Fun and games are what appeals toddlers. It is a pleasure to watch kids responding to gibberish and nonsensical words as they get excited with the gestures and facial expressions. If you want a cranky child to calm down, try the trick of reciting a funny rhyme. Actions and enactments are part of the game and it will soon be mimicked. This also helps them understand feelings, use of things and other routine goings-on. Music is essential stimulation to all of us. Kids enjoy the fun element and the rhyming songs.
Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall’ and had a fall is still met with equal enthusiasm with the kids. Try ‘Five little monkeys jumping on the bed’ for a change. These rhymes can happen in your living room, garden or at any picnics. Fun assures excitement and the children will be kept interested. Entertainment value is the key in all the rhymes. If we were to teach the child to towel oneself or wipe oneself after a bath, it sure would be a task. Try the poem ‘After a bath I try, try, try to wipe myself till I am dry dry dry’. The try-dry rhyme is catchy for them and the understand the importance of drying after a bath. There stems the first sign of independence.
Funny rhymes are not possible without mimicking and silly facial expressions. Let down all your inhibitions and become a kid when you recite these funny rhymes. You could hop like a frog when you recite, ‘four little speckled frogs’ and indulge in a ‘Ribbit Ribbit’ to keep the children in splits. Fruit salad poem ends with shaking the tummy all around and this is surely liked by all. ‘Open shut them, give them a little clap’ is another poem where we alternate the pitch from high to low and whispers to loud chanting. This stimulates the kids as they have extremely sensitive hearing capacity. ‘The elephant does like this and like that’ is another poem where one can go overboard by walking and stopping like an elephant. Use your one hand and hold your ear across to give the impression of a long trunk. Fun is assured and patronage too.
Clapping hands and singing aloud is also part of the game. One can go for the ‘Hurray it’s a holiday song’ or ‘Macarena’ for a elaborate rehearsed dance. ‘Bingo’ is another modern version where participation is the key element. If certain kids are not extroverts, funny rhymes are the best way to break the ice. Show them pictures related to such rhymes or include a puppet show.
‘The dog says bow wow, the pig say oink oink’ will be met with loud laughter and thrills. ‘Hop a little, jump a little, one two three, run a little skip a little tap one knee’. In this rhyme the kids hop, skip, jump, tap, nod their head and also learn the meaning of yawn and sleep. Make sure to make loud noises of yawning and snoring during the word sleep. Ideally its best if the teacher has a helper who does the background score and interesting sounds to beat the mundane repetition.
If the kids are giving it tough this time, then just around in a circle or helter skelter and sing ‘Old Mac Donald’, the kids love the quacking, braying, meowing and giggles reverberate the room.
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