One small adjustment that will create SO many opportunities…
Children in the toddler room are starting to really develop their independence. They have their own ideas, the ways they like or want to do things and they have their own interests.
Most toddlers have the basics of talking. They use a range of single words and short combinations. Their next step is to learn MORE WORDS to help them explain, more precisely, what they are thinking.
When children have the words they need, they might find it easier to build relationships with children and adults around them, they might be more settled during the day (using words instead of behaviour to express themselves) and you can better understand their interests, which will further their learning.
And so today we’re going to have a look at how you can make a small adjustment to the resources in play spaces. This adjustment will create opportunities to expose children to more descriptive vocabulary within the experience. And this will help them use longer sentences!
Let’s take the kitchen play space as an example. A favourite for many children at a wide range of play and language stages.
Compare these two play kitchen table settings. One creates a lot of opportunities for children to use and hear descriptive words and the other doesn’t.
Table A: no need to use descriptive words
Table B: soft/ hard pear, big/ little spoon and knife, stripy/ spotty/ plain napkin colours, wooden/ metal spoon
Table B doesn’t doesn’t match as nicely as table A! But it creates a lot more opportunities for children to hear and use new descriptive words as they play.
You can apply this to many other play settings,
e.g. long/ short train, bumpy/ smooth ball, tall/ short jug, thin/fat brush.
Reflect on the play spaces set up in your toddler room.
Are there adjustments that you could make to the resources, to provide more opportunities for children to use and hear descriptive words?
Give it a try and I’d love to hear how you go!