Age 6 · Talking, Reading and Writing · 3 activities
Talking, Reading and Writing activities for 6 year olds
Three activities that carry all the way to six, each with a way of running it that puts a pencil in the middle of it.
Six is the year language gets onto paper. A five year old tells you the story and you write it down. A six year old holds a sentence in her head long enough to write it herself, one line under each card, and then reads it back to the room. That is the shift to watch for, and every one of these three has a rung on its ladder where the talking turns into writing.
Story Sequence Cards is the clearest of them: the cards go in order in about twenty seconds at six, so the order stops being the puzzle and the sentence underneath becomes it. Six cards instead of four, a story nobody in the room has lived, and a line written under each one.
Three-Step Instruction Hunt goes the other way and becomes a written list, which a six year old can read, carry and tick off, or write himself for you to follow. Continent Map Puzzle is a naming activity by now: the shapes are known, so the work is labels, oceans and telling somebody where a thing is. The wider shelf is Talking, Reading and Writing.
The three at six
Ordered by the age each one suits best, youngest first. The list is built from each activity's whole age range rather than its single best year, and all three of these reach their top end at six, which is where they are run hardest: longer lists, more cards, and a pencil in the mix.
- Three-Step Instruction Hunt You give three instructions in one breath, and your child goes and does all three, in order, without help. no setup · 3 to 5 min · nothing at all
- Story Sequence Cards Your child puts four or five cards into the order the thing actually happened, and then tells you the story they make. 2 min · 5 to 10 min · household only
- Continent Map Puzzle Your child lifts each continent out of a wooden map by its knob and puts it back where it came from. 1 min · 10 to 20 min · has to be bought
Two of the three need nothing but paper and a marker. The continent map has to be bought, and it earns its money only if it stays out where it can be picked up without asking.