August loved playing in the ball pit at the party yesterday but aside from naming colours and describing the properties and whereabouts of a sphere - the language opportunities are pretty scarce.

SO - today I added some animals to the balls for August to rescue. Not only was this a great gross- motor activity (climbing, reaching, grabbing, pulling, holding, crawling) it was also fantastic for POURING IN language. 

Things to talk about:
💡The animal name. The noise they make.
💡Animal description. E.g. Sharp teeth, four legs.
💡where that animal lives (supporting category knowledge) e.g. Zoo animal, farm animal.
💡 positional language, e.g. "He's UNDER the balls". "He's IN the ball pit".
💡 Make connections to other knowledge. E.g. In this video I'm saying the words from the lion page in 'dear zoo' to link that animal to what he knows from the book.
💡 Count the animals. NUMBERS ARE LANGUAGE!
💡 Narrate what your baby is doing. "You're DIGGING, You FOUND the giraffe! 

We have a $20 paddling pool from the warehouse and the balls are from kmart. This could be replicated in a big plastic container if you didn't have a pool, and anything can be rescued! Not just animals.