With Mother’s Day coming up this weekend, we thought it timely to suggest ways to celebrate the day AND build your child’s language skills.  We’re all about working opportunities into day to day life here at Active Speech. So, here are our top 4 Mother’s Day Language Activities:

Mother’s Day Language Activities

1. MAKE A CARD FOR MUM OR GRANDMA:VOCABULARY, WRITING, ANSWERING QUESTIONS

If you prefer, have your child make a card for Grandma. Fold a piece of construction paper in half and have your child make a card.  Ask your child to draw a picture of Mum or Grandma.  Help them to remember all of the different body parts that a person needs, such as a head, eyes, ears, arms, etc.  Then, have your child ‘sign’ their name.  When you’re done, ask your child questions about Mum or Grandma.  You can ask questions like:

  • Why do you like Mum/Grandma?
  • What does Mum/Grandma do?
  • What does Mum/Grandma wear?
  • Where do you go with Mum/Grandma (e.g., shops, park, beach)?

TIP: Try to ask a variety of different “wh-“ questions (who, what, where, when, why) so your child gets practice answering a wide variety of questions.

2. PLAYING MUMMY: PRETEND PLAY

Using pretend play skills are very important to language development.  The ability to pretend (or use one thing to represent something else) is very connected to the ability to use language (where a word represents the real thing).  Take some time to pretend play with your child by getting out some baby dolls and adopting the roll of ‘mum’.  You can talk about all of the things that mummies do for babies, such as rocking them, feeding them, bathing them, etc.  See if your child can imitate your pretend play or link two play schemes together, like feeding the baby and then putting her to sleep.

3. MUM’S JOBS: VOCABULARY BUILDING 

This should be a fun one!  Ask your child to create a list of all of the things that Mums do.  Write them down for your child and have them illustrate the list.   See what your child comes up with at first and then start helping them with things they might have forgotten.  For example, you could say “What about your dirty clothes? What does Mum do with those?”.  You might even like to talk about the huge number of jobs that are left to you and agree on 1 that your child could assist with.  Not only will you have the chance to ‘talk’ as you do this, but you might even get some help around the house!

4. MAKING BREAKFAST – VOCABULARY, CONCEPTS, LISTENING, FOLLOWING INSTRUCTIONS

Mother’s Day is a time lots of you get to enjoy breakfast in bed. If this is a tradition in your family, help your child get their language skills involved as well. If it’s not, why not make breakfast together and try it out that way. First, you can brainstorm the recipe you’d like to make. See if your child can think of all the different things you can eat for breakfast – pancake, French toast, bacon and eggs, cereal etc. Then choose one they think Mum will like. You can then work on following instructions and practising some important concepts.

You can learn and talk about concepts like:

-more or less 

-before and after

-first, next, last

-until (stir until it changes colour – that means don’t stop until it’s all brown!)

Learn lots of new verbs – measure, mix, stir, combine, fold, whisk, cut, chop, slice, flip, dice!

The list goes on. Cooking is a great way to learn new action verbs as you can demonstrate and act them out, and repeat, repeat, repeat the word!

Practice following instructions – while getting ingredients you could say “get the milk and the butter”, when getting materials say “find me a large bowl”

When you get cooking you can say, “Add the cinnamon then the sugar”

Have fun and Happy Mother’s Day to all the mothers, grandmothers, caregivers and important women in your life!  We hope you enjoy the day (and our Mother’s Day Language Activities too!)