Elaine Lambe from Littlesheep Learning  has some simple tips on how to teach your children the art of taking turns.
 

For many people if turn taking is mentioned they immediately think of complicated board games but there is a lot more to turn taking than this structured use. Adults use turn taking throughout every day tasks without even thinking about it, for example, queueing in a shop, knowing when to proceed at a roundabout and when to stop, sharing information in a meeting, the list is endless. Therefore learning turn taking skills is an essential part of a child’s development.

Babies as young as six months start to learn turn taking skills when they babble and wait for a response from their care giver before carrying on, these first conversations are the basis of a lot of language development. Building on this language turn taking children start to develop physical turn taking skills.

Some tips to help children learn to take turns:

• don’t expect a toddler to be an expert at turn taking, just be consistent with rules, for example, no snatching toys, waiting for someone else to finish before they get what they want and they will learn
• model turn taking at every opportunity using appropriate language, for example “You go first, I’ll wait for my turn after” or “We’re waiting in this queue for the tills, first it is the lady with the baby, then it’s that man’s turn and then it will be our turn”
• praise a child for waiting for their turn, the more opportunities that they are given with positive acknowledgement the more likely they are to wait next time
• prompt the child to take turns, again using the appropriate language, “my turn” and “your turn”.

Turn taking games need not be complicated board games, start with games that build on existing or emerging skills. Keep expectations low, concentrate on success with one adult with one child (alternating turns) before trying to add more children or expect children to take turns on their own. Also keep turn taking games short to start with, for some learners one or two turns each is an excellent starting point and it is better to praise after this and then work on three next time than to carry on and then it to end negatively at four turns. Examples of simple first turn taking activities are:

• adding blocks to a tower
• throwing bean bags into a box
• posting coins into a money box
• rolling a ball back and forth
• letting go of balloons
• singing lines of nursery rhymes

When introducing first board games, for example lotto, matching pairs, picture dominoes make sure you adapt the rules (bend them and break them) to fit the child’s skills. For example start practicing lotto games with all the pictures face up so that the child selects their picture successfully each turn, when they can do this the game can be made harder by introducing more ‘rules’ like the cards being face down.

Some favourite turn taking games are:

• Orchard toys games, e.g. Tummy Ache, Greedy Gorilla and Shopping List
• Snap
• Lotto – these can be picture, sound, number, letter or word based
• Operation
• Connect Four

Remember that board games can also be used to teach other skills, for example matching, learning colours and shapes, counting, dice skills and correspondence counting.

For a range of turn taking games and other educational resources, check out www.littlesheep-learning.co.uk