Activities For Working With Language Skills At Home

Linguistic competence has to do with being able to use the language in a suitable way to communicate and interact with others, both orally and in writing. This is one of the basic pedagogical skills. But how can you work with language skills at home? Here are some activities that will help your kids with this.

Activities for working with language skills at home

If you use the activities and games that we describe below, your children can develop their ability to express themselves verbally, think fast, concentrate and stay focused, their social skills and other abilities that are important for their development.

Find out how you can have fun together as a family while your children work on their language skills!

The eraser toy

To play the game, the participants must sit on the floor so that they form a circle. Everyone must be able to see each other’s faces clearly.

One of the players should then whisper a question to the player on the right. The person whispers the answer back. Player number two must then ask a question to the person to his or her right, after which they whisper back the answer. This process is repeated until the circle is closed.

After everyone has had their turn, each participant must take turns saying aloud the question they have been asked and then saying the answer they have been given. Usually the questions will have nothing to do with the answers, and this can be really fun.

The backpack

Before starting the game, the participants must stand in a row or in a circle. Then the first player starts by saying out loud: “I’m going on a trip and I’m carrying in my backpack…” and complete that sentence with the name of an object, such as “a ball” .

Then the next player must repeat this phrase, but he or she must remember the item the previous player said and add a new item to the list. Players continue to add another item each time. As the game progresses, the meaning becomes more and more complicated. Finally, one of the players will not be able to remember the list of items and the game ends.

Tell a story

In this game, participants must say several different words – about four or five should suffice. Then each player must invent and write a sentence or story where they must include all these words.

Set a time limit (about two or three minutes) and then read out all the sentences or stories when the time is up. A person who does not play can act as a judge and decide which is the best and most original.

Alternatively, participants can vote on who wrote the best or funniest story. The winner can also be decided by speed, ie the participant who stops writing first is the winner.

Sentences where all words start with the same letter to work with language skills

For this activity, someone chooses a letter and says it out loud. You then set a one-minute stopwatch. During this time, participants must create a sentence that contains the largest number of words beginning with the previously selected letter. For example, if the letter “k” were chosen, an example sentence would be “Kristoffer eats cakes and caramels with his classmates.”

At the end of the minute, each player must read aloud the sentence they have written and count the number of words beginning with the letter in question. The participant who has created the sentence with the most words starting with the selected letter wins the round. This person then selects the letter for the next round and the game continues until you choose to stop.

As you have seen, there are many options for games and activities to help you work with language skills at home with your children. All you need to do is use your imagination and set aside time to have fun with your family while you learn.