Playgroups will be offered for English and Spanish speaking families with children 15 months to 2 years for FREE at Durham County Library - Main. Available on Fridays at 9:30am (English); 10:00am (Spanish).
Dates available:
April 26, 2024
May 10, 2024
May 24, 2024
May 31, 2024
July 12, 2024
July 19, 2024
July 26, 2024
Playgroups are a great way to support speech and language development in young children. These groups provide opportunities for children to interact with their peers, engage in various activities, and practice their communication skills in a natural and supportive environment.
Developmental Age Groups
Cuddles through Play focuses on interaction attachment with caregiver. Newborns will learn to respond to caregiver's voice, surrounding sounds, movements, and smiles. Parents will learn to identify different cries and encourage coos.
Birth - 3 months
Smiles through Play focuses on social exchanges between infant and caregiver. Infants will learn to respond to sounds through eye gaze and head movements, respond to frolic play through smiles, goos and coos.
4 - 6 months
Sounds through Play focuses on sensorimotor or practice play through mouthing objects, toys and textured items. Infants will learn oral exploration through squeals, growls, yells and raspberries. Infants will learn to imitate sounds and movements, use communication exchanges. Parents will help build receptive vocabulary through good modeling and encourage the use of vocalization in play.
7 - 9 months
Babbles through Play focuses on encouraging vocalizations and gestures as a form of communication. Toddlers will learn different modes of communication to meet their wants and needs, canonical and variegated babbling through reduplicated syllable such as "mama", "baba", "dada" and diferent consonant-vowel syllables. Parents will learn to identify modes of communicating and encourage use of single words.
10 - 12 months
Gestures through Play focuses on toddlers using turn-taking, interest in other children, identifying body parts, increasing use of vocabulary through gestures and vocalization. Toddlers will engage solitary play, social games, turn-taking activities. Parents will learn to model gestures, expand on their utterances, explain concepts.
13 - 15 months
Words through Play focuses on increasing strings of words. Toddlers will learn to follow one-step commands/directions, attends to activities for longer time spans, reciprocal play with an adult, use 15 meaningful words, understand at least 50 words and identifies at least 6 body parts.
16 - 18 months
Phrases through Play focuses on imitating two-three word phrases, use of simple questions, communication with others through adult like jargon. Toddlers will learn to lead caregivers to desired objects/toys/actions, take turns "talking" and enjoy pretend play. Parents will learn fun ways to interact with their children and encourage verbalizations.
19 - 21 months
Fun through Play focuses on intentional use of language. Children will refer to self by name, follow two-step commands, use at least 50 words while communicating their wants and needs. Parents learn to encourage intentional communication attempts.
22 - 24 months
Laughs through Play focuses on the transition to parallel play. This stage is when a child plays alongside or near others but does not play with them. Children will learn to identify action words, use short phrases and learn some pre-academic skills such as colors and counting.
2 - 3 years
Friends through play focuses on associative play, which is when a child starts to spontaneously interact with others during play. Children will also learn spatial and quantitative concepts, make inferences and understand analogies. Parents will learn how to support their children while learning all these new concepts.