Your Turn, My Turn

Materials You Need: Any simple game with rules, such as a card game or a board game, either purchased or made at home. For a card game, either use cards you have (perhaps fewer, with pairs of numbers) or make your own set.  You could just draw pairs of simple shapes or pictures (two birds, two cats, etc.). Any other simple game your child might enjoy indoors or outdoors.  This could be a traditional game from your childhood.

What You Can Do Together: Play the game together in any way that your child enjoys.  You’ll find your child may follow some of the rules, but others are easy to forget.  That is all right!  As you play, you will take turns: “Oh, you moved your game piece three places.  Now it’s my turn.”  Or “Great!  You found two cards with pictures of cats.  Now it is my turn to pick.”  Use the words “your turn” and “my turn” often enough to give your child the idea.  You might ask “Whose turn is it now?  Thank you!”  Make the experience of playing a board game an enjoyable one, not emphasizing “winner and loser” but the fun of playing a game together. 

Your child will enjoy any simple game if it is played with you!

What Your Child is Learning:  As your child gets older, there will be many situations in which he or she has to follow rules (getting in line at school, waiting for supplies to do a school activity, etc.).  This kind of activity is an enjoyable, gradual introduction to this kind of experience.   Turn-taking is an important step in children’s cognitive and social development, and this activity is one way to practice it.