Dear Parents,
Next week ends our summer session at Treehouse so I wanted to summarize what we have been doing in the infant and toddler rooms. It has been very fun for me to have some real concentrated time with these younger children.
In the infant room we have focused on nursery rhymes, finger plays, songs with hand motions, steady beat with rhythm instruments, animal sounds and movement. The favorite nursery rhymes included: Hickory Dickory Dock, Hey Diddle Diddle, This Little Piggy Went to Market, Wee Willie Winkie, Baa, Baa Black Sheep and Jack an Jill. The finger plays included: Whoops, Johnny, Five Little Birds, This is My Ball, and Here is a Bunny. The hand motion songs included: Pat-a-cake, Twinkle, Twinkle, The More We Get Together, and Itsy Bitsy Spider. Several times I brought my guitar in to accompany these songs. Many of the children became very fond of the guitar.
For steady beat we used our Hello Song, Tap With Me, Clap, Clap Clap, Do As I’m Doing, She’ll Be Comin’ Round the Mountain, and Yankee Doodle. The steady beat songs used the drum, shaker eggs, jiggle bells, rhythm sticks or hand patting to follow the steady beat.
Our animal sounds included: Hen, rooster, duckling, sheep, goat, horse, donkey, and cow which we looked at with pictures. Then we listened to the raccoon, red fox, beaver, porcupine, skunk, hedgehog, quail, chipmunk, and squirrel for which I used puppets.
For movement activities we used scarves. Some of the movement songs included: Hush Little Baby, Did You Ever See a Lassie, Sing-a-ling-a-ling, and Ping Pong Samba.
In the toddler rooms we started each day singing songs of their choice. In addition to the songs listed above for the infant room they often selected Row, Row, Row Your Boat, The Wheels on the Bus, ABC Song, and Mary Had a Little Lamb. These children were quite insistent I bring my guitar and it is very exciting for them to sing to the accompaniment. The animal sounds with the puppets have been especially popular. This group of children did the same movement songs as above but also really enjoyed the train sounds and song and See How I’m Jumping. Aspen enjoyed being able to make up new songs to an existing tune.
This has been a great summer. I hope you all have enjoyed a slightly slower pace, some real quality family time, and maybe even some special travel or activities. Hope to see you all back in the fall.
Ms Kathleen