Here's a simple and fun activity to help develop your child's language skills!

Appropriate ages: 3 to 5
Time needed: 15 minutes

WHAT YOU'LL NEED:

• Old catalogues or magazines
• Scissors
• Glue
• Magic Marker
• Construction Paper

WHAT TO DO:

1. Go through old catalogues and magazines and let your child cut out pictures that interest her.
   You can do this activity with all different types of magazines or catalogues. I find that children's toy catalogues are particularly great.
   
   
2. Keep the pictures in a bag or container and ask your child to pick their favorite picture.
   
   
3. Glue the picture onto a piece of construction paper.
   
   
4. Take the magic marker and ask your child to tell you a story about the picture. If she can't think of anything, give her clues. You can point to objects and ask, "What's that?" If there are people in the picture ask, "What are they doing? Are the people happy or sad? Where do you think they are going?" Try and get your child to tell you three of four sentences per picture.
   
   
5. Write down her exact words. Do not worry if they are not correct grammatically. You can read them over to her, with the correct wording, but show her that you are writing down her story, not yours.
   
   
6. Hang the picture up on your wall or refrigerator.

What's great about this activity is that you can do it, over and over again and always come out with a different project.

RELATED ACTIVITY:

Make a book from your child's stories:
Do this activity several times and keep all of the stories. Staple the stories together in the form of a book. You can have your child make a cover for her book. If you do this activity regularly and keep your child's "stories" over a period of time, you will be able to enjoy seeing how your child's language develops.