5 to 11

• Children at this age enjoy role play games such as doctors, superheroes and shop. Join in your child’s play taking on the role of different characters. Try to extend your child’s language skills by introducing new ideas and words to the play.
• Play is the building block to developing language and can be used to learn new words and concepts. Play can help with their lessons such as maths and phonics. Use toys and play when learning to count, introducing new concepts (e.g. big, hot, hard) or phonics (e.g. doing a treasure hunt for objects which begin with a certain sound)
• Children like playing with both adults and other children. This helps to develop their social interaction skills. You may need to help them with their turn-taking and sharing skills to begin with and help them learn that it is ok not to win all of the time.
• Games with instructions such as ‘Frustration’, ‘Pop-up Pirate’, and ‘Snap’ are a fun way to play with your child and develop their understanding of rules and what is expected of them.