Color Songs!

These games will help to grow the brains of infants and toddlers. Whether it’s through singing, dancing, cuddling, rocking, talking, smelling, or tasting, you can encourage the pathways of their brains to make new connections.

Learning Objective - Developing motor skills

Color Songs

The children should be sitting in front of you in a circle.
Give each child a piece of drawing paper.
Have an array of crayons next to you so that all the children can see the colors.
Sing a song to your children that has a color word in the lyrics. Here are some suggestions.
"Skip to My Lou"
"Yellow Bird"
"Red Red Robin"
"Miss Mary Mack"
"Jennie Jenkins"

Ask them to listen for a color word.
Then, select a child to come and find that color crayon and draw a circle on his paper.

Ideas that take this activity to the next level:
For building confidence: The song "Skip to My Lou" has the names of two colors. What are they?
(Little red wagon painted blue.)

For developing the idea: Let’s sing some of these songs again.

For moving forward: Let’s make up a song with a color word in it.

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Learning objective – Developing motor skills

From infancy, as babies develop, the sounds of rattles and musical toys intrigue them. Toddlers begin composing their own rhythmic patterns by banging on pots and other surfaces. A tune on the radio or television can spontaneously inspire a toddler to respond by swaying and bouncing his little body.

Here is a rhythm action poem that children enjoy.

MY BODY HAS RHYTHM by Jackie Silberg
I use my brain to think, think, think
(touch your head with your index finger)
I use my nose to smell
(touch your nose)
I use my eyes to blink, blink, blink
(blink your eyes)
And I use my mouth to YELL
(yell)
I use my mouth to giggle, giggle, giggle
(touch your mouth)
I use my hips to bump
(sway your hips)
I use my toes to wiggle, wiggle, wiggle
(wiggle your toes)
And I use my legs to jump
(Jump)

1. Clap the rhythm of the poem. Notice that the rhythm is the same every other line.

2. Clap two lines and speak two lines

Ideas that take this activity to the next level:
For building confidence: Say the poem and do the actions with your child. Give her lots of praise.

For developing the idea: Clap the rhythm with your child as you say the words. She will soon become familiar with the rhythm changing every other line.

For moving forward: Give your child a stuffed animal and help her do the actions with the toy.

Recommended Products:
Find & Fit a Shape (TODFIT)
Chunky Mix & Stack Farm (MIXFARM)
Edushape® Train Set (TRAINBL)

Awareness of Sounds

These games will help to grow the brains of infants and toddlers. Whether it’s through singing, dancing, cuddling, rocking, talking, smelling, or tasting, you can encourage the pathways of their brains to make new connections.

FOR TODDLERS
Learning Objective – Awareness of Sounds

Body Sounds
Before there were pianos and guitars, people made sounds with their bodies.
Think of the different parts of your body that can make a sound.
Ask the children to do the following.

Rubbing your hands together.
Hitting your hands on different surfaces,
Stamping your feet against the floor.
Slapping – open your hands against your chest, slap your thighs, and your tummy..
Clap your hands together or against someone else’s hands.
Mouth sounds – click your teeth together, rub your tongue against your lips, gargle, smack your lips.
Whispering

Ideas that take this activity to the next level:
For building confidence: Do you have some favorite sounds? Can you make them now?

For developing the idea: Let’s find some pictures with people making different sounds.

For moving forward: What body sounds do you make when you are happy, sad, angry, and sleepy?

Tell Me What It Says

These games will help to grow the brains of infants and toddlers. Whether it’s through singing, dancing, cuddling, rocking, talking, smelling, or tasting, you can encourage the pathways of their brains to make new connections.


FOR INFANTS
Learning Objective– Developing language

The current brain research says: that young children develop a clear bias for words with first-syllable accents For example, the rhyme “Baa Baa Black Sheep” is good to say with your infant. Say the rhyme and put an accent on the first word of each line.

Baa Baa black sheep
Have you any wool
Yes sir, yes sir
Three bags full

Some other rhymes that work well with accenting the first word in each line are: "London Bridge," "Mary Had a Little Lamb" and "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star."

Babies pay closer attention to accented words.

Ideas that take this activity to the next level:
For building confidence: As you say the accented words, raise your voice to a higher level using a parentese voice.

For developing the idea: Holding the baby in your lap, each time you say the accented word, clap the baby’s hands together.

For moving forward: Sing familiar songs with your baby and pick out certain words to accent. When you sing the accented word, do a movement activity at the same time. For example, jump, walk very slowly and sing the word slowly, march, and twirl slowly.

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Activity: Tell Me What It Says

You will need a picture of a baby, a clock, a bird, a drum, and some water.

Point to one of the pictures and say to your your baby “Tell me what the baby says.”

Then answer the question – “Ma ma, ma, ma” or “Da da da da.”

Repeat the same question asking about each picture and giving the answer.

Tell me what the clock says
Tick, tock, tick, tock
Tell me what the birdie says
Tweet. Tweet, tweet, tweet
Tell me what the drum says
Boom, boom, boom, boom
Tell me what the water says
Gurgle, gurgle, gurgle, gurgle

Ideas that take this activity to the next level:

For building confidence: Make the sounds with the baby and encourage him to copy you. Praise all of his efforts.

For developing the idea: Look at books and magazines with the baby and find things that make sounds.

For moving forward: Show your baby different mouth sounds. Clicking, moving your tongue back and forth on your lips, the raspberry, and any others that you can think of. Babies love to look at faces and will try to copy you.