Toy Stunt Show — Who Did What to Whom?

You are the director, the child is the stunt coordinator, and the toys are the actors. You call out one sentence; the child makes the toys act it out. The trick is in the sentence shapes — “The cow was pushed by the horse” — where the child has to work out from the grammar who is doing the action and who is on the receiving end.

  1. Pick the cast. Four or five toy animals or figures that can all do the same things to each other (push, chase, tickle, jump over, bump).
  2. Warm up with plain sentences. “The horse pushes the cow.” The child makes it happen.
  3. Flip to “was … by” sentences. “The cow was pushed by the horse.” Same event, new word order. Watch which toy does the pushing.
  4. If it comes out backwards, show rather than tell. Say the plain version and the flipped version one after the other while you act them out, then try a new pair of animals.
  5. Add other shapes, one kind per session: “The pig that is wearing the hat chases the dog.” “The sheep jumps over the dog, but not over the cow.” “Neither the horse nor the pig falls down — the cow does.”
  6. Swap. The child says a sentence and you act it — sometimes wrongly, so they can call “Cut!” and direct a retake.

Variation: act the sentences with your own bodies (“Mummy is tickled by you” versus “You are tickled by Mummy”), or film the stunts on a phone and watch the “show” back.

Requirements

  • Space: A table top or a patch of floor
  • Surface: Any flat surface
  • Materials: 4–5 toy animals or figures; a small prop such as a doll's hat or a block
  • Participants: 1 adult + 1 child
  • Supervision: Full — the adult calls the sentences

Rationale & Objective

Understanding language means understanding grammar, not just words. In “the cow was pushed by the horse” every word is easy, yet the meaning depends on a sentence structure that reverses the usual order. Thomas Bever described how young children lean on a “first noun is the doer” strategy, which works for most sentences and fails for passives; the classic act-out study of de Villiers and de Villiers showed that children aged about one and a half to three come to use word order for active sentences well before passives, and often act reversible passives out backwards. Reversible passives are typically still being mastered at five, which is why they appear on receptive grammar measures such as Bishop’s Test for Reception of Grammar and the sentence-comprehension tasks of the CELF Preschool-3. Using toys that could equally well push or be pushed removes common-sense clues, so only the grammar can give the answer. Books and teacher talk grow steadily richer in such sentences, and children who can unpick them follow stories and explanations more easily.

Progress Indicators

  • Early: acts out plain sentences correctly; acts out “was … by” sentences backwards almost every time — the first-named toy does the action
  • Developing: gets flipped sentences right when common sense helps (“the baby was fed by the mummy”) but not when either toy could do it
  • Proficient: acts out reversible “was … by” sentences correctly most of the time; picks the right toy from a “the one that…” description
  • Advanced: handles “but not” and “neither … nor” sentences; produces flipped sentences as director; catches your wrong performances

Safety Notes

  • There is no physical risk beyond small toy parts — check figures for loose pieces if younger children are nearby
  • Keep the actions between toys gentle and comic; if playing with bodies, choose tickles and tags rather than pushes
  • Reversed acting-out of passives is normal at this age and not a sign of a problem by itself
  • Do not drill — six to eight sentences is plenty, and a child who gets several wrong in a row needs easier ones, not more of the same
  • If a child struggles to act out even plain “who does what” sentences, or to understand everyday sentences agemates follow, seek a speech-language assessment

Hints

  • Playfulness: use a clapperboard clap and “Action!” for every sentence, a megaphone made from rolled paper, and dramatic slow-motion stunts
  • Sustain interest: change the cast (dinosaurs, cars with faces, kitchen utensils with stuck-on eyes) and the verbs (tickle, splash, hide behind, carry)
  • Common mistake: using pairs where only one way makes sense (“the apple was eaten by the boy”). Choose actors that can swap roles so the grammar must be heard
  • Limited space: play with two hands as the actors — “left hand is tapped by right hand” — or two spoons at the dinner table
  • Cross-domain: small-world play feeds imagination; calling “Cut!” on your mistakes builds self-checking; saying sentences as director stretches expressive grammar
  • Progression: plain sentences → flipped sentences where sense helps → reversible flipped sentences → “the one that…” descriptions → but not / neither–nor → child directs

Sources

  • Bishop, D.V.M. (2003), Test for Reception of Grammar, Version 2 (TROG-2)
  • Bever, T.G. (1970), “The cognitive basis for linguistic structures,” in J.R. Hayes (Ed.), Cognition and the Development of Language
  • de Villiers, J.G. & de Villiers, P.A. (1973), “Development of the use of word order in comprehension,” Journal of Psycholinguistic Research
  • CELF Preschool-3 — sentence comprehension task
  • ASHA — spoken language (receptive) development and assessment guidance for speech-language pathologists