Top 5 Ways you can use your Holiday Snaps to Build your Child’s Language Skills.
© Godfer | Dreamstime.com – Kids On Vacation Or Holiday Photo
Looking at family photos is a great way to spend time together and reminisce. Holidays are perfect for taking photos to remember the fun you’ve had together and the interesting things that you’ve seen and done. Here are 5 ways that your holiday photos can create language-building opportunities.
1. Make your own picture book for your toddler with pictures of their favourite holiday things and activities, like seeing a hippo or making a sandcastle. If time is short, just grab a cheap photo album or if you are a creative type, you could make a scrapbook together (fun for older kids too). There are also apps for tablets that are great for making your own books such as Pictello or Story Creator.
2. Make a story about your holiday or day trip by taking a series of pictures from packing up the car to arriving home again. Story-telling is fun but also important because it’s how we understand our experiences, relate experiences to others and how we solve problems – and because of this it’s a key skill for school success.
3. Make a sequence of pictures for one activity that you do together – it could be something that you have done before or something your child is discovering for the first time, like making jelly – “First we put the crystals in the bowl then we pour in the boiling water…” These types of little stories are great for learning how to put things in order which is an important skill for communication and literacy. Activities that naturally have a sequence include craft and cooking and your photo sequence can become a set of visual instructions for the next time! Talking about what you have to do first, next and last is great for a child’s thinking and planning skills.
4. Older kids will enjoy taking their own photos. They could share them with friends and families and use them to talk about the highlights of the holidays. They might like to send photos in an email to friends and family that are live further away.
5. Older kids might like to add some funny captions to the photos or make the photos into a comic. There are some apps that make brilliant comics such as Comic Book and Strip Designer.
Happy Holidays!
Melanie