Activities for Language Development: Four to Five Years

Now you can enjoy your child's new level of depth and understanding. Your communication will be greatly enhanced as you see your child understand more and express him- or herself better. The world of letters, numbers, and words is beginning to open up; writing and drawing are becoming meaningful activities. With simple materials like magazines and newspapers and with simple tools like paper.) pencils, markers, crayons, scissors, and glue, you and your child will be able to create hours of meaningful fun together.

Scene Drawing

About the Activity: Learning to visualize what you hear is related to comprehension, and training in it can begin this way.

How to Play: Describe a simple scene to your child and ask him or her to draw it. Here are some sample scenes:

• A hill covered with green grass and yellow flowers with a dog on it.
• A table with a vase on it that has three red flowers in it.
• A mantle with three candlesticks and two cups on it.

Talking about Pictures

About the Activity: Your child will enjoy cutting out interesting pictures from colorful magazines as part of this vocabulary building activity. You can cut out some as well.

How to Play: Take turns picking a picture and describing it.

Categories

About the Activity: Here is another popular vocabulary building activity.

How to Play: Think of a category like fruits. Then take turns naming items that go with that category, such as apple, pear, banana, grapes, orange, and pineapple. Think of another category like flowers and then take turns naming those. Follow this same procedure with other categories like vegetables, cars, trees, and so on.

Finishing the Story

About the Activity: As your child gets older, he or she will be able to participate in this activity with more depth.

How to Play: Start a little story and then ask your child to finish it. Here are some examples:

• The mommy went to the grocery store. She bought apples, oranges, bananas, and grapes. What did she do next?
• The sky got gray. The wind got stronger. Everyone started to go to his or her cars. What happened next?
• The boy opened the box. Inside it was a set of blocks. What happened next?

Listening and Talking

About the Activity: Set aside special time for this. You can even make a regular time for it every day.

How to Play: Sit together with your child in a quiet room in a quiet place. Listen, talk, enjoy, and see what happens. Because we are so busy today, a simple opportunity to share thoughts, ideas, and opinions is often lost. This freform activity may turn into the best one of all.