What’s Featured This Week?
Household items can make great tools for language-learning. Below, we’ve listed a few new ways that you can make language-learning fun between you and your child while interacting with our favorite Household Toy of the Week: Cups! You can use some of the example phrases in italics to add rich and diverse language to your play.
Set up a Play Routine!
- Stack the cups into a tower. See how many you can get before it tips over, and then build another one. (Cup. The cup is on. It’s a tower. The tower is tall! Oh no, it fell down!)
- Put cotton balls, small toy pieces, or other little objects into the cups. Then dump them out and start over. (Ball. It’s in. The pieces came out. The cup is empty.)
- Add cups to a sensory bin of dried beans and/or rice and use them to scoop and pour. You can also add utensils to the bin. (I’m scooping the beans. You poured the rice. We’re mixing it.)
- Fill a cup with dried beans or rice, and then tape it to another cup to make a shaker. (The cup is full. You pulled the tape. I ripped it off. The tape is sticky! We’re shaking the cup. It’s loud!)
- Lay the cups on their sides and use them as homes for toy people or animals. (It’s a house. The horse is inside. He’s sleeping.)
- Pretend to drink from the cups or give stuffed animals/puppets pretend drinks. (The water is cold. You poured the milk. We’re drinking.)
Pro Tip: Let your child lead
Young children learn best when they are interacting with others during activities they enjoy. You can make play more fun and social by letting your child lead with his ideas. You can make learning new words easier for your child by talking about what he is paying attention to in that moment. The simplest thing to do is comment on what you are both doing or playing with.
Additional Ideas
Looking for some more fun things to try around the house? Give this song a listen: Shake My Sillies Out by Raffi. The repetition makes it easy to learn and the action-filled lyrics may help your little one get out some of that extra energy!
