House of Learning is a house that contains twelve scenes. Children get to select objects and characters in order to interact with the app.
House of Learning is an app developed by a certified Speech-Language Pathologist, and it serves both as a tool for learning and playing. We know that children will learn best when interacting with an adult partner to guide their learning, and we encourage parents and teachers to use the “House of Learning” as an activity that can promote immense learning opportunities when using the correct techniques.
Here are some ideas on how to use the house of learning to help your child practice language skills:
Tips for teaching language skills
Tips for teaching prepositions
Many children have difficulty with using correct prepositions such as “on, in, above, on top of, under, next to, to the right, to the left”. The House of Learning is the ideal iPad app for helping children understand and practice these skills while playing.
Guided house builder: Instead of letting the child play the app independently, try playing next to them and telling them exactly where to put each object. Use complete phrases such as “ place the sheets on the bed”, “place the cup on the table”, “ place the shoes under/above the bed”.
Silly house builder: How about setting up the house before your session and putting the objects in “silly” places such as “the bed on top of the pillow”. When it is time for your session, you ask your student what’s wrong with the image and get them to guide you verbally to place the objects where they belong. You should expect them to say complete phrases using prepositions “the bed goes above the pillow”.
Following one or more step directions
Following one or multiple step directions can be very challenging for some children with language delays.
Guided house set up: Guide your child along the game with one, two, three or more step commands. Such as “Get the ball”, “Get the ball and place it on top of the bed”, “Get the ball, place it on the bed and move the girl close to it.”
Story Telling
It is possible to take a screenshot when you are done with the scenes. Why not use these screenshots to let your students build a story? Here is how we can do this:
Set up the scenes and place the people where you want them to go.
click on “done” to display the camera button.
Click on the camera button to take a photo of the scene.
Choose to save this scene to the library;
Go back to the scene and prepare the scene for the next screenshot;
Repeat the steps.
After you have completed the “story” you can print and share with your students or ask them to create their own.