Glow with the flow

Follow your child’s lead and see where the learning journey takes you.

The following details a session I did with a 4-year-old girl. It is a perfect example of following a child’s lead and allowing communication and learning to flow.

I placed five activities on the floor and allowed her to choose what activity she wanted to do and the order in which the activities were completed.  

First choice

Make a rainbow. This requires the child to place the different coloured pom poms onto the wooden frame and eventually make a rainbow. What is learned here?

1)    Making choices. Offer your child, what colour will we do first? Blue or green?

2)    Language expansion. Make comments as you are both making the rainbow. It’s getting bigger. We are almost done.

3)    Interaction and bonding. This is a great activity to do together and really build a bond by doing something together.

4)    Attention and focus. This activity requires extended attention and focus. If you child is interested in it, he / she should remained focussed to complete it.

5)    Task completion. Children love to complete task and this helps develops a sense of achievement. Talk about the project completed.

Second choice

Dayna’s Fishing Adventures. Next was fishing for farm, jungle and sea animals with Dayna’s Fishing Adventures.

This activity facilitates development of:

1)    Expressive language. Talk about the animals, where they live. This will help your child say longer sentences.

2)    Answering questions.

3)    Vocabulary. Learning new animal names.

4)    Categorisation and semantics. Identifying where the animals live, and what other animals also live there.

Activity 3: Puzzle.

A quick 3 and 4 piece puzzle set or 20 puzzles.

Quick and fun to do, even for children who are not that keen on puzzles. This puzzle facilitated the following:

1)    Task completion.

2)    Counting. After completing all puzzles, counting the number done.

3)    Sound blending and sound letter correspondence. Say the words and point to the letters.

4)    Vocabulary. Naming the pictures on each puzzle.

Activity 4: Octoword Adventures.

A fun beginner board game, perfect for 4 year olds.

Octoword Adventures facilitates the following:

1)    Learning to say multi-syllable words correctly.

2)    Learning to clap and count syllables.

3)    Learning to take turns.

Activity 5: Making a play dough cake.

Play dough is a favourite for so many children. What communication and language skills does a child learn when playing with play dough?

This particular child the session was done with loves to make birthday cakes. She rolls and rolls the dough, then makes the circle shape of the cake, and then put the candles on top. After this, we must make a wish, blow the candles out, cut the cake and serve. The following is being learned here: 

1)    Imagination and creation.

2)    Expressive language. Saying longer sentences.

3)    Counting the candles.

4)    Sequencing the steps to make and serve the cake.

5)    Task completion.

Learning is meant to be fun! Even though you are playing with your child, you are actually engaging with your child, connecting with your child, and creating success with your child. When you engage and connect, success follows.