finish on with a great selection of books for to suit all ages, genders and abilities 😊
Enjoy x
