My family

Age group

3-5 yrs

Number of children:

8-12 ppl

Theme: Creativity

Developmental area: Communication and socialization, Language skills

Areas it develops: general knowledge, vocabulary, sentence forming, communication skills

Language is more than just a bunch of words put after one another; language is a mentality, it is about creating an inner image about the world around us by using complicated signs and symbols. We are all born with language abilities, but learning to speak is a complicated process. Without having a solid language base moving on to critical thinking and cultural studies is impossible. By the time children hit the 36 months milestone, they are capable of expressing their thoughts, feelings, questions in a way that others understand it too. In order to be able to do this they need internal and external certainty. Having well-developed language abilities is necessary, but not enough for having well-developed communication skills and vice versa.

For communication skills, children require well-developed perception and detection. Therefore, if the developmental domino is hurt somewhere along the way or it is lagging, children will not perform as they should for their age and their socialization will not be problem free.

Games where children have to express themselves and talk to each other improve language skills and abilities.

We should play this game for multiple days because involving more, than 3 children in one round is not ideal.

Ingredients

  • family pictures
  • sheets and pencils

A story about my family

Instructions:

Everyone should bring a family photo to the group (this should be discussed with the parents first of course) and then each day 2-3 kids can introduce their families. Others should pose one question each. Once everyone had a chance to speak they should all draw their families based on the photo.

Pro tip: Children with communication difficulties should talk neither first nor last. Ask the kids to share photos from family events and then talk about them. If the conversation is lagging the adult should provide some help, like ’Whose birthdays was this?’ or like ’Wow, what a pretty cake they got!’. Then, a little more complicated questions like: ’What did you enjoy more, the slide or the swing?’ may come too. Eventually other children can start asking questions.

Family picture book

Instructions:

During the conversation the adult should draw a picture randomly based on what the child is saying. Children then should say some sentences which the adult will write on the picture. Lastly, someone (not the one telling the story) should summarize/re-tell the story.