Boosting language during daily routines: Bath time
Daily routines such as bath time, meal time and getting dressed time are so important because they provide opportunities for repetitive learning in a natural, enjoyable yet structured way. In today’s blog we will discuss how you can utilise bath time for boosting your child’s language. Now, children are quite different in how they respond to bath time. There are some children for whom it is a stressful experience as they are scared of water or hate having their hair washed or any number of other reasons (is so, this is not the blog for you- your goal is to just get through it!). However, for some other children it can be a time when they are quite relaxed and content and therefore a perfect time to really boost their language skills- so here are some ideas!
Body parts
The bath is a great place to teach body parts vocabulary. Model the language by naming each bit as you wash it. Then why not try and see if your child can tell you which part to wash next. If they find this difficult, give them a choice eg “hand or leg?” You could point to the two parts too to support their understanding to begin with if they need it.
Verbs (action words)
There are lots of verbs we do in the bath (e.g. splashing, pouring, blowing/popping bubbles, washing). Talk about what you are doing as you do it to expand your child’s range of verbs e.g. ‘pop bubbles’ (as you pop them).
This is also a great time to practice combing words. So for example if they already know their body parts you could do the same activity as above giving them a choice where you should wash next but adding the word ‘wash’. So ‘wash leg or wash arm next?’.
Prepositions On/Under
Talk about things that you can put under the water e.g. ‘Duck ON the water’, ‘Duck UNDER the water’. You could even put them under the bubbles where you can’t see them and then guess what they are.
Float/sink
For children who already have the basic bath vocabularly, why not try out different objects and see if they float or sink. After a while, see if your child can guess what will happen – now they are predicting too!
You can also try describe the objects as you go too. What are they made of? What shape are they? Are they heavy or light?