Totsy's Place

No Wimbledon this year - that won't stop us!

 

 

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Well ... there may be no Wimbledon this year ... but hopefully you can get outside and enjoy a bat and ball game together!

Tennis, like most ball games, involves taking turns with a partner.

Turn-taking is an important skill for a young child to develop as communication is a give and take process. Turn-taking for communication refers to the back and forth interaction whether it is with gestures, sounds, or words.

Turn-taking in communication begins right from birth even when you’re sharing and mirroring those early facial expressions and noises that your new baby makes.

At Talking Tots classes we help children to develop turn-taking skills in a fun and exciting group atmosphere. If you can’t get to a class … here are some great ways to help your child develop good turn-taking skills.

 

• Try to work on turn-taking when you are alone with your child and without distractions such as TV and siblings.

• Only have one game/activity out at a time.

• At the beginning you may have to support turn-taking by saying … ‘My turn/Your turn’.

• At first you may have to physically take the turn away from your child by taking the toy in to your own hands … again support this with a voiceover … “Now it’s my turn … you get your turn again next”

• If your child is really struggling to wait for their turn, they may need a visual prompt to know when to wait and when to take their turn.  A “wait” card can be useful.  Let your child hold the card whilst they are waiting and swap it for the toy when it is their turn.  Reinforce their waiting and turn-taking with positive feedback, such as “Good listening and waiting”.

• If your child unwilling to take turns, stop the game and come back to it later.

 Here are some ideas for turn-taking games to play at home:

• Balls

Sit opposite your child and roll a ball to each other. Try to get good eye contact.

• Cars

Take turns to roll a car toward each other

• Building brick towers

Take turns to add another brick to a tower and then take turns to knock it down

• Posting boxes

Take turns to post a shape in the box

• Books

Take turns to turn the pages/lift the flaps

• Skittles and ball

Take turns to roll the ball and knock down the skittles

• Pop-up Toys

e.g.  Jack in the box, Pop up rocket. Take turns to make the toy pop up

There are also lots of good early board games such as ‘Snap’ and ‘Lotto’ available. Orchard Toys have a superb range of early bright and colourful games that help develop turn-taking skills.

It’s also important to encourage turn-taking in everyday situations as turn-taking is also an important social skill to learn.

 Try to encourage sharing during everyday routines such as: 

• Taking turns in games and sharing toys

• Taking turns to put the shopping away

• Taking turns to stir thing in a bowl

• Taking turns to take a treat such as a raisin

• Taking turns to put money in a purse

• Taking turns with siblings

 If you’d like to experience our great turn-taking games … look for your local Talking Tots class here. We hope to see you back in September - with all government COVID guidelines in place.

 

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Speech sounds & how they develop.

Speech Sound Development

The majority of children can use most speech sounds in words by the age of 7.

Here are some guidelines on when speech sounds generally develop. All children develop at different rates and this is a guideline only.

 

 

 

 

 By 2+ years -          children will be using:

                              b   p   d

                              n   m   t

 

By 3+ years -          children will be using:

                                k   g  f

                               v   s   h

                               z   sh  ng

 

By 4+ years –          children will be using:

                               sound blends such as st/sp/bl/fr

 

By 5+ years –          th   l   r

 

All children make predictable pronunciation  mistakes when they are developing their speech. In the world of speech & language therapy these mistakes are referred to as phonological processes and are perfectly normal. Below are some examples of the more common mistakes and a guideline as to when they should disappear. Again, all children develop at different rates and this is a guideline only.

 

Stopping /f/ four = tour  - usually gone by 3 years

 

 Stopping /s/ sun = dun   - usually gone by 3 years

 

 Final consonant deletion dog = do  - usually gone by 3 ^1/2 years

 

Fronting car = tar   - usually gone by 3 ^1/2 years

 

Stopping /v/ van = ban usually gone by 3 ^1/2 years

 

 Stopping /z/ zoo = doo usually gone by 3 ^1/2 years

 

Stopping 'sh' shoe = doo usually gone by 4 years

 

Weak syllable deletion banana = nana usually gone by 4 years

 

Cluster reduction   star = tar usually gone by 4 years

Gliding of liquids    red = wed usually gone by 5 years

 

If your child says a word incorrectly, use a ‘good model approach’ and say the word correctly straight back to them.

 

If you have any concerns about your child’s speech development, please contact us at [email protected]

 

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COVID-19 ... Home Schooling

With most of us home schooling - we've all become great (or not so!) teachers, but this time together might have raised some concerns that you may have not had before. Lots of these concerns can be about speech and language.

Here we have put together a guide about Speech Sound Development.

The majority of children can use most speech sounds in words by the age of 7.

Here are some guidelines on when speech sounds generally develop. All children develop at different rates and this is a guideline only.

 By 2+ years -          children will be using:

                              b   p   d

                              n   m   t

 

By 3+ years -          children will be using:

                                k   g  f

                               v   s   h

                               z   sh  ng

 

By 4+ years –          children will be using:

                               sound blends such as st/sp/bl/fr

 

By 5+ years –          th   l   r

 

All children make predictable pronunciation  mistakes when they are developing their speech. In the world of speech & language therapy these mistakes are referred to as phonological processes and are perfectly normal. Below are some examples of the more common mistakes and a guideline as to when they should disappear. Again, all children develop at different rates and this is a guideline only.

Stopping /f/ four = tour  - usually gone by 3 years

 Stopping /s/ sun = dun   - usually gone by 3 years

 Final consonant deletion dog = do  - usually gone by 3 ^1/2 years

Fronting car = tar   - usually gone by 3 ^1/2 years

Stopping /v/ van = ban usually gone by 3 ^1/2 years

 Stopping /z/ zoo = doo usually gone by 3 ^1/2 years

Stopping 'sh' shoe = doo usually gone by 4 years

 

Weak syllable deletion banana = nana usually gone by 4 years

Cluster reduction   star = tar usually gone by 4 years

Gliding of liquids    red = wed usually gone by 5 years

 

If your child says a word incorrectly, use a ‘good model approach’ and say the word correctly straight back to them.

Lisa & Tracey

www.talkingtots.info

Let's Talk About Love!

Here are some heart idioms for Valentine's Day ... how many do you know and use?

•   to cross your heart and hope to die -to promise

•   to have a change of heart -to change your mind

•   to have your heart set on something - to really want something

•   to take something to heart- to have your feelings hurt by something someone else says or does

•   to have a heart of gold - to care about other people

•   to eat your heart out - to be jealous of someone

•   to cry your heart out - to cry a lot

•   to have a big heart - to be giving, caring

•   from the bottom of your heart - to really mean something

•   to set your heart at rest - stop worrying about something

•   to be cold-hearted -lacking in sympathy

•   to wear your heart on your sleeve- to let everyone know how you   feel

•   to have a heart - to be compassionate

•   to be soft hearted - to be sympathetic

•   to have your heart in your mouth- to be scared or nervous

Lisa & Tracey x

Keep in touch ...

Join us on Facebook  https://www.facebook.com/TalkingTotsUK

Tips for encouraging babies to babble.

 

What is babbling?

Babies make sounds from the moment they are born … crying, laughing, cooing and burping. Babies then move on to making strings of consonant and vowel sounds, such as “bababa” or “mamama”.  This is called babble and it’s an essential step on the way to words and language. Babies learn how to start to move their mouths to make a range of different sounds. 

Babies quickly learn that through sounds & noise, they can get someone’s attention. They learn how to try and respond when someone is speaking to them.  They learn to make sounds in response to the things that they need/want or just to enjoy vocal play and turn taking with an adult. These are the first building blocks to conversation.

As babies learn words, babbling doesn’t just stop. They will still use babble and some words until they are fully able to get across what they want to say with words. 

Here are some tips to try and encourage babbling.

 

• If your baby makes any sounds to you, copy them straight back and wait to see if your baby will vocalise again.  By repeating the process … you’ll soon be having an early ‘conversation’ with your child. 
• Pause and wait for your baby to babble – don’t be tempted to fill all the gaps with your own talking.
• Make babbling sounds yourself while you are interacting with your baby. 
• Help them to explore different sounds, such as blowing raspberries and kisses … lip smacking and fake coughs and sneezes.
• Establishing and maintaining good eye contact is an important social skill. Looking at the face of the person who is speaking to you will give important added information about language, such as, facial expression, gesture and lip patterns.
• To encourage eye contact, always try to get down to your baby’s eye-level or bring them to your level when you speak to them.
• Use a higher pitched voice, with lots of intonation and animation. 
• If you think your child is trying to tell you about something specific when she babbles, put her message into words. For example, if your child looks at a dog and says “bababa”, you could add to this by saying, “There’s a dog,” while you point to the dog yourself. By doing this, you are providing labels for the things she is trying to communicate about. This helps build vocabulary.

More than anything … have fun talking!

 

Lisa & Tracey x

Here comes Halloween!

 

One of the first events that always makes us feel that winter is here is Halloween. The shops are full of all kinds of fabulous outfits and ghoulish treats.

Whilst trick or treating isn’t for us (well it’s far too cold!), we do love a good Halloween party.

Toddlers will love the dressing up aspect of Halloween and we’ve found loads of great reasonably priced outfits in lots of high street chain stores/supermarkets. However, if you’re on a tight budget, here are a few of our ideas to make your own costumes for your little ones:

Mummy
Wrap your child in white bandages. Use white face paint to finish off the scary look.  The stiff-legged walk helps to complete the effect.

Ghost: Use an old white sheet. Cut to length so that it’s short enough not to trip a little one up and cut eye holes.  Cutting armholes will help keep the sheet in place.

Skeleton
Use an old black tracksuit or black leggings & t-shirt. Cut out ‘bones’ from a white plastic bag and attach with craft glue. Use some face paints in black and white to complete the look.

So once your child looks the part ... it’s time to start some party games!

Lots of Halloween games can be adapted for preschoolers, they just need to be not too scary and age appropriate. We particularly love the following games as they encourage good listening & great co -operation.

Monster ‘Stop & Go’
 
Play Halloween music and have the children dance around like monsters & zombies.
When the music stops the children have to stop dancing and freeze.

With older preschoolers, the first child to move is out, and the game continues until only one child is left. With younger children – it’s almost impossible to have children who are ‘out’ – so just have lots of ‘winners’.

 

Pin The Face On The Pumpkin

Toddlers may not like to be blindfolded so try just putting your hands over their eyes.

Using a large piece of orange paper draw a big pumpkin. Draw triangle eyes and nose with a black marker, an X where the mouth should be and pin to the wall.

Cut separate pumpkin mouth/ teeth templates (one for each child) and get the children to decorate their pumpkin mouths. Put some blu tac on each child’s pumpkin mouth. Then, in turn, spin each child around, making sure that he/she is facing the pumpkin at the end. Cover their eyes and have them try to stick the mouth onto the pumpkin where they think it should be.
The child with the mouth closest to the X is the winner.

Wrap The Mummy

This one is a favourite Halloween game that’s easy to prepare. Ideally you need 2 teams and 2 grown ups. The object of the game is to see which team can wrap their grown up with toilet paper the fastest. At the end of the game, the grown up breaks out of the toilet paper making appropriate zombie noises etc…

We’d love to hear your suggestions of  more Halloween themed games for toddlers .

Over the next couple of weeks, lots of our little Talking Tots will be coming along to class in their finest Halloween costumes – and helping witch find her friends in our fun vocabulary building game. Come and join our language boosting fun!. Click here to find a class near you.

One of the first events that always makes us feel that winter is here is Halloween. The shops are full of all kinds of fabulous outfits and ghoulish treats.

Whilst trick or treating isn’t for us (well it’s far too cold!), we do love a good Halloween party.

Toddlers will love the dressing up aspect of Halloween and we’ve found loads of great reasonably priced outfits in lots of high street chain stores/supermarkets. However, if you’re on a tight budget, here are a few of our ideas to make your own costumes for your little ones:

Mummy
Wrap your child in white bandages. Use white face paint to finish off the scary look.  The stiff-legged walk helps to complete the effect.

Ghost: Use an old white sheet. Cut to length so that it’s short enough not to trip a little one up and cut eye holes.  Cutting armholes will help keep the sheet in place.

Skeleton
Use an old black tracksuit or black leggings & t-shirt. Cut out ‘bones’ from a white plastic bag and attach with craft glue. Use some face paints in black and white to complete the look.

So once your child looks the part ... it’s time to start some party games!

Lots of Halloween games can be adapted for preschoolers, they just need to be not too scary and age appropriate. We particularly love the following games as they encourage good listening & great co -operation.

Monster ‘Stop & Go’
 
Play Halloween music and have the children dance around like monsters & zombies.
When the music stops the children have to stop dancing and freeze.

With older preschoolers, the first child to move is out, and the game continues until only one child is left. With younger children – it’s almost impossible to have children who are ‘out’ – so just have lots of ‘winners’.

 

Pin The Face On The Pumpkin

Toddlers may not like to be blindfolded so try just putting your hands over their eyes.

Using a large piece of orange paper draw a big pumpkin. Draw triangle eyes and nose with a black marker, an X where the mouth should be and pin to the wall.

Cut separate pumpkin mouth/ teeth templates (one for each child) and get the children to decorate their pumpkin mouths. Put some blu tac on each child’s pumpkin mouth. Then, in turn, spin each child around, making sure that he/she is facing the pumpkin at the end. Cover their eyes and have them try to stick the mouth onto the pumpkin where they think it should be.
The child with the mouth closest to the X is the winner.

Wrap The Mummy

This one is a favourite Halloween game that’s easy to prepare. Ideally you need 2 teams and 2 grown ups. The object of the game is to see which team can wrap their grown up with toilet paper the fastest. At the end of the game, the grown up breaks out of the toilet paper making appropriate zombie noises etc…

We’d love to hear your suggestions of  more Halloween themed games for toddlers .

Over the next couple of weeks, lots of our little Talking Tots will be coming along to class in their finest Halloween costumes – and helping witch find her friends in our fun vocabulary building game. Come and join our language boosting fun!. Click here to find a class near you.

Toddlers sorting the colour of politics!

 

All the talk and coverage about politics and Brexit this last few of months has led us to some interesting conversations with our children recently. After going round in complicated circles, we found that the most concrete way of  distinguishing between the Parties was to refer to them by ‘colour’. This made the explanations SO much clearer!

 

This got us talking about our colour matching and sorting sessions that we do at Talking Tots.

Pre-school children enjoy sorting things by colour, shape, and size. It helps them try and make sense of the world around them.  It helps them to realise that life doesn’t tend to be random.

For example, they naturally sort their cars or crayons by colour ; their building blocks by size etc ….

Learning of vocabulary is organized and words are learnt in an ordered way. So a very young child may learn the word “ball” and that word may them be put away carefully in their mind with other ‘toy’ words, such as ‘teddy’.

As their vocabulary expands and they begin to label colours, they then have an added layer. So suddenly the red ball isn’t just neatly sitting with the “toy” library section in their minds … it’s also sitting in the “colour” library area of their brain.  Vocabulary development really is fascinating stuff (well in our opinion!).

Anyway – Toddlers are usually able to match & sort colours before they can label them. Here are some of our ideas for great matching & sorting games to help your child’s speech & language development:

·      Even with quite young children you can match & sort like colours. Start off with like objects and just a couple of different colours and then move on to several different colour. Building blocks are ideal for this.

·      For early sorting use real objects – so if you have a well -stocked fridge, you might sort things to eat, in to their colour groups

·      You can teach toddlers to identify colours and shapes by cutting out different colour shapes from paper. Make 2 sets, give your child the same shape/colours that you have and hold up a shape/colour and ask him to find the same one. You can then reverse role. Sounds simple but they just love it!

·      Use different coloured plates to sort small coloured items  from around the home into same colours

·      Read books together. Identify objects in the book which have the same colour and you can then point to other things in the room which have the same colour

 

These are just a few of our ideas … but why stop at sorting colours? Children love to sort by shape, size, category and more… but that’s a whole new blog post.

 

At Talking Tots we have lots of fabulous and fun sorting games that children just love! Visit Talking Tots to find a class near you.

Helping your child to learn new words!

 

Imagine vocabulary is stored in your brain like a library, with all the books stored in the right sections. 

For some children, their internal word store can be like a library that has no organisation and books are just randomly placed on the shelves and in no order.

 

Teaching words in category groups, such as food, animals, toys etc.. can help children to create a good and neat word store.
 
Compare new words with other words that your child already knows.  So for example, if you were teaching your child the words ‘hot air balloon’ you might compare it with other transport that goes in the sky, such as plane, rocket and glider.
 
Give your child context to the word … so for example, when teaching shapes or colours … look out for every day things that will confirm the new words, such as red postbox or square window. Remember to repeat and repeat … children learn through repetition!
 
Build up semantic information around new words … such as: What do we do with it? Where do we find it? Does it sound like another word? What other describing words go with it? (but be aware not to introduce too many new words at once!).
 
Use the word in different situations … storybooks, games as well as everyday situations and add to the vocabulary to help you child understand that a word can represent many similar things … eg; big dogs, little dogs, fluffy dogs etc..
 
Keep checking back that your child has remembered new words. We all forget words if we don’t use them regularly!
 

Lisa & Tracey

Top Tips to boost your young child's communication!

 

We all remember our child's first words. It's a magical moment and the thrill of it never quite fades - well, at least not until they're thirteen and you suddenly find yourself thinking: "I wonder where they learned THAT language!"

 

During your baby's first two years, their communication skills are developing at a dizzying pace. But communication is a complicated business: children need to learn the names of objects and actions, they need to learn how to pronounce sounds, and gain the confidence to join in with conversations. The good news is there are lots of fun, easy ways you can boost this natural development and encourage your little one to get talking. Here are some of our favourites:

 

1. When you buy a buggy, invest in one that lets your baby face you. For his first year, you’re his best source of entertainment, and being face-to-face means he’s able to watch you when you’re talking to him.
2. Don’t anticipate your baby’s needs. If she points to the fridge, ask him if she wants milk or juice rather than just getting her a glass of milk. Use every opportunity to ask questions with options rather than those requiring a nod or shake of the head!
3. Provide a commentary to your baby’s day. Even before your baby can speak, talking about what you’re doing together helps him to associate words with the things he sees. It doesn’t have to be complicated – just pointing out the red bus he’s looking at, or explaining all the delicious ingredients you’re putting into his lunch will be fine.
4. Make sure if you ask your baby a question, you leave time for him to respond. He might not speak, but those little babbles, giggles and noises are your baby’s way of joining in the conversation!
5. When you’re reading stories together, give your theatrical skills a full airing – make silly sound effects and create funny voices for the characters. When your child sees that language and words are fun, they’re more likely to join in themselves and try out new words.
6. Don’t correct young children if they mispronounce words; you might put them off trying new words next time. Instead, repeat their words back to them, using the correct pronunciation yourself. They’ll soon get the idea!
7. Sing songs with your child, especially those with fun noises and  actions. Encouraging her to join in will develop her vocabulary and memory.
8. Use simple games to introduce numbers, colours and letter sounds. As you tidy up, suggest he finds the red toys while you put away the yellow toys. Challenge your toddler to count blocks when you build towers, or steps as you go upstairs. Playing “I Spy” is a great way of introducing phonics to young children.
9. Imaginative play is a great way for older toddlers to practice their conversation skills – most three year olds love bossing their toys around! This doesn’t have to be expensive: most children will be just as happy with peg dolls and a cardboard box ‘house’.
10. Encourage your child to get involved in household chores. As you sort the laundry, talk about colours and shapes. In the kitchen, let children help with weighing ingredients, or mixing foods together.

Bedtime stories!

Reading bedtime stories with your children is a great way to bond, but did you know it's also one of the best ways of boosting your little one's communication skills?

 

Research shows that children who regularly read bedtime stories tend to perform better at school, have wider vocabularies and better imaginations. Yet almost a quarter of parents admit they struggle with the bedtime story routine.

 

Sadly, we can't offer any magic way to get your children to agree to go to bed quietly, but here are some tips on how to make the most of bedtime stories with your little ones:

 

1. Reading is a journey of exploration for babies. Curved corners are ideal for nibbling, while flaps and textures are irresistible to little fingers.
2. Animal stories are perfect for encouraging children to communicate before they can form words - encourage your baby to join in with animal sounds as you read the story.
3. At this age, reading is a visual experience, so look for books with bright, simple illustrations. Place your baby’s hands on objects as you read the words – this helps him to associate the object he sees with the spoken word.
4. Bedtime stories are a great way to teach children that words and language are fun! Lose your inhibitions and join in with silly voices, sound effects and funny faces.
5. As your baby gets older, he will love “naming” objects and pointing to pictures when prompted. 
6. Toddlers are independent, so be sure to let them choose the story and take charge of turning pages.
7. When you’re reading, pause every so often to let your child guess the next word or line. This will be easier if the book has simple language with lots of rhyme and repetition. With a little practice, your child may even learn a favourite story by heart.
8. Look for books with rhymes. Learning about rhyming sounds is an important building block of literacy, and it helps children to guess what's coming next. As she gets older, your toddler will love catching you out when you get the words wrong. This game helps to develop memory and attention skills, as well as boosting self-esteem.
9. At some point, you'll probably find yourself reading the same book every night for a month. Don't worry - repetition is a great memory-building tool, and a familiar book can be a great comfort to a tired toddler.
10. Younger toddlers tend to enjoy stories about everyday experiences they can relate to, but from the age of three, children begin to realise that things aren't always what they seem. This makes it the perfect time to introduce stories with jokes and tricks - the sillier the better!
11. Always discuss stories with your children. In the early days, this might mean asking them to point to objects on the pages. As they get older, talk about what might happen next, or whether the characters in the story were happy or brave.
12. As your child nears school age, begin tracing words with your finger as you read. Ask your child to identify the sound that words start with, or words on the page that rhyme. These activities help develop pre-literacy skills, which are vital in helping children learn to read and write.