The festive season provides many opportunities for parents to have fun with their children whilst naturally encouraging language development - simply by introducing new words, describing actions and asking open ended questions. Here are just a few of favourites from our EYP Glynis Mates.

Christmas cookies

Ideal for hanging decorations or presents - and of course eating! Children will love this gooey activity, and have fun choosing different flavourings - such as ginger, mixed spice or lemon – to add to your basic biscuit dough. Don’t forget, most young children also love to wash up!

Christmas presents

While you’re wrapping parcels, give your child a selection of empty boxes and cardboard tubes, some old wrapping paper and masking tape. Older children can have scissors, cellotape and ribbons. Talk to them about the various box shapes and sizes, what could fit in them and how much paper they might need to cover them. You could let them put a soft toy inside the box before wrapping, and then together act out the ‘Dear Zoo’ story or read ‘Dear Santa’, both by Rod Campbell.

Christmas cards

There are so many ways to decorate a card, so try to avoid any set ideas you might have - let your child lead the way! The end result may be not what you had in mind, but your child will feel so proud of their own work if no one else has tampered with it. In any case, the youngest children will be just as interested in the glue as any materials they may put on!

Once the cards are dry, encourage your child to attempt to write their own name, praising them for their efforts. Also, why not make cards for relatives, place in envelopes and have a trip to the Post Office - which will provide plenty of opportunities for language and future play ideas. Suggested reading: ‘Jolly Christmas Postman’ by Janet & Allan Ahlberg.

Christmas outdoors

The outdoors offers wonderful opportunities for language development. And remember that for children, there is no such thing as bad weather - only bad clothing! So wrap up warm and head out to your local park. Run through the leaves, collect them and any other interesting nature resources; let you’re child look, touch and smell them. If it’s raining, put on your macs and wellies and jump in the puddles - look at the patterns they make if you move them with a stick. And if it snows, you simply have to build a snowman and make snowballs!

With all of the above activities, don't worry about the results: it's the doing of the activity that is important, not the finished article; give your child lots of praise and encouragement for their efforts, allowing them to attempt new skills but helping when needed. Most of all, enjoy your time together and have fun!

So, however you choose to enjoy the Christmas break, make the most of this time to have a truly memorable, magical Christmas with your children.

By providing your child with a language rich environment you will be supporting their development not only now but in the future.