Toys for language development

Christmas time is here again! I can hardly believe it. So I thought for this week's post, I would share some great games that help encourage talking and language development. The games listed here are for elementary aged kiddos. It might also give you some good gift ideas for your little kiddos! The most important thing to remember is...have fun! While playing the games chat with your kiddos about what is  happening in the game and what each of you doing or thinking. Your kiddos will love playing with you no matter what!  

Guess Who! 

A fan favorite in my house with my own 2 kiddos is Guess Who. This is a great game for teaching your kiddo how to ask a question. Many children with hearing loss struggle with asking and answering questions. Guess Who is a great game for getting your kiddo to ask you a question in a very natural way! There is a Guess Where game board, but I don't believe it's in print anymore. If you can find it at a garage sale, grab it! It's the same idea as Guess Who, but with places instead of people. 

Guess Who board game on Amazon

Busy Town: Eye Found It!

Richard Scary's Busy Town: Eye found It! is a great game for 3-5 year olds. This game is team work game to try and beat the piggies from eating all the food at the picnic. Along the way, players get to look for hidden items on the game board. This is a great way to develop vocabulary. Some of the items that you search for are: balloons, umbrellas, ice cream, wrenches, and hammers. The game board is large and my own kiddos loved it when they were younger. 

BusyTown Eye Found It! Game on Amazon.

There is also a Disney version of this game for Disney lovers!
Eye Fond It! Disney

Eeboo Games

Eeboo games are cute, simple games that can be used many different ways. The idea behind some of the games are to spin the spinner to collect all the items. For example: I have the tea party game. Players spin the spinner to collect a plate, napkin with utensils, a tea cup, a sandwich and a dessert.  Some language to use while playing: I still need a plate and a cup. I want to eat the peanut butter and jelly sandwich. You have tea cup, but I still need one. 
Here is the link for the eeboo website. There are many games and activities here for purchase for both boys and girls. 
eeboo games

HeadBanz

This is a fun game where players pick a card and put it in their headband without looking. Then they have to ask other players questions to try and figure out what is on their card! This game is great for encouraging children to ask questions in a natural language setting!

HeadBanz Game on Amazon

Twister

An oldie, but a goodie! I loved this game as a child and I bought it for my own kiddos for Christmas this year. Personally, can't wait to play it with them :) This game is great for following directions, learning colors and left from right. If your kiddos don't know left from right; try putting a red star on their right hand and foot and blue star on their left hand and foot. Then when you call out red hand on yellow, you can say "Red star hand on yellow" or "Red star, right hand on yellow." 

Twister Board Game on Amazon

Apples to Apples

There is a junior version and a grown up version, The junior version is for ages 9 and up. In this game the "judge" plays a card with an adjective on it (crunchy, smelly, excellent) and the other players take a card from their hand that they think best fits with that word. The "Judge" decides who the winner is. This is a great game for vocabulary and descriptive words. 


Apples to Apples Junior on Amazon

The Game of Life

This is another oldie but a goodie. I can't wait till my kiddos are old enough to play it. This is a great game to play that teaches, money and the vocabulary of life. Use this game to introduce vocabulary such as: payday, taxes, college degree, car payment and insurance! 

The Game of Life on Amazon.

Winter Wonderland!

I don't about you, but I'm all done with winter! To bad that groundhog saw his shadow. 6 more weeks, yuck. It's been a particularly brutal winter here in Michigan. I'm not a big fan of the polar vortex. Snow I can handle, biting cold, not so  much! Well, at least my classroom is fairly warm! 

I just wrapped up my winter unit with the kiddos. We did have some good times (inside though! The windchill was to cold to take them out. I was kinda bummed. I really wanted to make snow angels with them!) 

Below are some of the activities we did and the language targets with the lessons. The vocabulary development was a bit rocky because we had so  many snow days spread throughout the unit! 

Vocabulary: snowman, snowflake, hot chocolate, coat, gloves, hat, scarf, ice skating, snow angel, hockey, sweater, sled,  mittens, ice skates, skiing, snow, sweatshirt, snowpants, shoveling, icicles, sledding, shovel, snowball, snowboots, winter. 

I sent black and white pictures of the vocabulary cards home with the kiddos to practice. I included a hot chocolate game board and directions for a simple vocabulary review game for the families. Game board link

To open the lesson we brainstormed ideas about winter. What can we do in the winter? What do we wear in the winter? We made a chart. Then we reviewed the winter vocabulary words. 

The next day we sorted summer and winter clothes. I had saved some of my baby clothes from my own kiddos and we sorted the items. When questions and the preposition "in" were the targets for the day. 
T: When do you wear a swimsuit?
S: In the summer?

Put on/take off
I set out all the kiddos snow gear (I had sent a note home requesting all items be sent in on specific days). I called each kiddo up one at a time and gave that student a direction.
T: Put on your boots. 
T: (to a different student) Who is putting on their boots?
S: Robbie is putting on his boots!
I went around the group a few times, the we took turns taking off the items! 
I video taped the actions to use with the smartboard later!

Sledding!
No winter lesson is complete without going sledding. Sadly, we had to do this in my classroom because of the windchill. But hey, that's how we roll in teaching, flexible!!
Language goal: I will, present progressive, and
T: Ali, will you go sledding?
S: I will go sledding!
T: (to a different student) Who is sledding?
S: Ali is sledding!

I pulled two kiddos at a time for their second turn to get the conjunction "and" in there!!

Shoveling!
Same goals as sledding lesson but with the shovel. We have a blue plastic swimming pool that I filled with snow. Using a kid sized shovel, each kiddo had a turn to shovel some snow into a bucket. Then when the lesson was over, I left the pool out as a center with some gloves, shovels and buckets. The kiddos had a blast!

I have/Who has? 
Using the vocabulary cards and the bitsboard app on my ipad, we played I have/who has?
Pass out all of the vocabulary cards (keep one for yourself to start off the game). Say, I have the ice skates, (swipe the flashcard on bitsboard and ask for whatever picture comes up) who has the snowboots? 
S: I have snowboots (again swipe on the bitsboard), who has the sweater. 
This game took 2 days for the kiddos to really understand what I wanted, but then I overheard them playing a version of it during free play! I was so excited. Started taking language samples and just beamed with pride!!!

Centers
Snow painting-recipe on pinterest found here

Snow painting with watercolors, another Pinterest idea! The kiddos loved it! Find the link here, Watercolor snow painting

White playdough with glitter, the kiddos loved that too! 

We made our snackmats with black paper and chalk drawings this time. We made snow pictures. I loved how they turned out!

Marshmallow snowman-using an outline of a snowman, kiddos glue mini marshmallows on the line. 

Coffee Filter snowflakes, found the idea on pinterest sorry no pictures of my own!
http://www.pinterest.com/pin/94575660899008398/

Paperplate snow hats found this on pinterest and it turned out super cute! I used cotton balls instead of paper.  Paper plate hat

Here is the link to my winter board on Pinterest for other ideas! 

Happy winter!!