You will need: two circles of black card, one long and four short pieces of black wool, two white circle stickers, a black pen, craft glue

Tie a knot in one end of your long piece of wool

. . . → Read More: Toddler Halloween craft: Incy Wincy Spider]]>
Here’s a simple Incy Wincy spider craft, great for Halloween or nursery rhyme fun.

You will need: two circles of black card, one long and four short pieces of black wool, two white circle stickers, a black pen, craft glue

Tie a knot in one end of your long piece of wool

Thread the other end of the long piece of wool through the centre of one of your circles of card

Add two sticker eyes and draw on the pupils

Lay the four small pieces of wool  across the other circle and stick in place with lots of glue

Place the other circle of card over the top and your spider craft is done

This craft is easy enough for most toddlers to manage and makes a great Incy Wincy spider to play with or as a prop when you’re singing nursery rhymes. Or you could make lots of them and dangle them from the ceiling for Halloween.

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Three cheeky monkeys swinging the . . . → Read More: Three cheeky monkeys]]>
Make some props and bring your favourite songs to life, like our Three Cheeky Monkeys and Mr. Crocodile puppets.

Using puppets adds fun to your singing, can help focus the attention of a group of children and provides some toys for the children to use afterwards to act out the song.

Three cheeky monkeys swinging the trees,

Teasing Mr. Crocodile, ‘You can’t catch me’.

When along came the crocodile, as quiet as can be and

Snap! went the crocodile and ate one for his tea.

Two cheeky moneys…..

B appeared from no-where yesterday with a crocodile she’d made from some cardboard packaging, sticky tape and green circle stickers and as soon as L saw it she started singing. They added some paper monkeys and hey presto we have some fun props to add to our song bag.

What’s you child’s favourite song?  I bet you could dive into your making box and make  some props to go with it.

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Can’t sing? Tone deaf? Two left feet? Children just don’t care! Whether it’s clapping along to nursery rhymes, banging out a rhythm with a wooden spoon on a saucepan or disco dancing in the kitchen on a dull and dreary day, music and song is a fun and learning activity all children can enjoy.

Come and celebrate . . . → Read More: Carnival of Music and Song]]>

Can’t sing? Tone deaf? Two left feet? Children just don’t care! Whether it’s clapping along to nursery rhymes, banging out a rhythm with a wooden spoon on a saucepan or disco dancing in the kitchen on a dull and dreary day, music and song is a fun and learning activity all children can enjoy.

Come and celebrate all things musical with us and add your post to the Carnival of Music and Song play. How do you enjoy music with your children? Whether you have a new post or one from your archive please share an idea with us as we build up a resource of ideas we can use whenever we need some inspiration.

I’ve shared a vlog about multi-sensory play, showing how L loves to combine song, maths and art all in one, and a post about songbags and how they can be a springboard for lots of singing and language development. I’m looking forward to seeing (and maybe hearing!) your ideas too.

First we took a cardboard box and used some fabric scraps to make a bedsheet, pillows and blanket.

Then we made 10 little people and . . . → Read More: Ten in the bed game]]> You can make maths much more fun if you mix in some songs and imaginary play. Today we’ve been counting backwards and singing ‘Ten in the Bed’.

First we took a cardboard box and used some fabric scraps to make a bedsheet, pillows and blanket.

Then we made 10 little people and numbered them 1 to 10. With a bit of a squash and a squeeze they all fitted in.

Then it was time for some singing – and lots of giggling as Little rolled her people out of bed. We’ve done an alternative version of this using our sofa as a bed and Big’s favourite teddies to make up the numbers. It’s very funny when you’re 3 to make your teds whizz out of bed!

A great book choice to go with this is Ten in the Bedby Penny Dale, which has beautiful illustrations.

And just in case you don’t know the song, there’s a cute pre-school class over on You Tube waiting to sing it to you.

scroll down to take a look

If you’re trying to nurture a new skill in a child I think you should always take your cue from them. Think about what they love and enjoy and use this as the medium to teach the lesson. Little currently adores ducks. She . . . → Read More: Ducks: number line, song vlog, painting]]> ***FEATURING MY FIRST VLOG POST***

scroll down to take a look

If you’re trying to nurture a new skill in a child I think you should always take your cue from them. Think about what they love and enjoy and use this as the medium to teach the lesson. Little currently adores ducks. She got a little yellow duck in a party loot bag which is accompanying her everywhere – and she quite likes ‘being’ a duck herself. She’s also very interested in numbers – a skill which I’m keen for her to practise. Today she wanted to do some painting so, to encourage those numbers, we decided to make a duck number line.

I’ve blogged about number lines before and I think they’re a really useful way to incorporate written numbers into your child’s environment. Ours is strung along the kitchen window – a prominent position so Little is often looking at it. We refer to it most days, for example when we’re counting out spoons to set the table, so we’re gently reinforcing the number progression and linking the physical number of spoons with the written number symbols on the line. Of course, once things have been on display for a while they become a little stale and you walk past without noticing so I like to change the pictures on the number line to keep it interesting for Little. We’ve previously done ladybirds, autumn leaves and Christmas trees.

To make a duck number line: I cut out some duck shapes from pieces of card and Little set about paining them. Let you child be creative here and paint them any colour they like. Little was quite clear that she wanted pink and yellow ducks – so who am I to argue! Holding the paintbrush is good motor skill practice and the mark-making aspect paves the way for later writing. You can see from the vlog that she can’t resist swirling all her paints together – more experimenting.

Once the ducks were dry Little added eyes and numbers using a felt pen. She was determined to write the numbers herself so I encouraged her to have a try – are you impressed with how well she did them? As one reason for making the number line is to have her see the (correct) written form of the numbers I added a small (correct) version of each numeral too – careful not to make Little think that her version was in anyway not good enough.

Children learn in a multi-sensory way and adding other experiences to a lesson re-inforces what you’re teaching – so why not add in some song while you’re painting and counting. Hope you like her rendition of Five Little Ducks Went Swimming One Day!

We’re going to extend the play with ducks by adding them to the bathwater tonight – so Little can enjoy some small-world role play. And tomorrow we’re off to feed the ducks at the local pond – so she can learn about the real world and see some ducks in action.

And just in case you don’t know all the words and would like to sing with your child, the lyrics are here. If you’re not painting, you should hold up the corresponding number of fingers, and swim them off like the little ducks:

5 little ducks went swimming one day,

over the pond and far away,

when mummy duck said ‘quack, quack, quack, quack’

only 4 little ducks came back.

(and so on, until – in a sad voice- …

no little ducks went swimming one day,

over the pond and far away,

when mummy duck said ‘quack, quack, quack, quack’

ALL THE 5 LITTLE DUCKS CAME BACK!

This post is part of the 2010 API Principles of Parenting blog carnival, a series of monthly parenting blog carnivals, hosted by API Speaks. Learn more about attachment parenting by visiting the API website.

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