One fun way to help with children's language development is playing games that help strengthen language and identification skills. A simple game that incorporates these skills is the matching game. Print doubles of images, shapes and colors onto the backs of flashcards. Place the flashcards, images side down, on a table. Ask a child to flip a card over or point at one for you to flip over. Name the object, image or color to the child helping them with identification. Ask the child to pick another card to flip over in order to find the matching object, shape or color. Increase the amount of flashcards used, increasing the complexity as the child becomes better at memory and identification. With younger children, start with the flashcards face up until they have a understanding of the game and what's being asked of them.
The simplest activity that can be introduced in early language development is also the easiest. In this activity, children will learn and identify the parts of their body through memorizing and mimicking you. Sit in front of a child and point to one of your body parts. Start with the face to also keep eye contact and engage the child. Point to your nose and name it by saying, "This is my nose." Repeat this by pointing to the child's nose and say "Nose." Do this a few times until the child has an understanding that the part is a nose. As the activity advances, ask the child, "What is this?" as you point to your own nose. If the response is incorrect, correct it by saying, "No, this is my nose." As the child advances with identifying and language skills, incorporate more description, such as, "This is my brown hair!"
An advanced activity that can be performed as the child's language and identification skills increase would be the "Not" activity. In this activity, the child will learn to identify objects and identify when they're not correct. Using an object or toy like a toy truck that the child is able to correctly identify, hide this object behind a blanket and ask the child, "Where's Teddy Bear?" Drop the blanket, revealing the object that's not the teddy bear. Look surprised, laugh and say, "No! That's not teddy bear! That's Truck!" This activity will build the concepts of "where" and "not" as well as observation and visual description.
In this activity, you will be reinforcing language by using past memory and skills in a new situation. Read a story to the child, one with large images and simple shapes and designs. Point at the images and describe them more than reading the written text. Ask the child to identify objects, shapes and colors in the story to reinforce matching the correct words to a visual cue. This can be advanced by having the child describe the images for you, helping them with identifying and developing descriptors.