When your child is learning to talk, it is one of the most exciting times for you as a parent. It’s exciting every time your child says a new word. This motivates you to increase your child’s vocabulary. Fall is a great time of year for building your child’s vocabulary because of the many activities going on. As your child’s vocabulary increases, the bond between you and your child strengthens.
Enroll Your Child in Preschool
Preschool is an excellent environment where your child can increase their vocabulary. Fall is back to school time, so many of your local preschools will have open slots. Early childhood education teachers are trained in designing activities to teach vocabulary to preschool students. The curriculum in a preschool focuses on helping your child develop in many major areas. Speech and language development is one of those major areas. Children Central Childcare/Learning Center is an excellent Yardley Preschool where you can consider enrolling your child this fall.
Converse with Your Child
Being exposed to language is how your child starts learning how to talk in the first place. When you and your child converse on a consistent basis, your child will pick up more words from the vocabulary you use while talking to them. Fall is a time where you and your child can discuss many exciting things and events. Including their new preschool, leaves changing colors, pumpkins, and costumes. As well as why birds fly south, candy, Thanksgiving, and Halloween. To teach your young child about the wonders of fall, you simply have to talk to them. This will teach them more vocabulary words and about school.
Read to Your Child
Reading to your child has many speech and language development benefits. When you are reading a story to your child, your child is always hearing words that they may not have heard before. and it able to put them into context as the story progresses. The pictures in the story provide visuals for the new words your child is hearing in the story. For example, if you are reading a Thanksgiving story to your child that centers around a turkey, they will learn that a “turkey” is a large brown bird. the main food that you eat on Thanksgiving. Since there is so much to teach your child about during the fall season, there are many fun books you can read to your child every night.
Vocabulary Activities for Preschoolers
Besides talking and reading to your child, there are many other activities you can do that help with teaching vocabulary to preschoolers.
Games
Simon Says is the perfect game for preschool-aged children. It teaches them to connect words with actions. Another game you can play is a picture card game. You can make or buy cards with pictures of fall-related objects. Including pumpkins, scarecrows, turkeys, and colored leaves. When you call out a word such as “Pumpkin” or “Red leaf”, your child will choose the picture card that matches up with the word.
Songs
Preschool-aged children love songs. At that age, it is easy for them to pick up an entire song in a short amount of time. If you search YouTube, you can find videos with nursery songs about anything. It can be about school, waking up, or holidays. The video helps provide a visual for the words. If you have music that does not have a video, gestures can help your child understand the meaning of the words.
Coloring Pages
Coloring pages are a fun activity that gives your child a visual for their new vocabulary words. It’s like YouTube videos and pictures in a storybook. They provide a relaxing activity for children that helps them learn fine motor skills.
Conclusion
Building your child’s vocabulary is one of the most exciting tasks you can do as a parent. Fall is the perfect time of year for you to increase your child’s vocabulary. You can enroll your child in preschool and do many fun seasonal activities with them. Activities that increase your child’s vocabulary allow your child to learn about the world around them, have fun, and bond with you.