Playtime: Just for Fun? 
All kids play because it’s fun. Playtime can achieve more than laughter and smiles, although that’s important too. Through games kids can learn how to follow rules. With the use of games kids can interact socially. Finally kids can enhance their language capabilities through the wholesome power of play.
Kids from ages 3 to 5 can play the following games for a whole host of benefits.
Floating Balloon
Floating Balloon can be played indoors or outdoors. All you need are large balloons. First, hit the balloon back and 
forth so your kiddo gets used to it. Introduce social interaction by letting other kids join in and switch the goal to keeping the balloon afloat as long as possible. Add variety by putting in a different colored balloon and calling out which color to hit. Or you can call out which hand to hit the balloon with or elbow.
This game teaches how to follow rules and how to interact with other people. In turn, to follow the rules your child must learn the names of the body parts being used. Knowing the names of body part is part of a child’s natural progression in language development.
Red Light, Green Light
Red Light, Green Light is easy to play. Supplies include a green and red piece of construction paper, and a Hippity Hop Ball (a big plastic ball with a handle on it so you can sit on it and bounce around). First walk with your kiddo and have someone else hold up the paper, until they fully understand that she can walk when it flashes green and must stop when it’s flashing red. It also helps to say “stop” when you stop and “go” when you keep walking. When that is mastered then you introduce the Hippity Hop Ball and let her get the hang of it.
Now is the time to include other kids. Have one kid stand ten to twenty feet ahead of all the players and flash the red and green signs. Whoever gets closest to the sign holder without making a mistake wins, and they can flash the signs in the next round.
This game is excellent when you want to teach your child how to connect visual cues with language concepts. It’s also a good way for your kiddo to have minimal but important interaction with his peers. Best of all, kids around ages 3 to 5 learn ninety percent of their verbs by doing them. Pairing language and activity makes language development that much easier.
Where in My World
Where in My World is a perfect game for teaching prepositions. The game can be played indoors or outdoors. The equipment needed is an item of high interest (for example a doll, a truck, a blob of play doh, etc.), a plastic cup, and a favorite
snack.
The game is played by putting the item in, on, next to, or behind the cup. Next ask your kiddo where the item is, first giving them a choice between the wrong and right preposition (in or on?). When she gets the hang of that use where questions. If she can describe where the item is using one word or preposition then let her eat the snack or play with the item right away.
Where in My World teaches the important concept of prepositions. Prepositions help teach your kiddo about spatial and physical relationships to objects and people around her, and about necessary boundaries. Where in My World also teaches how to ask and answer where questions, and it encourages answering one word to using prepositions.
What’s Missing?
What’s Missing is an effective game in many ways. It teaches phonological awareness through the use of rhymes, songs and filling in words. (Phonological awareness is a set of skills that includes identifying and manipulating units of oral language – parts such as words, syllables, and onsets and rhymes. Simply put, it’s the ability to “play” with words. It’s an important step to learning how to read and write, and communicate in general.)The only equipment needed is a swing and a ball, and it’s played indoors.
Put your kiddo on a swing and sing a rhyming song like “Row, Row, Row Your Boat Gently Down The Stream” several times until she knows the song. This may take a few sessions. When she is comfortable enough do it again, but leave the last word (dream) blank, and wait for her to fill it in.
You can also use simple rhymes. Teach her a rhyme like Dr. Seuss’ “I meant what I said and I said what I meant, an elephant’s faithful one hundred percent!” Leave off the last word and ask her what the word is. If you don’t have a swing then you can do the rhyming song or simple rhyme with the bounce of the ball. Over time add more songs and rhymes.
What’s Missing encourages a response from children who are not as verbal and also for kids who aren’t spontaneously verbal. Rhymes and rhyming songs actually build pathways in the brain that strengthen the memory of the words. Using a ball or swing to add movement encourages the ability to make sounds because movement and sound are linked.
These games and many more like it come from the book “101 Games and Activities for Children with Autism, Asperberger’s, and Sensory Processing Disorders” by Tara Delaney.