Music for Learning

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.

Circles and Music
Sit with your baby in your lap facing you.
Take one of his hands and move it around in a circular motion.

As you move it in a circular motion, sing the following to the tune of “In and Out the Window.”
Go round and round the circle
Go round and round the circle
Go round and round the circle
A circle’s very round.

Take the other hand and do the same thing.
Now move both hands at the same time.
Make circles high in the air, sideways, down low, etc.
Play some instrumental music and make the circles as you listen with your baby.
This game is a good prelude for drawing shapes to music.

Song Patting
Try song patting when changing a diaper, giving your child a bath, or any time.
Sing a favorite song to your little one and, at the same time, pat her tummy or back with your index finger to the rhythm of the song.
Always end the song with a snuggly kiss.

You can also sing one line of the song and pat only one word. For example, “Twinkle, twinkle, little (pat the word “star” but don’t sing it).”

This game helps develop a child’s sense of rhythm and listening skills.

Brain research says that for a young child's brain to grow and thrive, the child needs to be loved, held, talked to, read to, and allowed to explore.

SUGGESTED PRODUCTS FOR INFANTS AND TODDLERS
Soft Block Farm - 29pcs - SFTFARM
Dressing Dolls - 18" - DRESSY
Squishy Turtle Book - NBBK33
Rhythm Sticks Movement Set - 25 pcs - ROCKSET

Games for Toddlers

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

Choo Choo Happy Game
When you repeat the same word many times and then change to a new word, your toddler will pay attention to the new word. This is called “shaping.”

Hold your toddler on your lap facing you.

Say the words “choo choo” as you bounce her up and down on your knees. Repeat the words several times and then add a different word. For example:
Choo choo choo choo happy

Repeat this several times so that she becomes familiar with the new word “happy.”
Now, use the new word “happy” in several sentences.
“I’m a happy mom,” or “Here’s a happy face.”
Now say the word “happy” several times and add a new word.
Happy, happy, happy, happy, (new word).
Use the new word in a few sentences before you play the game again.

Your baby will become familiar with the word “happy” and other words that you use and will recognize them when she hears them.

This game teaches word recognition.

Games for Infants

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

Develop your infant’s language skills when you prepare a meal or snack by chanting the following verse or singing it to the tune of “The Farmer in the Dell.”

It’s time to find the milk
It’s time to find the milk
Hi, ho, the derry oh
It’s time to find the milk.

Walk to the refrigerator and take out the milk carton. Say, “Oh boy, I love milk. Yum, yum.”
Use the chant with other foods or household items. Take out the item, chant the verse, and then talk about the food.
-------------------------------------------------------

Expressing pleasant emotions with your baby is very good for brain development.
In addition, games such as this one develop language skills.

Brain research says that tone and facial expressions are understood before words. Emotional learning is intertwined with all domains of learning.

Try this game.

This Is Bill
1. Sit your baby on your lap
2. Hold one ankle in each hand as you say the following rhyme:

This is Bill and this is Jill.
They went out to play.
Over and over, (move his legs over each other)
Over and over, (move his legs over in the other direction)
“This is fun,” said Bill and Jill.
And then they said, “Hooray!” (give your baby a big hug)

Learning Rhythm

THE ANTS GO MARCHING
Sing to the tune of “When Johnny Comes Marching Home.’

The ants go marching one by one, hurrah, hurrah
The ants go marching one by one, hurrah, hurrah
The ants go marching one by one
The little one stops to suck his thumb
And they all go marching out to the big parade.

Additional verses
two by two- the little one stops to tie his shoe
three by three - the little one stops to climb a tree
four by four - the little one stops to fall on the floor
five by five - the little one stops to joke and jive
six by six - the little one stops to do some tricks
seven by seven -the little one stops to point to heaven
eight by eight - the little one stops to shut the gate
nine by nine - the little one stops to read a sign
ten by ten - the little stops to say “THE END.”

1. March around the room and sing the song. Act out each part that says, “the little one stopped to...”

2. Substitute other actions for the word marching, as follows:

The ants go skipping . . .
The ants go hopping . . .
The ants go swimming . . .

3. Experiment with ant voices. Teeny, squeaky voices are lots of fun.

4. Party stores carry plastic ants. Singing and counting the ants as you move them along is a great game.

Moving to Music
The more rhythm experiences a young child has, the better they will relate to the world. Talking, reading, and moving all improve with rhythm activities.

Play some instrumental music and move with your child. If the music is fast, move quickly. If the music is slow, move slowly.

Encourage the children to copy your actions. Say things like “Can you turn like me?” or “Can you bend like me?”

Vary the musical sounds from high to low, loud to soft, and fast to slow.

Toddler Brain Development

A young child's brain grows at a phenomenal rate in the early years of life opening a window of opportunity for learning that occurs only once in a lifetime.

These simple games will promote early brain development for toddlers.

FLY LITTLE BIRD
Children surrounded by words almost always become fluent by age 3, whatever their general intelligence. And people deprived of language as children rarely master it as adults, no matter how smart they are or how intensively they're trained.

Stand and face your toddler. Take his hands in yours.

While holding hands, walk around in a circle and sing the following rhyme with your own melody.

Fly little bird through the window - pretend to fly
Fly little bird through the door- pretend to fly
Fly little bird through the window
Fly and touch the chair.

On the words "fly and touch the chair”, pretend to fly and touch a chair. Ask your toddler to do the same thing.

Each time that you sing this little rhyme, fly and touch something different.

This game teaches vocabulary in a very pleasant way.

DRESS UP
The size of a toddler's vocabulary is strongly correlated with how much an adult talks to the child, reports Janellen Huttenlocher of the University of Chicago. At 20 months, children of chatty mothers averaged 131 more words than children of less talkative mothers; at 2 years, the gap had more than doubled to 295 words.

Here is another fun game that develops language skills.

Playing dress up is something toddlers love to do. As you discuss the various clothes with your child, you are developing language and giving your child new vocabulary.

Gather together all kinds of clothing...hats, scarves, shoes, gloves, whatever you think that your toddler would enjoy.

Put one of the hats on your head and say, “How do you do, Mr. (child’s name)?"

Put on a glove and say “Oh, this feels so smooth.”

Encourage you child to pick an article of clothing . Help him with words if he doesn’t have his own.

Soon, a conversation will ensue and the language will flow.

Infant Brain Development

A young child's brain grows at a phenomenal rate in the early years of life opening a window of opportunity for learning that occurs only once in a lifetime.

These simple games will promote early brain development for Infants and toddlers. Activites for toddler brain development will follow in a different post next week, so be sure to tune in!

REMEMBERING – This game helps to develop your baby’s memory.
Place two blocks in front of your baby. The blocks should be totally different in appearance.

Say to your baby, “This is the red block.” as you pick it up. (Describe the block you are picking up)

Take the red block and put it behind your back.

Make sure that your little one is watching where you put the block.

Ask your baby, “Where is the red block?"

He will give you a sign that he knows where it is. Pointing and making sounds are ways that your infant can communicate with you.

Praise him with cheers, claps, oohs and aahs.

Repeat with the second block.

If this is working, you can hide the block in different places. Some ideas are: behind the baby, under a nearby table or chair, or under a blanket or a scarf.

MIRROR GAMES
The neurons for vision begin to form very early. Babies need stimulating visual experiences to help develop their neurons.

Looking into a mirror is great fun and gives your baby another perspective on who he is.

Here are some things that you can do with your baby as you look into a full length mirror.

Smile.
Shake different parts of the body.
Make faces with silly sounds.
Make sounds with your lips.
Make animal sounds.
Rock back and forth.

Nursery Rhymes

Nursery rhymes can play an important part in children’s lives. For many children, nursery rhymes are the first songs and stories that they hear.

I remember as a child learning and singing nursery rhymes at home and at school. Think about the ones that you know and teach them to your children.

Nursery rhymes stimulate memory, improve language skills, develop appreciation for music, enrich vocabulary, phonemic awareness, encourage thinking skills, and develop pre-reading skills….and best of all, they are fun!

LITTLE MISS MUFFET
Little Miss Muffet sat on a tuffet,
Eating her curds and whey;
Along came a spider and sat down beside her
And frightened Miss Muffet away.

This is a lot of fun to role play. You will need a group of children.

The children take turns being Miss Muffet pretending to eat curds and whey. Another child pretends to sneak up behind her as the spider. Students are encouraged to scream a really good "eeek!"

I wrote an additional verse to Miss Muffet. It appears on the Sniggles, Squirrels, and Chickenpox CD and in the I Love Children Songbook.

Little Miss Muffet sat on her tuffet
Eating her curds and whey.
Along came a spider and sat down beside her
And said “what a very nice day.”

WHO AM I?
Using nursery rhymes that your children are familiar with, play this game.

When the subject is identified, everyone says the nursery rhyme together.

Give clues to nursery rhyme characters. For example:
I am a girl.
I have an animal that follows me to school.

Mary Had a Little Lamb
Mary had a little lamb
Its fleece as white as snow.
And everywhere that Mary went
That lamb was sure to go.


It followed her to school one day,
Which was against the rules,
It made the children laugh and play,
To see a lamb at school.

Clue: I am a mouse
I like to run up and down clocks

Hickory, Dickory, Dock
Hickory, dickory, dock,
The mouse ran up the clock.
The clock struck one,
The mouse did run,
Hickory, dickory, dock.

Clue: I am round.
I sat on a wall and fell down.

Humpty Dumpty
Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
All the King's horses and all the King's men,
Couldn't put Humpty together again.

Nursery rhymes will help stimulate your child's memory, improve their language skills and develop their appreciation for music.