As our children turn one they have suddenly gone from babies to toddlers overnight. First words, first steps, new skills, exciting play, and the unending need for adventure. In the next 12 months, there are some great opportunities for learning and play along the way. Now is the time to introduce new ideas and activities that can support their cognitive, physical, and language skills.
Below are some ideas of some games which are great for small children especially aged 12 to 24 months. We’ve outlined some of the activities you could have a go at home and also how to support the language that goes alongside it. Remember, play is the best opportunity for language learning and therefore they go hand-in-hand together. Try and make some time each day to play with your child, reduce distractions, and have some fun.
Colors
Colors are one of our early concepts. The great thing is that colors are all around us all of the time. Pick some toys that your child likes to play with, they could be different color cars, different color bricks, pens and pencils, items of clothing, balls in a ball pit. Name the colors as you play, holding the item up so that they can see the color you are referring to.
There is no pressure for them to say the colors to start off with and children often learn to understand colors much earlier than they can use the words themselves. You can help them use their new knowledge by playing fun games to find the colors e.g. where is the red car, where is the blue car. Remember to keep language simple and short with one-year-olds, it can be easy to forget that they only need single words and two-word phrases to learn.
Pointing
Pointing is a skill that your child will start learning over their first year. They may already be able to look and follow your point when you point out something in your environment. You can play hide and seek and find the toy by placing items and objects around the room and pointing to them. You can say “Look! There is the dog” and see if your child can turn to look and then retrieve the item together. Remember, children often need time to respond so make sure you hold the point for a few seconds and also look in the direction yourself to help them direct their own gaze.
Turning pages in a book
From 12 months children’s interest in books often increases as they are able to turn the pages and look at the pictures with you. Make sure you have child-friendly books at a level they can access themselves around the house. Look at books together, allowing them to turn the page, start with the book the wrong way up to see if they can correct it for you, read a page, look at the pictures, point out the words. When you get to the end of a book you can model the word “finished” and close the book to show them that it’s the end. Children often like repetition and will ask us to read the same book over and over. Try to do this when possible as children enjoy and learn from repetition and familiar language.
Sorting objects
Over the first year, your child will learn some early categorization skills. At first, it will be mainly visually related items, so they can sort objects depending on how they look e.g. the color, the size, what type of thing they are. Collect together simple objects, like colored bricks, animals, cars, and see if you can sort them together into different categories e.g. blue v’s red, big v’s small, cars v’s animals. Just remember we wouldn’t expect a child to be able to do this independently at this point, but they will enjoy watching and engaging in the activity with you and might be able to take part as they build in familiarity and confidence with the activity.
Completing simple puzzles
Puzzles are a great early problem-solving activity. First of all, they can be good for language as you can name the items within the puzzles. Secondly, they are good for cognitive development, looking at visual perception, spatial awareness, and problem-solving. They also can be great early physical development activities as they involve small pieces and require children to work out how things fit together. Remember you can make puzzles easier by reducing the number of pieces the child has to choose from at one time. You can make this harder by giving them more pieces to choose from. At this age, simple inset puzzles are the best as they can be achieved through practice and modeling.
Playing with Play-Doh
Play-Doh or clay are great sensory, tactile activities that involve a lot of skills such as problem-solving, fine motor skills and also a great opportunity for language. Use different items with the clay such as introducing animals, shape cutters, children’s cutlery. Commentate as your child is playing to give them the language alongside the play e.g “Sarah is cutting”, “Mummy is rolling”, “Daddy is squashing”. Again, remember, at this point, we wouldn’t expect a child to use all this language however it is extremely beneficial for them to hear the language with the play for them to use at a later date.
Playing with a teddy or a doll
In their first year, children develop more interest in playing with a doll or a teddy. This is a great way of introducing the small world and real-world play where they can try out the things they watch you do day to day e.g. brushing dolls hair, cleaning teddies teeth, putting teddy to bed. You can model the language that goes alongside their actions and play e.g. brushing, eating, walking, happy, sad.
The great thing about the simplicity of a doll or a teddy is that it’s an item that can be used anywhere around the house or outside in the park, in the car or at the home of a family member. Over the years children often develop bonds with a particular teddy and doll which means they can be really motivating sources of learning and play that you can use.
Pretend to be an animal
One of the early skills a child learns is imitating animal sounds. Quite often a child can imitate a lion or a sheep etc before they can say the word “lion” or “sheep”. This means they’re excellent tools for the early idea of language where you can request and they can respond using their voice. Make sure you have toys and pictures of animals around your home so you can build their association of the animal with the sound and just have lots of fun being very noisy. You can again easily extend this to other noises like imitating the sound of vehicles, clapping, clicking, blowing raspberries, and singing.
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