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Welcome, parents!
Movement is not just play, but a powerful tool for your child's development! In this digital age, where screens often dominate our attention, it's easy to overlook the simple yet profound benefits of movement-based activities for our little ones. In this blog post, I'm excited to guide you on integrating movement into your child's daily routine at home. Not only do these movement activities get our children’s busy bodies moving, but we can also integrate language to support their language skills! What I have found in my experience is that these activities are highly motivating for a child. We want a child to be motivated and have positive experiences while learning language.
Here is a list of suggested activities to try at home with your toddler:
Activity 1: Ring around the Rosie's
Introduce this activity in a fun and interactive way. Remember to be animated to motivate your child to want to participate with you. Everyone can participate in this activity too! Sing the song and encourage your child to participate.
Why is singing beneficial for your child?
Children who are late talkers benefit from repetition; therefore, singing a song that is repetitive and predictable to them gives your child comfort and encouragement to want to participate in singing along with you. Once you have sung the song multiple times and your child has become familiar with it, you can pause towards the end to allow your child to “fill in the blank”. For example, in the last phrase when you sing “they all fall down”, you can pause at “they all fall ____” and wait to see if your child will complete the phrase by saying “down”.
Activity 2: Walking in the jungle, freeze, and other action songs!
I love incorporating songs to get a child moving, plus I can target several action words! Any song that incorporates actions such as “If you’re happy, and you know it, clap your hands”, “Walking in the jungle”, and “Freeze” are great songs to get your child moving and also learn new action words. I have provided a link to these songs:
Walking in the Jungle
This is a great song for your child to learn “stop”, “listen”, “stomping”, “jumping”, “skipping”. It also helps them work on following directions while also learning new action words as well as animal names.
Freeze
This is a great song for your child to follow directions such as “freeze” and “dance”. It also helps them learn new words such as “freeze” and “dance”.
If you’re happy, and you know it, clap your hands
This is a great song to help your child learn new words! For example, you can make this song your own and add more such as “if you’re happy, and you know it, wiggle your fingers!” or “nod your head”, or “shake your leg”. There is so much we can add here to support a child’s language and teach them new words.
Activity 3: Laundry Basket
This is a great activity because it is something we have readily available in our home! Here are some different activities you can do with a laundry basket to incorporate movement and language.
Pushing laundry basket
You can have your child push an empty laundry basket or you can put some heavy books or another heavy item. During this activity, you can incorporate a simple “ready set go” game. This repetitive verbal phrase will encourage your child to also repeat the phrase “ready set go”. You can also pause at the end to encourage your child to “fill in the blank” and say “go. While they are pushing the laundry basket, you can model the word “push” repeatedly and also add some grunts while pushing it. The “grunts” can encourage our child who is not yet imitating words, help them imitate sounds.
Throwing balls in the basket
If you have small to medium-sized balls at home, you can incorporate a simple basketball game where the child throws the ball in the basket. You can have your child throw one into a basket while modeling the words “ball”, “in”, and “throw”.
Activity 4: Tape
There are so many different things you can do with tape. You can stick different tape strands (you can use painter’s tape) onto the floor to incorporate an obstacle course. For example, you can put different strands of tape that are separated and have your child jump from one strand of tape to another. The goal can be to help them jump and touch the next strand. You can incorporate the word “jump”. You can also have your child jump with two feet and make it more challenging by having them jump on “one foot”. Not only that, but you can even incorporate a Simon Says game where they have to listen for the instructions to get to the next tape strand such as “jump”, “walk”, skip, walk slow, go fast, go backwards, crawl, etc. Furthermore, you can vary the distance between each tape strand depending on the activity.
A friendly reminder: the key is to have fun and be creative with your child. Every moment spent engaging in these activities is a valuable opportunity for bonding, learning, and growth.
If you have any questions or would like to share your experiences with these activities, feel free to leave a comment below. I'd love to hear from you!
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