Rhymes, Finger Plays, & Songs
Research shows a strong correlation between early knowledge of nursery rhymes, songs, and finger plays and a child's success in reading and spelling. Finger plays also increase fine motor skills.
Movements and Ideas:
• Make actions simple
• Make activities interesting - sing or talk in big and little voice, faster and slower, softer and louder, add instruments
• Stop songs in the middle to repeat a hard line or action, talk about the meaning, or for whatever reason necessary to help the child learn it
• Take the nursery rhymes, finger plays, and songs very slowly at first and wait for the child to do the action before moving on
• Stop on rhyming words and have the child fill in word
• Count the number of times a word is in a song, rhyme, or finger play
• Sing throughout the day - just because the child is not singing out loud with you does not mean they are not singing in their head
Music is very important for children:
• Praise to God
• An easy way to learn memory verses
• God uses it to speak to us and remind us of how we should live and treat others
• Kids singing in public are a testimony to others
Singing Tips:
• The goal is for the songs to be memorable, repetitive, relevant, contain movement, and fun
• Help the child understand what they are singing about
• Make sure the child uses his or her pretty voice to sing - yelling is not singing
