A quick and simple game to play to boost your child’s language and get them moving.
Ask you child if they can tell you an animal which flutters? And can they move like one too?
What about an animal that wiggles…swims…flies…dives…stomps…jumps…shuffles…bounces…slithers…stalks…pounces…gallops?
After you’ve played the game a few times and your child has been using the new words you can extend the game by getting them to ask you the questions.
This is a great party game and can also be used to link in with a topic you’re looking at. You need to use your fingers to feel inside a sock and guess what’s hidden inside.
Start with a few old socks -we bought some cheap men’s sports socks especially for the game. (They might get messy, depending on what you fill them with.)
Fill each sock with a different content. We used feathers, dry pasta, fir cones and jelly.
Each person has to put their hand into the sock (no peeping!) and see if they can tell what’s inside just by feeling.
You could give a sweet prize if they guess correctly, or if you have a few children playing you could work as two teams, with a prize for the team that gets the most correct answers.
You can vary the contents to fit with any theme or topic you like.
For Hallowe’en you might use cooked spaghetti (dragon’s intestines), green jelly (witch’s snot), peeled grapes (monster’s eye balls) or tomato ketchup (bat’s blood).
If you’ve been on a woodland walk you might fill each sock with conkers, acorns, fir cones, moss and so on.
Extend the game to nurture language skills
You can use this game to promote children’s language too. Have one child feel inside the sock and describe the contents to others – see if the child can give enough clues so the others can guess what’s inside without seeing or even feeling it.
Or play the game and ask all the children to see how many words they can use to describe the contents – is it slimy, squashy, soft, slippery, gentle, hard, crunchy…?
When children learn to read and do simple arithmetic they need to be able to use their memory to recall information. A way to help develop this memory skill is with a simple party game, which you can play individually with your child, or with a group of children.
You’ll need: a tray, a tea towel (or similar cover), a selection of objects – say a train, a book, a wooden spoon, a teddy, an apple, a wooden block
(If you’re playing this at a themed party you can select a group of related items, for example for a ‘mermaid’ party you might use a shell, a starfish, a pebble, a fish etc.)
Sit the children down and show them the objects on the tray – say what each item is and have a chat about them. Tell the children you’re going to cover the objects up and then take one away – they’ll have to guess which object is missing.
The children can take it in turns to guess which is missing, or with older children the first person to shout out the answer is the winner. Bear in mind that children develop memory skills at different rates, so take care not to make anyone feel they are wrong or can’t take part. If a child can’t remember you can give some clues (refer back to what you said about the objects at the beginning of the game) or ask the team to help out.
As children get more skilled at remembering you can use a larger number of objects or remove two items at a time.
Use these printable penguin letter cards and play these penguin alphabet games to give your literacy centers a winter theme.
