Language Development

To help kids develop language, try these ideas:

1. Mystery Box: You can do this as often as you want, but once or twice a week is reasonable. This is adapted from Wings on Words preschool in Tucson, AZ. You can view their website. http://clctucson.org/?page_id=2 They are a fabulous preschool for any kid, but especially those who struggle with speech and language development.

This is how you do it:

a. Decorate a shoe-sized box.

b. The children take turns putting something of their choice into the box.

c. Write clues for what is inside the box. If they are too young to write, they tell you what to write. If they are old enough, they can do it themselves.

d. Sometime when your family is gathered all together, bring out the mystery box and let the child read his/her clues (with your help, if needed). We haven't done this in our family yet, but we are going to be setting it up for the evenings once a week just after our family scripture study time and before bed time stories.

e. The other children and family members take turns guessing what is in the box.

f. The next person takes the mystery box and brings it to the family gathering at the appointed time.

Mystery Folder:

This is another adaptation of the Mystery Box. It works the same way only you use a folder - any kind of folder.

1. Cut out a picture from a magazine and tape it on the inside of the folder.

2. Cut a small hole on the top cover of the folder so that everyone can see a small part of the picture.

3. Write three clues to help family members or class members guess what the picture is.