Building understanding

Positional language: Packing for a holiday (Role Play)

Secondary

Communication and language

﻿Hello there everybody. It's good to see you all. My name is Rae. And today, we're going to do a lesson where we pack things away for our holidays. Isn't that exciting? Take a look at what I'm bringing. I have my hat, my yellow ball, my sun cream, my blue towel, and a bag to put it in. Grown-ups, what we're studying today is positional language. We're going to, use on a basic level, the words in and out. We might also use under or through, or any other positional language that you can think of, and the propositions that we'll be using. The other language that we'll be using today are the key words. And those are going to be the names of the objects that we're packing. Now, today, I've got a ball, and a hat, and a bag, and a towel and a sun cream, but you may find different things around your home, so please don't feel restricted by that, whatever you have to hand is useful. When we're exploring that positional language, I have a range of different activities that you can do today, and I'll talk you through each one in turn so that you can find which will be the most relevant for your child. There's no point in doing an activity if it's way too easy for them, or if it's too much of a challenge so they don't engage. So, I hope that you enjoy the opportunity to do these things, and let's take a look at the other things that we might need. Things you may need for this lesson. So recommended, but not required are things like the symbols and the signs or the pictorial aids that your child may be used to. If you are going to go down that route, then the keywords that we're looking at are in, out, under, and on. If you have a bag or a suitcase and some items to put it in, then those keywords might be useful in symbol form as well. So, as for the games that we'll be playing, it's largely about putting objects into a container or taking them out of a container and placing things in relation to the others. So, you will need an assortment of relevant items, and you will need a container to put them in. Now, these don't have to be items that you're taking on holiday, that's the structure and the framework for this lesson. If you would rather choose favourite toys that you would take on a journey or things that you will need to put into your washing bag, anything is absolutely fine. So, press pause, get your things ready, and next, we'll take a look at how to get the room ready. Getting the room ready for learning. I would recommend reducing distractions within the room. That might mean closing the curtains so that we can't see the street outside. It may mean turning off a fan. It may mean turning off an overhead light, or the television. But as well as preparing the room, we must prepare the children to be ready for learning as well. Some children will require a run around outside first to exercise their hands maybe, to begin, perhaps a snack, perhaps an opportunity to change position, to take splints off. Whatever is the best position for them to be learning, you will know that best. Really important to create some interests, that curiosity and anticipation for the child by sharing the resources that you've gathered together, talking about what might happen, show the excitement. If you model how excited you are to begin, then that will be infectious. And the child would be really interested in the lesson coming up. So, press pause while you get the room ready. Make sure that you take the opportunity to prepare yourself as well. And, we'll begin very shortly. It's time to begin. So let's get ready. Look, listen, and let's learn together. Here we go. Okay everybody. We are going to the beach, and we need to pack our items before we go. But first, let's wait and think. What do people take to the beach? Hmm. Ah! Maybe this picture can help us. Let's take a look. What did these people take to the beach? Hmm. Well, let's look closer. What can you see? What did these people take to the beach? Look closely. Hmm. Let's look even closer. Ah, what's that? Sun-cream. Hmm. What's that? Oh, food, picnic. What's that? What are they sitting on? It's a towel, blue towel. What's this? A hat. What's that? A ball. What's this? Bucket and spade What will you take to the beach? Okay. Let's have a look at the simplest form of this game. So, the adult's job here will be to engage the child, to play with the child, and also to reinforce the language. Keep it simple and perhaps only stick to in, or in and out, if that's going to be appropriate. If you have got a large container to play with here, maybe a suitcase, or failing that, a big cardboard box, maybe a big plastic planter or tom pot that might echo on the inside, that would be great too. And, what we're exploring here is going to be using the body as opposed to objects, and placing the body in and out, so that we're experiencing it with the whole body as much as we possibly can. So, I only have a small bag here for my examples, but I would be encouraging the child to put their hand in, maybe their elbow in, their head in. My bag's not quite big enough. This one is translucent, as you can see. So, it's got the benefit of being able to contain something while you can still see it. However, if you have got something that's opaque that creates darkness on the inside, or maybe a bit of an echo, then that will have plenty of value too. So don't worry too much about the resources or the props that you have. So, once you've explored using body movement and putting your feet in and out, your head in and out, hands and arms, then you can move on to variation two of this game, where we begin to make the games more reciprocal. So, turn taking, my turn, your turn. Let's take a look. Variation two. This is where things become a little bit more interactive and reciprocal. So, I'm going to select a few of my items here. I would encourage you to verbalise the in and out, or on, under as much as possible. If it is appropriate to add the keywords for the objects as well, those nouns, then do so. So, ball on, ball in, ball under. But that might not be appropriate if your child isn't yet working at that two-word level. So do keep it simple. At this point, we're looking for either the child to prompt you, you to prompt the child, or for you to play an interactive game. Something I've found is quite popular with children is if I play something in, they may well want to take it out. In, out, in, out. Or I might go in, in, out, out. And children do find it easier to take things out of a container than to put them in. It is much more entertaining to be destructive than constructive. So, do encourage that if you can. Don't forget to verbalise those key words, the positional language first. And if you can add in the other language, then that's great too. So, let's take a look at how we can take it even further. In this variation, we're hoping that the child is physically manipulating things for themselves, but also has developed a familiarity with the positional language in which they are able to then verbalise or use symbols or signs, of course, the positional language for themselves. So, if we have ball and in, rather than you articulating in, the child is now doing it for themselves. In, in, out, in, out. You may also develop a game where things just go under. It could just be that you are rolling poles under the bag or hiding things under the towel. The most important thing here is that the child is now able to express that language. So you know that they not only understand it if you're saying it, that they can say it too. So, let's take a look at the next variation. In this variation, the child is now taking instruction. So they're listening to the adult prompt in, under, on, next to, through, and they're taking the object and demonstrating physically that they understand the words that you are saying. So, a child may be quite independent in their own play and be able to articulate, but to then follow a single word instruction, that does add a level of complexity. If they are really engaged with you and really engaged with the game, I'm hoping you can stretch to this. If you want to keep it simpler here, then just limit yourself to a couple of positional words and use the same object. However, if you do want to make it slightly more challenging, you can use two word prompts. So, we need to be secure that the child understands the names of the objects. Hat means hat, ball means ball, et cetera, but we also need to be secure that they understand the positional language as well. And if they do, if they have all of that, then you can develop a game where you place the hat in with the sun cream under, and the towel on, and build a game in that way. The final variation is the child can prompt you with those two-word phrases. So, not only are they understanding the receptive language, they are playing independently themselves of that language, but now they are instructing you, expressing a desire, and directing play, and taking control of their environment using that language. So they will tell you, "hat in", "sun cream under", "towel around", and it may be that we are creating a physical game here, so they're prompting you to physically move, which can be really, really engaging when they are in control, particularly if they don't have a huge amount of physical movement for themselves. If they can direct you to do those actions and those movements, they may well be incredibly engaged with that. So if it's hat in, then you can tuck it inside your hands, sun cream under, maybe tuck it underneath where you're sitting, towel around, and you can wrap the towel around yourself. So it creates a physical, almost like a Simon Say's kind of a game. Okay. Have fun with it. I hope you enjoy. Thank you. I know that this lesson has provided quite a lot of variation already. However, if you do want to extend the learning or make it easier, here are some ideas. In order to make it easier, really do attempt to engage the child with repetition. The more you do a game, the more you revisit language, the easier it is because it's more familiar. And use drama. I really liked the big dramatic pause and silence to build anticipation where you stop and you hold that bated breath, and the child is very, very eager to get to the next point. If you are prompting and the child seems a bit lost with too many options, then do just limit it to two. In order to make it harder, we can add in some questions about the qualities of the items. So, we're talking yellow ball, blue towel, blue hat, et cetera. And we can look at the colour, we could look at the number, we can look at the purpose of an item. And really do encourage them to be as independent as possible in their movement and in their speech. So prompt them, encourage them to initiate that conversation. They need to start stuff. Other ideas. You can apply this kind of game, this method of play to a range of contexts. So, how about exploring positions with wheeled toys like trucks or trains that could be in, on, under on a track. You could line things up, building towers, using different shapes to orient patterns, and therefore use that language of position. Do use the key verbs alongside all of this to reinforce understanding. So, those are your action words, such as stick, squeeze, look, and all of the other common ones. Okay. Thank you. I hope you enjoy and I'll see you next time. Thank you very much for joining me for this lesson. I hope you had a lovely time and learned lots. I will look forward to seeing you next time, but until then, goodbye. If you would like to share photos and videos of your child's work with us, then please share them via Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter, and tag us @OakNational and #LearnwithOak.

Positional language: Packing for a holiday (Role Play)

Positional language: Packing for a holiday (Role Play)

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