Games for Enjoying Music with Children

Children of all ages express themselves through music. Even at an early age children sway, bounce, and move their hands in response to the music they hear.

Here are two games for enjoying music with your children.

GROWING UP
1. Pretend to be a little seed just planted in the ground.
2. Water the little seed.
3. Let the sun shine on the little seed.
4. Sing the scale and pretend to grow as the music goes up.
5. Singing the scale means: do, re, mi, fa, sol, la, ti, do....just like in the song "Doe a deer, a female deer."
6. When you come to the last note in the scale, say "Look, now I'm a beautiful flower!"

NOW IT'S TIME
1. Sit on the floor with your child and do what the words say.
2. Sing to the tune of "London Bridge."
Now it's time to touch our nose
Touch our nose, touch our nose
Now it's time to touch our nose
My fair (child's name)

Now it's time to blink our eyes
Now it's time to touch our toes
Now it's time to shake our feet
Now it's time to stand up tall
Now it's time to sit back down

Set the Stage for Future Learning

The games in this section are designed for parents, grandparents and all adults who want to nurture their toddlers mentally as well as emotionally. Each game involves simple words, movements and interactions that cultivate one or more of the basic skills --language, thinking, social and physical manipulation -- that set the stage for all future learning.

CAR PUPPETS
This game will keep your toddler occupied in the car and develop her language skills.
1. Draw a face on each of your child's thumbs with a felt tip marker.
2. Name the thumb puppets so that you can talk to them. "Hello, funny face," or "How are you, Billy?"
3. As you drive, talk to the thumb puppets. Your toddler can talk back to you or just move his thumbs up and down in reply.
4. Here are some things that you can say to the puppets.
"Do you see that red car?"
"Look at the beautiful trees."
"Red light stop, green light go."
5. Ask the puppets to join you in singing a familiar song like "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star."
6. Play for three to five minutes

COLOR WALK
This game will help your child recognize colors for visual and vocabulary development.
1. Take your toddler on a color walk through your house. Select a certain color toy and take
it with you.
2. Find one or two objects in each room that are the same color as the toy you are carrying.
3. Talk about what you've found. For example, "Bobby's yellow shirt is the same color as your yellow ball," or "My blue blouse is the same color as your blue block."
4. Another variation of this game is to carry a laundry basket around, collecting toys and other objects of the same color.

Essential Ingredient in Infant Care

The most essential ingredient in infant care is a warm, responsive, and dependable adult caregiver. Try to spend lots of time holding, cuddling, and playing with the infants in your care. You will be richly rewarded with babbles, smiles, and squeals of laughter.

Here are are two games to play that help an infant’s neurons connect to parts of the brain that develop confidence and trust. Recommended for 3-6 month old infants.

NUGGLE NOSE1. Hold your baby in the air and say, “Nose, nose, nuggle nose.”
2 On the word “nuggle,” bring him down and touch your nose to his.
3. Keep repeating this game touching noses on the word “nuggle.”4. After you have played this a few times, say the word “nuggle” more than one time, always touching noses on the word “nuggle.”5. For example, say “nuggle, nuggle, nuggle, nose.”
Gently touching your baby will make him feel secure and safe, enabling him to become confident and, eventually, independent.

GOING UP THE ESCALATOR
1. Hold onto baby’s fingers and gently lift baby’s arms as you say the following rhyme:
Going up the escalator
Up, up, up.
Going down the escalator
Down, down, down.
2. Lift your baby’s legs and say the rhyme.
3. Continue lifting different parts of your baby’s body, saying the rhyme each time.
4. Try ending with lifting him up in the air and down.
5. Always give a kiss on the down part.

Loving attachments help babies develop trust.

Learning with Play

Here is a quick and easy activity you can do with your toddler to show them how household goods are used as you play!

1. Select several objects such as a toothbrush, a spoon, or a cup that your toddler is familiar with and uses on a regular basis.
2. Sit on the floor and put the objects in front of you.
3. Pick up one object, such as the toothbrush, and pretend to brush your teeth.
4, Pick up each object and pretend to use it.
5. Ask your toddler to pick up one of the objects and show you how he would use it.
6. This is a great game to develop your toddler’s thinking skills and help him imagine other things to do with the same object, such as using a cup to drink from and for pouring.

Clap Your Hands!

Here is a simple activity to try with your infant or toddler as they learn about the speed and rhythm of music!

Sing this familiar song very slowly to the tune of "Row, Row, Your Boat.”
Clap, clap, clap your hands
Slowly every day. (clap your hands slowly)
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, (keep clapping)
Then we shout, "Hooray." (Jump up and down and shout "hooray" slowly…..”hoooo ray”)

Sing again faster.
Clap, clap, clap your hands
Faster every day. (clap your hands faster)
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily,
Then we shout, "Hooray."

1. Sing this song with different actions. Always do the actions slowly at first, then speed them up. When children do fast and slow actions, they begin to internalize the concepts.
2. Other actions to try are: roll your hands, shake your hands, wave your hands, stamp your feet, and shake your hips.
3. Before a child can process language, he can process music. Early music experiences increase and enhance spatial-temporal reasoning and the learning of mathematical concepts.

Infants are Hardwired for Language!

In an article from Psychology Today, titled "Infant Brains Are Hardwired for Language", author Faith Brynie states:

Brain activity in the left hemisphere language centers can be detected in infants as young as five days. Behavioral experiments have demonstrated that days- or weeks-old infants can distinguish the "melody" of their native language from the pitches and rhythms of other languages. They can assess the number of syllables in a word and perceive a change in speech sounds (such as ba versus ga), even when they hear different speakers.

Here is a game to develop this wiring.

Talking Together
1. Infants make lots of sounds. Mimic the sounds that your baby makes. These sounds will later turn into words.
2. Take the words such as “ba ba” or “ma ma,” and turn them into sentences. “Ma ma loves you.” “Ba ba says the sheep.”
3. The more you repeat the baby’s sounds, the more she will be encouraged to make more sounds.
5. This is truly the beginning of a conversation between the two of you.

Connect With Conversation
1. Start a conversation with your baby. Say a short sentence like, “It is a beautiful day today.”
2. When your baby responds with some babble, stop talking and look into his eyes.
3. As your baby talks, respond with a nod of your head or a smile.
4. This indicates to your baby that you are listening to and enjoying his sounds.
5. Continue with another sentence. Always stop and listen to your baby’s response.
6. The number of words an infant hears each day dramatically influences his or her future intelligence, and scholastic achievements.

Develop and Stimulate Sight!

Neurons for vision begin forming the first few months of life. Activities that stimulate a baby’s sight will insure good visual acuity.

Pretty Light
When infants look at moving objects, a neuron from his retina makes a connection to another neuron in his visual part of the brain. He is literally wiring his vision.
1. Cover a flashlight with colored plastic wrap.
2. Hold your baby in your arms and turn on the flashlight.
3. Move it back and forth and watch as he follows the light.
4. Talk to him as you move the light
Pretty light
Pretty light
See the pretty, pretty, light.
5. Babies love to do this and they are making important connections in the brain.

Follow the Action
1. Babies love to look at faces, especially faces of people they love.
2. Try different facial expressions and sounds to develop your baby’s vision and hearing.
3. Here are some ideas:
Sing a song and use big movements with your mouth.
Blink your eyes.
Stick out your tongue.
Make contortions with your mouth.
Make lip sounds.
Cough or yawn.