Top Christmas Toys to Help Your Child’s Language Development

We are quickly approaching the busiest shopping season of the year. And parents will spend countless hours searching for the best Christmas toys for their children.

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to identify toys that are safe, fun and support your child’s development.

Tips to get you started:

  1. Avoid noisy toys. Some toys are so loud they can cause hearing damage in children. And a child’s short arm length means those noisy toys are pretty close to their ears. If it sounds too loud to you, it will be too loud for your child. Furthermore, noisy toys do not encourage talking. If you are very keen on a toy that happens to be  noisy, simply remove the batteries or apply tape over the speaker!
  2. Pick toys that encourage pretend play. Play of this kind organically fuels children to use their imaginations and generate words and sentences describing what they are doing.
  3. Look for toys that will hold your child’s attention, and encourage her to interact with the toy. Interactions promote opportunities for your child to use her language skills to express herself.
  4. Choose toys you think look fun. The best way to stimulate language development is for you to join your child in play and talk about what he is doing. Therefore, choose toys you will both enjoy playing with.

These are what I believe to be exceptional toys and games. These toys, through their design and quality, promote play that advances language development at different ages.

Toys for 1-3 years

 Where’s Bear by Peaceable Kingdom

Offers opportunities to model vocabulary related to spatial concepts, asking and answering where questions, and language associated with problem solving.

 My Busy Town by ALEX

Features five types of games that will stimulate your child’s mind and language. Use simple phrases to narrate your child’s actions.

 GearZooz Roll and Roar Animal Train by VTech

Your child can customize his own animal train with spinning gears. There are interactive songs and phrases about animals, places and instruments. Language building activities have been incorporated into questions that stimulate thinking and following directions.

 Pet Vet Clinic by Battat B.

Includes two small plush pets, stethoscope, syringe, thermometer and keys to open colour coded doors.  This toy encourages imaginary play and action word vocabulary.

Toys for 3-6 years

 Scoop and Learn Ice Cream Truck by Leap Frog

Your child will pretend to run her own ice cream truck. Provides opportunities for extensive vocabulary through role play. She can learn numbers, colours, flavours, and skills such as listening and following directions.

   Better Builders Emotions Toy Set by Guidecraft

Contains six interchangeable bodies, faces and feet. Faces express different emotions and help children learn to name, identify and regulate their emotions. Features magnetic ball and rod construction.
  Story Train Firefighters by Janod

The inclusion of people with the train encourages more talking. Your child will tell stories about what he does with the train and the firefighters. Opportunities to use concept words and opposites.

 Barber in the tub by ALEX

What a better place for pretend play then in the tub? Add bubbles to the bath for shaving. Opportunities to practice vocabulary and phrases associated with getting a haircut.

Toys for 6-9 years

 Rory’s Story Cubes by Gamewright

Your child will practice her narrative skills while tapping into her own creativity. Provides practice planning and sequencing information. May also be used to practice writing skills.

 Pottery Cool Studio by Spin Master

Opportunities to use vocabulary related to sequencing and time. Your child can practice using past tense and narrative skills to describe what he made and how he built his creation.

 Fingerlings – Interactive Baby Monkey by WowWee

These interactive baby monkeys cling to fingers and react to sound, motion and touch. If your child blows them kisses, they will kiss her back! Opportunities to talk about cause and effect and use sequencing vocabulary.

 Eye’n Seek by Blue Orange

Play six possible games that reinforce matching, reading, vocabulary and phonemic skills.

It is my hope that this list of toys and games is helpful and brings some ease to your Christmas shopping experience.

A final word of advice regarding toy safety. Remember that typical wear and tear can result in once safe toys becoming hazardous. Check your toys regularly to make sure the are in good condition.

 

Steal These Questions to Get Your Child Talking About School

Remember when your kids were little and wouldn’t stop talking?  

I admit, there were days when I succumbed to preparing dinner with headphones on… volume set just loud enough to drown out the non-stop voices, yet soft enough to hear if anyone were to scream.

I just needed some quiet time, some “no listening” time.

Fast forward to today, those little kids are in school listening and answering questions all day. The tables have turned. Now they come home from school wanting some “no listening” time.

Your first step is to not rush in.  Conversations can’t be forced. Give them some time. We’re all more receptive to people who recognize and honour our needs.

Next, if you want your kids to talk about their day, go first and share something from your day: something you learned, something funny you heard or witnessed, someone you bumped into, details about a project you’re working on, or plans you made.

And finally, be specific with your questions. Parents hoping for a window into their child’s day often ask open-ended questions “Tell me about your day”, “How was your day?” or “Anything interesting happen today at school?” I recommend asking more specific questions. Choose two or three from the list below…

“Did anyone do anything funny today? Tell me about it.”

“Who did you play with at recess? What games did you play? I don’t know that game, how does it work?”

“What was the best part of your day?”

“What was the hardest part of your day?”

“What book is your class reading? Tell me about the story.”

“What did you learn today that you never knew before?”

“Who did you sit with at lunch time?”

“What food did your friends bring that you wished you had?”

“What is the first thing you did when you got to class?”

“If I asked your teacher about her day, what do you think she would tell me?”

 

The formula:

  • Give them time
  • Share something about your day
  • Ask a few specific questions

 

And remember, next time they plop down beside you when you are resting or engaged in your own activity, pay attention, they are saying they need you. The more you are there for them in these moments, the more they will share with you in general.

 

Understanding Social Language Skills

Social language skills, also known as pragmatic language skills, refer to the unspoken verbal and nonverbal rules governing our interactions.

These rules vary according to whom you are speaking with, where you are, and typically vary across different cultures. Someone with good social language skills will respond appropriately and flexibly to an ever changing social landscape.

While social skills are second nature to many of us, everyday social situations can be challenging for some.

A person with weak language, attention or memory skills may be unable to inhibit the impulse to talk, forget what was said, or have trouble keeping up with the pace of the conversation.

Someone with a social skills disorder might struggle to make eye contact, initiate or extend a conversation, misunderstand humour and facial expressions, and will likely make inaccurate guesses about what others are thinking and feeling.

A common characteristic of a social skills disorder, is impaired Perspective Taking. A complex process, perspective taking allows for interpretation of what is really going on by considering the thoughts, beliefs, desires and intentions of others.

The ability to consider and think about other people’s perspectives improves our social competencies, and strengthens our personal relationships. After all, social success is influenced and measured by how well we relate to and interact with others.

In Reclaiming Conversation (2015), Sherry Turkle describes how giving our attention to our children is the bread and butter of relationship building.

“Children learn how to regulate strong emotions, how to respond to other people’s social cues, and how to have conversations, largely as a result of the time parents spend listening to them, responding to them, helping them problem solve and understand themselves.”

A child’s social experiences rest on the foundation of the parent – child relationship. It is our responsibility, as parents, to be generous with our attention, and make ourselves available to our children in order to support their social skills learning.

Tips to support your child’s perspective taking:

  • Ask your child to describe the situation.
  • Break situations into small concrete parts.
  • Offer a feeling word to label how you perceive your child is feeling.
  • Explain what lead you to that belief about his feelings. Help him see your perspective because, personal problem solving relies on perspective taking.
  • Encourage him to think about how he feels and how the other person might feel.
  • Suggest how the other person might be feeling.
  • Describe the facial expression and body language you might expect from a person who feels that way.
  • Praise your child for her attempt to maneuver through a difficult social situation.

Modelling  HOW you think about your child’s thoughts and feelings, and helping him examine his own thoughts and feelings, will go a long way to support his problem solving and friendship skills.

In addition to supporting friendships, working on perspective taking will  improve understanding of material studied in school. Not only is it an essential skill when participating in group work, it is vital to appreciating and interpreting a lot of academic content.  Imagine for a moment trying to understand significant historical or political events, or even simply relating to characters in novels, without the ability to take on another person’s perspectives.

Boost perspective taking, self-reflection and more, with my FREE GAMES

These games offer opportunities to:

  1. Think about others. Specifically what others would like to do, not like to do, what they might have tried, or what they would never consider trying.
  2. Reflect on your own preferences and interests.
  3. Store personal information about others in “memory files”, and then access the stored information.
  4. Formulate and ask personal questions with how, would and have.

Watch How to Play the Games.

In an era of increased time spent socializing on-line and a reduced rate of face-to-face interactions that are rich in social cues afforded through facial expressions, body language, tone of voice, and cadence, all children will benefit from thoughtful, straightforward, and honest interpretations and discussions of social situations. It requires more effort for sure, to create opportunities for face-to-face interactions, but they are loaded with social language learning opportunities and…  it’s worth it!

Michelle Garcia Winner is an internationally recognized SLP who specializes in helping people develop their social competencies. I recommend her website for further information on social learning challenges. https://www.socialthinking.com/