Ordering a Pizza & Pass the Potato

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 brain pathways to make new connections.

Activities for Toddlers
Communication with a young child creates the patterns for understanding. Laughter, especially, helps in releasing feel good chemicals and responses in the body, thereby increasing attachment and feelings of self-worth.  

Ordering a PizzaYou will need pictures of pizza.

Ask the children if their parents have ever ordered a pizza by telephone.

Talk about what information you would give on the phone.

What kind of pizza?

What size pizza?

Your name.

Your address.

Your telephone.

Have a pretend conversation with the children and order a pizza.

After you have played this a few times, you will see the children start to play this game with their friends.

Ideas for taking this activity to the next level:
For building confidence –Ask the child “what kind of pizza do you like to eat?”

For developing the idea –Tell the child that you are going to pretend to talk on the phone and order a pizza. As the child to tell you what he would like on his pizza.

For moving forward – Look at the pictures of different pizzas and talk about what others like to eat on their pizza.

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Pass the Potato  You will need pictures of potatoes and a large russet potato.

Talk about all of the ways that you can cook a potato…boil, fry, mash, bake, etc

Sit the children in a circle and sing the following to the tune of the song "London Bridges."

Round the circle, here it comes

Here it come, here it comes

Round the circle, here it comes

Pass the potato
As the children are singing this rhyme, they pass the russet potato from one to another. When the rhyme is finished, the child left holding the potato gets to come into the circle and pretend he is eating a potato. He can also tell what kind of potato he is eating...mashed, fried, boiled, etc.

Ideas for taking this activity to the next level:
For building confidence – Let the children tell you what kind of potatoes they like.
For developing the idea – What sound does the word “potato” start with?

For moving forward – I’ll name some words and you tell me if they have the same sound as “potato.” Pig, party, happy, funny, pony……etc.

Cardboard Music & Animal 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 brain pathways to make new connections.

Music Activities for Infants and Toddlers

Cardboard Music
Playing this game will develop rhythm and memory.

You will need a toilet tissue paper tube (ARTROLL) for each child.

Show the children how to make a musical sound by singing into the tube.

If you sing "toot, toot, toot" you will make an interesting sound.

Try "toot tooting" familiar songs like " Happy Birthday" and "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star."

Playing this game is a forerunner to playing a kazoo and later perhaps a wind instrument.

Ideas for taking this activity to the next level:
For building confidence – Ask the child to toot a song and you sing along.

For developing the idea - Try tooting the songs in a high voice and a low voice.

For moving forward – Pick out three favorite songs and play them together. Let the child choose which song he will toot in the morning, the afternoon and the evening. 

If your child is enjoying this, change to new songs every few days.

This is a great pre-cursor to poetry and reading in general.

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Animal Songs
This activity encourages creativity, cognitive thinking and the joy of singing.

Young children are particularly fond of songs, games and books about animals. 

The more that you sing with your child, the better language he will have and the better reader he will be.

Here are some songs about animals. Can you think of some more?

Itsy Bitsy Spider, Five Little Ducks, Old Macdonald, All the Fish, Shoo Fly, Bingo, and Hickory Dickory Dock.

A wonderful website to find Animal Songs is Kididdles.com.

Ideas for taking this activity to the next level:For building confidence –Sing an animal song with the child and praise him for doing such a good job.

For developing the idea - Pick an animal song and ask the child to make the sound of that animal. Now sing the song in the animal voice that the child made.

For moving forward – Make up a song with the child about an animal. It’s best to use a familiar tune like “Mary Had a Little Lamb.” Here is an example.

Bobby had a little dog, little dog, little dog,
Bobby had a little dog
It’s fur was black and white.

Products from Discount School Supply® that I recommend:
Indestructibles™ Nursery Rhymes Books - Set of 6 (INDY2)
Maestro Baby Instruments - Set of 4 (MAESTRO)
Circus Sorting Train Banner - 29 Pieces (CHUCHU)

Giggle Box & Sweet Little Bunny Activities

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 brain pathways to make new connections.
Activities for Infants
Communication with a young child creates the patterns for understanding. 

Laughter, especially, helps in releasing feel good chemicals and responses in the body, thereby increasing attachment and feelings of self-worth.

Giggle Box
Help your baby know how special she is by imitating and mimicking her sounds.
When your little ones begins to giggle, giggle right along.

Laugh often and show spontaneous joy at what your baby can do.
Bring a favorite toy to life. Take that teddy bear or puppet and have it dance, sing, and move about. Be prepared for lots of giggles.

Ideas for taking this activity to the next level:
For building confidence – Let the favorite toy jump up and down while you laugh together.

For developing the idea - Do some more actions with the stuffed animal. Rock it in your arms and sing a song.

For moving forward – Give the stuffed animal to your baby and let him rock the toy or move it up and down. You may need to help him at the beginning.

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Sweet Little Bunny
You will need a toy bunny.

Hold the stuffed animal in your hands and say the following:

Sweet little bunny hopping on the ground - hold the bunny and hop it up and down
Sweet little bunny looking all around - turn the bunny around

Look up high - hold the bunny high in the air

Look down low - bring the bunny down to the ground

Run, run, run

Oh, Oh, Oh, - run with the bunny

Sweet little bunny, where did you go? - hide the bunny behind your back

Ideas for taking this activity to the next level:
For building confidence – After saying the poem again, give the stuffed animal to your child. Ask her to hold the bunny high and hold the bunny low. Move her hands up and down as you ask these questions.

For developing the idea – Hold your child in your arms and say the poem letting her hold the stuffed animal. Move her arms accordingly with all of the actions.

For moving forward – Pretend you are the bunny and do the actions in the poem. Encourage your little one to copy you. 

Two books that go nicely with this activity are:
The Runaway Bunny by Margaret Wise Brown
The Tale of Peter Rabbit by Beatrix Potter