Language games can be difficult to keep fresh and entertaining for the kids, especially when you are limited by the environment and have to stay inside the house. The kids’ bedrooms are full of great resources and there endless activities to play. Here are some ideas for children that are working on early language goals such as gender pronouns and prepositions.
Teddy Pronouns
This game is a great way to work on gender pronouns such as ‘he’, ‘she’, ‘him’ and ‘her’. All you need is two gender neutral toy or character such as a teddy bear and a bunch of clothes and accessories that are specific to a particular gender such as dresses and hats with flowers for girls or ties and top hats for boys. Ask the child which item should go on which bear e.g. the bear gets the dress and the tiger gets the tie. At this stage you can ask the child which character is the boy and which character is the girl. The child should identify the toy wearing the dress or floral hat as a girl and the toy wearing the tie or the top hat as the boy. Now you can start to dress up the toys with even more clothes and for each item you can ask the question “who should were the item?’ The child should then respond with ‘he should/she should” or ‘him/her”.
Hide and Seek Prepositions
The bedroom can be a great place to work on understanding and using pronouns such as ‘in’, ‘on’, ‘under’, ‘next to’ and ‘behind’ during a game of hide and seek. This game is great as it doesn’t need any additional materials besides the furniture in the bedroom. To play just get the child to either hide or seek and you will be playing the opposite role. If you are the one that is hiding, get a second adult or older child to give the clue of where to look for you (the hider) e.g. ‘look under the bed’ or ‘look in the wardrobe’. The child has to follow the direction to find the hider. Once the child finds the hider, ask him or her where they found the person, to which they should answer using the correct preposition. If the child is the hider then the seeker will look for the child and ask the child to give the clue of their location, to which the child should respond with the correct preposition phrase e.g. ‘I’m under the blanket’ or ‘I’m under the desk’. This game can also be played with a toy that is hidden by the child who then has to give clues to the object’s location.
Contact us for results focused speech therapy
This article was written by our Speech Pathologist Ashleigh Fattah who is a Speech Pathology Australia member. If you have questions about language activities, make an appointment. We‘ll provide you with simple and effective therapy targeted to your concerns. Contact us today.
