Activities to Do at Home with Your Children

• Play games with your young children. Ask questions like, “Where is your nose?” “Where are your toes?” “Where is your bellybutton?”
• During necessary routines like baths, reading, and eating, be sure to make time to talk with children or sing or say rhymes.
• Songs, rhyming games, language play, and nursery rhymes--these are all excellent ways to spark children's curiosity of language. For example:

  Teddy bear, Teddy bear, turn around.
  Teddy bear, Teddy bear, touch the ground.
  Teddy bear, Teddy bear, show your shoe.
  Teddy bear, Teddy bear, that will do.

  Teddy bear, Teddy bear, brush your hair.
  Teddy bear, Teddy bear, climb the stair.

  Teddy bear, Teddy bear, reach for the sky.
  Teddy bear, Teddy bear, wave goodbye.

• Tell children some of your own stories, about when you were a child, or about your own parents or grandparents. Encourage children to tell about special events, like holidays or trips. Use photo albums to remember and prompt these kind of stories.