15 Mega Block activities for Young Toddlers (that helps build language development)

15 Mega Block activities for Young Toddlers

 (that help language development)

DS2 (dear son 2) is 19 months old-a difficult age to "plan" activities for-so instead most of them are in the moment activities. One of his favorite toys is Mega Blocks-here are 20 on the spot activities that we enjoy doing with them.

1. Up and Down-Make a tower, with your child, have them knock it down and say DOWN! Then when you stand it up say UP! After you do this for a bit, do up and down with your bodies
2. Feed the Animals-Use puppets or stuffed animals and feed them blocks. Make chomping sounds, animal sounds, and encourage language-Open and Shut (for mouth), more, food
3. More-Build a tower but each time your child wants another block have them say more and please
4. Colors-Easy...say the colors as you build-point or touch the colors to build the connection between the word and the colors
5. 1,2,3-build towers with 3 blocks-count 1, 2, 3. You can also count the dots on the blocks
6. Patterns-make simple patterns-color patterns, ABAB patterns for this age only, and work on saying colors
7. Hide and Seek-Hide a cheerio under a block and have your child find it. Use words, hide, seek, found, more, cereal, cheerio
8. Painting-Have your child paint with blocks by stamping. Put each color of block in each color and say colors as they paint
9. Playdough- Playdough and blocks is always fun. Have child say on and off as they play with the clay. Make clay into balls and count it as you put it on the dots on the blocks. Match colors to block colors.
10. Block Wash- Tub, soap and blocks-Words to use: water, soap, bubble, pop, wash, clean
11. Car Smash- Take cars and smash them into one block or towers. Use words such as Go, Stop, Crash, Uh oh, etc.
12. Block Animals-I get bored playing with blocks so I like to make animals out of them. We then make animal sounds, have them eat, and point out eyes, feet, mouth, etc
13. Brush Your Teeth-Pretend blocks are teeth and use an old tooth brush to "clean them." Sometimes we put paint on them, or toothpaste, to scrub off. We use the words brush, teeth, clean, mouth, dirty, etc
14. On Off- Put a block on, take it off, left, right, you get the point
15. Clean it Up-My favorite. Any activity can be a chance to build language development-As child throws blocks away-and you are praising the heck out of them-say things like in, out, all done!

Thanks for the photos mega bloks