Nursery rhymes such as this one supports language development for young children.
What You Need:
What To Do:
- Sit on the floor and stretch your legs out. Hold your infant in your lap, facing you.
- Recite the following nursery rhyme, while using the following movements:
Hickory, Dickory, Dock (bounce child on outstretched legs)
The mouse ran up the clock (raise your knees so your child goes up)
The clock struck one (give a slight bounce)
The mouse ran down (lower your knees so your child goes down)
Hickory, Dickory, Dock (bounce child on outstretched legs)
Adapted from
Active Baby, Healthy Brain
Teach your toddler nursery rhymes with motions that emphasize the simple order of actions, such as ‘fly away,’ then ‘come back,’ as in Two Little Mynah Birds.
What You Need:
What To Do:
- Face your toddler and recite the nursery rhyme, while using the suggested movements:
Two little mynah birds sitting on a hill (show two index fingers in front of you, pointed upward)
One named Jack (move one hand up and down)
The other named Jill (move the other hand up and down)
Fly away Jack (move one hand behind your back
Fly away Jill (move the other hand behind your back)
Come back Jack (return the first hand to the front)
Come back Jill (return the other hand to the front)
Variation: Make two mynah bird stick puppets to use as props, using craft sticks. Glue a drawing or picture of a mynah bird on each stick.
Adapted from the original nursery rhyme
Two Little Blackbirds
As you make this recipe with your child, sing the nursery rhyme, Do You Know the Muffin Man?
Yield: 24 mini muffins
What You Need:
- 1/3 cup butter, softened
- ½ cup sugar
- 2 eggs
- 2 cups flour
- 3 tsp. baking powder
- 1 tsp. salt
- 2/3 cup milk
- 1 cup frozen blueberries
What To Do:
- Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.
- As you make this recipe with your child, sing the nursery rhyme, Do You Know the Muffin Man?
- Together with your child, cream together the butter and sugar in a large mixing bowl.
- Lightly beat the eggs and add it to the creamed butter and sugar mixture.
- Sift together the flour, baking powder, and salt.
- Add the flour mixture to the mixing bowl a little at a time, alternating with the milk.
- Add the blueberries to the bowl and gently fold to combine.
- Fill the muffin cups 2/3 full with the batter.
- Bake for 15 minutes or until the muffin tops are golden and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.
Adapted from The Two Bite Club, Two-Bite Blueberry Muffins
Create storytelling stones to encourage your child to place the pictures in the correct order to retell the nursery rhyme.
What You Need:
- River rocks or smooth flat stones
- Mod Podge (a mixture of glue and water works too if you don’t have Mod Podge)
- Paint brush
- Pictures (the size of the stones) to go along with the nursery rhyme (e.g., a cat and a fiddle, a cow jumping over a moon, a dog laughing, etc.) You can usually find and print them from the internet
What To Do:
- Glue each picture to a stone using the Mod Podge (or watered glue).
- Brush Mod Podge over the pictures to the edge of the stones so it creates a smooth shiny surface. Let it completely dry.
- Have your child use the story stones by lining them up in order to retell Hey Diddle Diddle.
