3 Engaging Activities for your Language Section

Last week we looked at activities you could introduce during your summer school sessions in the Mathematics departments. If you missed it, you can check it out here at Summer School Montessori Maths. This week let us look at what we can do to make our Literacy/Language Development sections count this summer for our children.

1. Building Vocabulary:- Vocabulary building is so important for children, it is actually easier for them to learn names of objects and other things in their environment than it is for most adults. So lets make the best of this time by ensuring that the children are learning new words everyday. You can do this by learning new Nursery Rhymes, songs and poems (depending on the age of the children. Do make the content age appropriate.) Children love rhymes and songs, include actions as they sing and they will love it even more. They learn a lot by doing activities like this. I will put up a resource page shortly it give you ideas of age appropriate materials for this activity. To start you along you make consider teaching or singing the following and discussing new or difficult words, ensuring that the children actually do understand what they are saying. Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star, Humpty  Dumty, Three Blind Mice, My Mother, There are Five Magic Words. Another thing you could do is choose a theme each week and teach, discuss around the theme teaching new vocabulary, themes could be The Kitchen, The Bathroom, A bank, Transportation, The Planets, make this age appropriate as well. You can make this very interesting by bringing in pictures, flash cards, books and songs that relate to you theme. Get the children to do some creative work of their choice around your theme. That should be fun.
2. Reading to the Children:- This is something that does not happen often enough in our school settings and it is such a pity. Always choose books that are appropriate for the classes you are working with. Practice before you read to the children, the children will likely want to model you so you should be at your best, but natural. After reading the story or non-fictional passage discuss and ensure the children understand the script by asking questions, difficult and new words should be explained, use a dictionary and show them how to use one. You may even ask them to make a word list book’ for themselves, this is where they record all new words they come across and write the meanings beside the word, they should do this in alphabetical order as well. If you have read them a story you can ask them to dramatize the piece and present it to the rest of the school in the next couple of days.This will help develop their communication skills and confidence as they work together to achieve the common goal of making a presentation to the school.
3. Learning the sounds of the alphabet:- There may be a few children who are struggling with reading or need to continue learning their sounds of the English Language. So this will be a very good activity for your toddlers and preschool  children. I always advice to make these activities fun for the children, it should not be a drill under any circumstances. Visit Youtube and listen to the Letterland Alphabet Sound songs, I love these, you may decide to use another brand provider. Sing and dance, use these songs to help the children get to grips with the sounds of the English Language.

Use these simple tips to make your Literacy/Language Development sections enjoyable for the children this Summer.