These activities aim to develop the skills we need to learn new words, such as thinking about what category (group) a word belongs to, what we use it for, where we might find it, and what sounds are in the word. These skills are important as they help children to learn, remember and then use words in an organised way.
Repetition is important – the more times a child hears a word being used in the right context, the more likely they are to learn and remember it.
These activities can be played one-to-one (adult and child) or in a group, using everyday objects and pictures available at home or in a pre-school setting.
You can print these picture cards to help with some of the games.
Look through a book or gather a number of everyday objects together. Take one item at a time and talk about what we do with it. For example: "Socks – we wear them on our feet" , "Car – we drive it" or "Book – we read it".
You can also see if the child can find or think of another object we do the same thing with, such as: "Eat – banana, apple, crisps" and "Drive – car, lorry".
Look through a book or gather a number of everyday objects together.
Take one item at a time and talk about where we would find it, for example: "Milk – in the fridge", "Flower – in the garden" or "Pig – on the farm".
See if the child can think of any other items you would find in that place.
Gather a number of everyday objects together in a bag, for example a banana, biscuit, socks, coat, book, ball, toy car, toy dog or fish. Take one item out of the bag at a time and name it for the child to hear. Talk about what you do with it, for example: "A banana – we eat it" and let the child play with it.
Once you’ve finished playing with the toys, help the child to sort the items into their groups, such as food, animals, clothes, transport, and toys. You could take it in turns to think of more items that belong to each group, or you could try laying out all the objects and then asking the child to find the objects that belong to a certain category.
Start with a small number of objects from just two categories. As the child progresses and is able to sort items into two categories, introduce more objects.
Gather some objects or pictures of things that go together like a toothbrush and toothpaste, knife and fork or bucket and spade. Mix all of the objects up and take it in turns to close your eyes and choose two objects/pictures – do they go together?
If they do then you get to keep them. If they don’t go together then put them back for another go. At the end of the game, see who has the most pairs. Can the child can think of other items that might go with each pair?
Gather a selection of object pictures or real objects and place them in a bag or box. Take it in turns to choose a picture or object and describe it to your partner (make sure they cannot see the object or picture).
You could describe what it looks like, for example: "It’s orange" and what we do with it - "We eat it". They then have to guess what the object is.
Lay out three or four different objects in front of you. The child must find the object or picture that does not fit with the others in the group, such as cow, cheese, pig, horse. Then say why, for example ‘cheese is not an animal’.
You can gradually make this more difficult by making the categories more similar, such as bike, car, lorry, bus.
Spread out a selection of cards that consist of pairs of rhyming words like big-dig, cap-map or honey-funny.
Can the child find the words that go together? Or to make this harder, can the child think of a word that rhymes when they hear another word?
Use a selection of picture cards that make up a pair of opposites, such as hot-cold or fast-slow. Talk about them when they turn the card over and play a pairs game with the child.
When they turn over a card can they guess what the opposite would be? Or can they recognise the opposite picture when they do turn it over?
Spread out a selection of objects or pictures.
Can the child find all the objects/pictures that begin with a certain sound like S – sock, sandwich, sea, sofa?
For this activity, the child needs to understand the concepts of same and different. Use pairs of things from the same category. Either two almost identical items like two houses or with greater differences.
For example
Start with real objects around you then you can move to pictures of objects.
You can access Speech and Language support by calling Just One Number on 0300 300 0123. Our opening hours are 8am-6pm Monday-Friday (excluding bank holidays).
