3-4 years

Join in pretend or imaginary play with your child.
It can be anything your child enjoys, from tea parties with teddies to playing doctors or firefighters.
Help your child by showing them new ideas for their play, such as how the doctor takes a temperature or how the firefighter sprays water.
Use verbs or action words to talk about what you and your child are doing, for example:
“the fireman sprays water and soaks everything!” or
“teddy’s just sipping his tea because it’s very hot” or
“you could use the thermometer to measure my temperature”
Watch this activity at BBC Tiny Happy People

Collect 10 items from around the house, ask your child to close their eyes while you hide one of the objects behind your back.
Describe the object while your child guesses what it is, use clues such as, ‘I am long, I have bristles, I am used every morning and night, you hold me in your hand. What am I?’’ (a tooth brush).
Give as many clues as you need until your child guesses the object.
When your child guesses correctly it is then their turn to hide one of the objects behind their back and describe it to you.

Ask your child to pick a letter sound, such as p or t.
Play a game around the house to see how many things you can find that start with that sound, such a peg, pan, pen, pillow, paper.
Talk about what you have found and that they all start with the same letter sound.
As an extra challenge you could chose something that doesn’t start with that letter sounds to see if your child can spot the mistake, say ‘’here’s a door does that start with a p?’’

Choose a few favourite toys and hide them around the house or garden.
Try and use a variety of hiding places such as on, under, in, behind, in front of and next to things.
Your child needs to try and find all the toys. As they find each one, ask them to describe where the toy was hidden.
Help your child to describe where the toy was if
needed. Use words like ‘teddy was under the table’, ‘the car is behind the sofa’
Next, swap roles: they can have a turn at hiding their toys and you can look for them.
Watch this activity at BBC Tiny Happy People

Getting creative with your child is a great way to develop language.
Collect some materials such as cardboard tubes, boxes, tin foil, egg boxes, plastic bottles.
Help your child to create a model using glue or sticky tape.
Follow their lead and encourage them to tell you what they are making.
Use describing words like 'sticky', 'round', 'straight' and action words like 'building', 'folding', 'gluing'.
Watch this activity at BBC Tiny Happy People