After my last post on fun songs to use in therapy my coworkers suddenly started remembering songs that they frequently use in therapy so I thought I’d share some more ideas.

If You’re Happy and You Know It

This is a great song because you get to insert your own action.  You could pick skills that you are working on such as: jump up and down, stand on one foot, stand on tip tiptoes, jumping jacks, etc.  I also use it when we are on the ball and I am trying to keep the kiddo from using their hands to stabilize so I will often insert actions like:  clap your hands, reach to the ceiling, touch your ears, touch your head, reach to the sides, wiggle your fingers, touch your shoulders, say hooray (and reaching arms up overhead).

Hokey Pokey

Just by following the words of the song the kiddos get to work on motor planning and balance (and single leg stance for left and right foot).  To spice it up a bit you can have them jump (or hop on one foot) at the end instead of clapping.  You can also use the words ‘Touch the ground, stand back up, touch the ground and shake it all about’ to work on squats.  You could have the kids pretend they are dogs or cats and they can put their ‘paws’ and ‘tails’ in to work on crawling and balance in quadraped.  You can also just change animals for every turn so if they are frogs they hop in and hop out, or butterflies tip toe in and tip toe out.

I’m a Little Tea Pot

This is another fun song to use on the ball.  You can work on postural control while singing the song and then when you get to the ‘tip me over’ part you tip the kiddo backwards so they have to do a sit-up to get back up.

Old MacDonald

Great song for getting repetition of activities in.  If you are using an animal puzzle or play animals it works even better and the kids get to work on animal recognition because they get to select the animal that is on Old MacDonald’s Farm!  Usually we use this type of song for working on things like walking on a balance beam or going up and down the stairs.  Activities where they need lots and lots of repetition for mastery but may not be that exciting to do over and over again.

Winnie the Pooh

I only use the first lines from this song when it says ‘When I up,down,touch the ground it puts me in the mood.  Up, down, touch the ground in the mood for _____‘.  This can be a fun one to get a kiddo ready to do something.  You can have them squat up and down and then change what they are in the mood for.  It could be jumping, walking, running, crawling, spinning, etc.  (You just have to be okay if the rhyming is off!)  And it works even better if you do a big dramatic pause before you give the action!

More of Our Own!

• Mr. Helper (to the tune of Frere Jacques) - Mr. Helper, Mr. Helper, – Hold, Hold, Hold, – Hold, Hold, Hold, – Hold the paper steady, – Hold the paper steady, – Helping hand, Helping hand.  Great Song to use when trying to teach a kiddo to use their secondary hand for stabilization or to ‘help’ with the task.
• This is the Way We Wash Our Hands – I’ve adapted this one to go with gross motor tasks such as This is the way we (climb the stairs, jump around, skip along, stomp our feet, crawl away, run around, cross the bridge [for balance beam walking], bend our knees [squatting], walk on our toes, walk on our heels, etc).  Also lets the kids work on changing tasks because they have to switch what they are doing as the words in the song change!

In the most recent issue of Pediatric Physical Therapy there are three articles regarding autism/autism spectrum disorder and gross motor skills.  I was actually really excited to see this because I sometimes feel that gross motor skills get put on the lower end of the priority scale for kids who are diagnosed with autism, autism spectrum disorder, or PDD-NOS.  Now don’t get me wrong, I understand that there are only so many hours in a day and there are so many areas that you need to prioritize for your child’s development.  Gross motor is easy to overlook especially if they are walking and able to get around independently.

I just thought I would take a moment to highlight some of the benefits of working on gross motor skills with children who are diagnosed on the autistic spectrum.

• Strength and posture – Generally kids with this diagnosis have lower muscle tone.  This low muscle tone can cause them to fatigue quicker, have challenges with postural control, and make learning new tasks more demanding (which can make it harder).  Working on activities to develop core strength and overall muscle strength will help with these challenges which can aid them in paying attention in school because of improved posture, trying out new skills, playing longer with their peers during active play.  In addition, fine motor skills and speech skills can improve as a result of improved strength and muscular endurance as well as opportunities for active play.
• Coordination – Learning new skills can be challenging because of weakness and low muscle tone as mentioned above, however it can also be challenging if it is hard to organize all the pieces that make up a skill.  For example, jumping jacks involve jumping, arm movements, leg movements and timing/rhythm.  Just one of these components may be challenging so being able to practice breaking down the pieces of the task and then as they master the pieces putting them back together for the whole motion can help your child to achieve the skill in a more timely manner and with less frustration.
• Social skills – I have worked with several kiddos who are diagnosed as being on the autistic spectrum and concerns with families are often around their ability to interact with their peers and play.  Because learning new skills may be challenging that can make it harder to keep up with peers as they continually evolve their play and gross motor skills.  For example, jumping is a skill that kids love to do when they figure it out.  If your kiddo is having trouble jumping they may be missing out on valuable opportunities to relate to their peers in a play based way.  Same with bike riding or even being able to participate in PE or recess.
• Sensory – Depending on your child’s sensory needs, adding in gross motor play will allow your child the opportunity to get a variety of sensory experiences such as proprioceptive feedback to their joints (which can also help to keep low tone muscles ‘awake’), vestibular input to their inner ear from moving up, down and around, as well as tactile input from the various surfaces they may come in contact with during play.  Let’s Play and Get Messy! touches on some of the sensory aspects of play.

I am definitely not writing this to tell you to add one more thing onto your already busy and probably completely scheduled days, but just to help you look for opportunities to add gross motor practice into your day.  If your child is working with other professionals you can ask them to include some gross motor into their activities.  Or maybe find out from their teacher what their peers are doing on the playground or in PE so you can have ideas for active play in your household

Ever since I discovered Pinterest I have been bombarding my OT’s at work with ideas that look really fun and purposeful.  The idea I was the most excited about was the marble painting from Play Based Learning, so when one of the OT’s decided to try out this activity for a kiddo to encourage bilateral hand use because he doesn’t like to use 2 hands I was so excited to hear about it and see the final result!  Luckily it was a success as you can see from his finished art work.  And, even better the OT was able to realize other great skills this activity provided the opportunity to practice.  I thought I would share them:

• It worked on visual motor because he was tracking the marble as he moved it about the paper
• It worked on his ability to use a utensil because he was so excited to spoon the marble out of the paint onto the paper that he was actually willing to use a spoon – something that was not the norm
• It worked on grading movement because if he moved the bin to fast or made too large a movement the marble came flying out
• It also worked on variable movement because the tendency was for the child to want to move the box back and forth in one directional plane but then all he would get is a line on his paper.  This activity allowed them to work on diagonal and horizontal and vertical and circular motions to name a few.

Overall though, the best part was that the kiddo loved doing the activity and couldn’t wait to show his parents and didn’t want to let go of the project once it was complete!

After the completion of our first group class I shared some of our ideas in ‘Kids Games:  New Twists on Old Favorites‘.  Well, we’ve now started another group class with a focus on sports, ball play, gross motor skills and social interaction.  Since we have a bit more diversity of abilities in this group so we had to get creative again on adapting games to maximize everyone’s participation and skills practice.  Here are some of the ideas we came up with:

Mother May I

We start with one of the adults being ‘mother’ but then we make sure each child gets to take a turn as well.  We aren’t attempting to have them race across to see who gets there first, we are more focused on their gross motor skills and peer interactions.  The kiddo whose turn it is gets to ask to move across the floor.  Instead of saying ‘mother’ they say the person’s actual name.  We had the kids use hopping, jumping, skipping, galloping, tip toe walking, backwards walking, bear walking, crab walking, somersaulting (forward rolling) and crawling to name a few.  We were pretty amazed at the requests they came up with themselves without our prompting!  The kiddo who was playing ‘mother’ responded back ‘yes (kids name) you may!’  They had a blast checking out the different ways to get across the room as well as loving the fact that they got to request what they were doing.

T-Ball

We set up a t-ball stand and got a large bat and a foam ball and had the kids try to hit the ball.  This was great practice for crossing midline, using two hands, hand eye coordination, trunk rotation and standing balance.  Once they hit the ball they got to ‘run’ around the bases.  Of course we mixed it up so that each time they were up they had to use a different method to get around the bases (similar to the ideas mentioned in Mother May I).  While they were going the other kids got to cheer for them and then when they made it back to home plate they each gave the runner a high five!

Bear Hunt

This is a favorite amongst the kids for some reason.  They request it every single time!  We basically recreate the parts of the song by putting actions in.  Here are the lyrics and actions we have used (but there are lots of options for lyrics so pick and choose the ones you like best)

We march in place for the ‘going on the bear hunt’ line.   For the wheat field we do more marching and attempt to walk over the crash pad.  At the tree we climb up our stairs and jump into the ball pit.  At the cave we crawl through a tunnel.  For the bridge we walk across a balance beam. And, for the river we crawl back across the crash pad.  The kids especially love when you go back through everything really fast again!

Statue Dancing

We kind of made this one up ourselves by combining two different games.  We took freeze dancing where the kids get to dance around and then freeze when the music turns off and combined it with a different version that has the kids fall down when the music turns off.  So what we do is have the kids freeze when the music shuts off and then they all have to count to 3 and then blow each other over so they all fall down.  Then they stand up and start over when the music starts again.  I couldn’t believe how much they laughed throughout the entire song.  They couldn’t wait until they got to fall over!  Its been great on working on body awareness and where other people are around you in addition to helping with practicing floor to stand transitions!

With the rainy season beginning to hit us I was inspired to pull out my kid persona and go play in the rain (or the puddles)!  You’d be amazed at how motivated kids get to go in a puddle.  As long as the parents are okay with us going outside and we have the proper gear puddles are fun.

For some of my kids who are working on bike riding I use a little reverse psychology and tell them ‘Whatever you do, don’t get my bike wet’.  They immediately head toward the puddle.  This is really fun for a kiddo who uses an adapted tricycle and we are working on continuous motion such as pedaling.  It amazing how many times he can pedal in a row without stopping when he’s heading toward the puddle.  We actually finish our bike ride in almost 1/2 the time because there’s so much motivation and tons of puddles.

You can also work on jumping skills!

• jumping forward into the puddles
• jumping over the puddles
• jump up and down multiple times in a row in the puddle
• hop on one foot through the puddle
• do spinning jumps in the puddle (see who can make it all the way back facing forward in just one jump)
• leap from puddle to puddle to practice push off and spring

Stomping skills are great too!

• stomp in the puddle to see who makes the biggest splash (to work on putting your foot down with force)
• works on single leg stance if you have them pause for a count of (however long you want) before they get to try to splash you with their stomp
• works on foot clearance and hip flexion by exaggerating the lift up in order to get a bigger splash (you can experiment with if splashes are bigger if the foot starts higher or lower in the air)

Balance skills with puddles are a hit too!

• get out some stepping stones or stepping stools and create a path for the kiddo to walk over so they don’t fall into the puddle
• you can put a string across the puddle and pretend it is a tightrope so they don’t fall into the lake below
• or bring out a 2×4 and make a bridge across the lake

Some other ideas are:

• racing to see who can get to the puddle first (using running, skipping, galloping, etc)
• tip toe through the puddle trying not to splash
• try to step over the puddle without stepping in it to work on step length

What are your ideas for rainy day PT and puddle fun?

One of our OT’s adapted this animal book into an OT activity for her kids.  She took the book and photocopied and laminated each page and then added velcro to them so they would match up.  Just to warn you it makes the book much harder to close once all of the pictures are in there so you may want to store them in a separate bag to help preserve the life of the book.  When I asked our OT what she used the book for she quickly listed off the following reasons:

• bilateral skills to stabilize the book with a helper hand and try to take the picture on or off
• hand and upper extremity strengthening for the kids that have a hard time separating the velcro pieces
• visual perception/processing for matching the correct pictures to each other

I am sure there are other great uses as well from an OT standpoint but I wanted to figure out a way to work it into my session!

Obviously I could use it like a toy with multiple pieces and have them repeat whatever task I am having them do while they get each animal picture to put back in the book.  I decided to use it for an animal walk and imagination game.  I took out all of the pictures and turned them upside down on the carpet.  The little girl had to pick one and then she had to go around the room doing her best imitation of that animal.  I’ll tell you we had to get creative for some animals.  We collectively decided that the guinea pig liked to roll around like a roly poly and that fish slithered along the ground (we were pretending to swim).  It was a great way for her to work on motor planning, strengthening and her imagination!

Although I’m not a speech therapist I would imagine that you could use this tool for encouraging sounds (since we had to make the noise of each animal as well) and for matching, site words and picture identification.  I would also love to make it into a memory game so that whatever page the book opened to you had to try to remember where that card was in the rows of turned over cards!

What every day items have you adapted into a game or tool that serves multiple purposes?

Relay races or even just relays are really fun ideas that can work on gross and fine motor skills as well as teamwork, cooperation and social skills.  All this while the kids are active and playing!  Depending on the skill level of the kids involved you may need to modify these but they can be used for groups of kids or for one kid at a time (that’s the beauty of using a timer – they get to ‘race’ against the clock).

Egg and Spoon Race – You can use a typical plastic or metal teaspoon with a plastic egg filled with beans or sand. Or, for younger kids or kids who need a little more help with their stability or balance you could use a bean bag with a plastic serving spoon (the large ones).  You can keep it simple by having the kiddo walk straight across without having the egg fall off the spoon or you can have them weave in and out of cones or walk backwards or sideways.  You could also play pass the spoon down the row if you have a bunch of kids!  If you have a scooter or rolling chair you could incorporate hamstring strengthening by having the child sit on the scooter/chair and use their legs to ‘walk’ themselves to the other side or you could get some teamwork going and have another kiddo push the one on the scooter/chair.  All this without letting the egg fall off the spoon!

Three Legged Race – You can get some bandanas or use thera-band or any material that you can tie two legs together.  The kids have to work together to get from one side to the other.  You can make it more challenging by having them have to hold something or bend down and pick up things from the ground as they cross.  One kid can hold the container while the other kiddo picks the item (i.e. bean bag or smaller if you are working on fine motor skills) up and places it in the bag/container.  Talk about teamwork and balance skills!  If its just one kid you are working with you can partner up with them or get a sibling involved!

Potato Sack Race – This one can be done with store bought potato sacks or with oversize pillow cases or actual potato sacks.  Have the child get in and hop across to the other side.  If they are much higher level have them hop on one foot over and the other foot back.  For kiddos still developing jumping skills you can give them some hand hold assist while they hop their way across to the other side.

Over and Under – A great activity for teamwork and sequencing as well as balance and coordination.  Get a line of kids all facing forward (using a tape line for them to stand on or individual spots may help with the chaos that could ensue).  Give the first child a ball or a bean bag (or a water balloon if you are outside and its summer time) and have them reach over head to hand it to the person behind them.  Once that kiddo has the ball then they pass it between their legs to the child behind them.  The kids take turns alternating over and under until it reaches the end of the line and then they reverse it to get the ball back to the first person.

Magic Hat Race – You can put a bunch of options into a ‘magic hat’ and then draw out a piece of paper to see what they are going to do for that turn.  Some options are:  running, hopping, skipping, walking backwards, twirling, walking on tiptoes, crawling, bear walking, crab walking, etc.  You could do this as many times as you want and get in lots of practice for skills.  Its also interesting for kiddos who have difficulties with motor planning and coordination to see how they do when they feel like they need to move faster.  It will give you an idea of what skills you still need to practice at slower speeds or by breaking them down into components.

Wheelbarrow - This is really fun when its two kids working together but even if its you and a kid its a great way to work on core and upper extremity strengthening.  Depending on the strength of the child you may need to get on your knees because the higher you hold their legs the harder it can be for them.  Same with holding them by the hips or all the way out by the feet (hips is easier than feet).

Tightrope Walk – Put a piece of tape along the ground and have the kids pretend they are walking on a tight rope and if they ‘fall’ off they have to start over.  You can have them do it taking giant steps, baby steps, on their tip toes, sideways or even backwards to mix it up.

Logroll – Kids lie on the ground and roll from one side to the other.  Its amazing to see if they can stay on track.  If you have more than one kiddo have them lie down head to head and hold hands and try to roll together across the room without letting go of each others hands.  I highly recommend you try it with the kiddos too – its lots of fun!

What ideas do you have or have you used??

I tend to be guilty of thinking of abs and core as being synonymous.  So I often have to remind myself that there is a lot more to the core than just those abdominal muscles that I’m personally awful about exercising (I definitely hate doing ab work).

So what is the core if its not just abs?

Your core pretty much encompasses from your neck to your hips.  This means it includes front, back and sides of your mid section.  It includes your shoulder and shoulder blade muscles.  It includes your gluts and other hip muscles.  Basically your core is the foundation that the rest of your movement occurs off of.  Think of it as the cornerstone of your body.

When kids work on their core aren’t trying to develop a six pack but rather improve the endurance and coordination of the muscles that fall within the core.  You don’t just want your child’s core to turn on when they want to do a sit up or a side bend, you want them to turn on so that your child can sit up straight throughout the day while they try to learn in school.  You want their core to work while they are trying to play or to eat.  If their core is strong they have better use of their hands and arms for fine motor skills and better use of their feet and legs for gross motor skills.

So, when working on core muscles, its not just about overall strength, its about their ability to stay turned on for long periods of time (endurance) or their ability to cooperate with the other muscles around them (coordination) as well as their ability to react to what is happening in a split second (help maintain balance/upright position).

Working on the individual muscle strength is important so don’t get rid of those sit ups or trunk extensions but its important to make sure you are working the core as a whole.

How you may ask?  Well here are some ideas:

• Using a ball or core work is fun for the child and can work on the muscles activating together  and reacting quickly, as well as keeping them turned on for longer periods of time to build their endurance.  There are a lot of resources out there for ball work ideas and here are two, ‘Having a Ball with Core Muscles Strength‘, and ‘Therapy Ball Exercise Ideas‘
• Having kids perform a plank and some variations are great ideas also – you can have them turn on their right or left side for a plank or face down.
• Animal walking is a great way to develop dynamic cores strength as well as make it fun and work on kids imaginations!
• Wheelbarrow walking
• Climbing is a great way to also work on core muscles strength.  Anything from a climbing wall to a ladder to a climbing net to crawling up and stairs.  The more dynamic the surface (such as a net) the more challenge your core will get.  It also involves the hips and shoulders.  If your child needs lots of help then start with something really stable like crawling up stairs (also a great way to develop hip and glut strength).
• The sit-n-spin is also a fun way to work on the trunk while having fun!
• Here are some other fun suggestions for core exercises

I also mentioned that your core involves shoulders and hips.  This is important to remember because if your child doesn’t have muscles that can stabilize their shoulder blade it makes using their arms a lot harder.  Can you imagine trying to form your letters correctly when handwriting if your shoulder area wasn’t strong?  Any of the exercises that are listed above that involve weight bearing through the hands and arms will work on shoulder girdle stability such as:  wheelbarrow walking, crawling, bear walking, push ups, and plank.  In addition here are some other gross motor ideas that can strengthen the core and have a direct effect on handwriting and fine motor skills.  Another idea is to have the kiddo use some thera-band and try to pull you up by pulling on the thera-band and pulling their arms back.  They think its hysterical that you are ‘stuck’ and need help!

Lastly, a lot of times when I am working on posture with a kiddo or having them sit on a ball they tend to slouch from their shoulders all the way to their hips.  There can be a few reasons for this such as weakness or tight hamstrings but the reason I want to look at is challenges with coordinating the trunk muscles so that they can tilt their pelvis forward and get that nice straight posture that helps with learning and attention.  If you spend just a little bit of time working on this with kids they start to pick it up pretty quickly.  If it gets overlooked, it can contribute to tight hamstrings and ongoing poor posture that is harder to correct as they get older.

What I generally do to teach coordination of the trunk muscles for an anterior pelvic tilt is I work on reaching with the kiddo.  The easiest is to have the child sitting on a firm surface (or even a slightly downhill surface) on the floor or a chair.  If you have two people its even easier.  Find things they want to reach for whether its toys or an ipad app and hold it in front and above them.  If you stabilize their hips while they are reaching (with both hands) and give them some cues at their low back they will start to tilt their pelvis forward while reaching.  Its important for them to reach using both hands in the beginning while they are working on getting the coordination of their flexors and extensors so that they stay symmetrical.  Also watch for if they keep their chin tucked or if they really extend their head and neck to try to stabilize.  I usually remind them to put their chin down and use their eyes to look up.  Once they get the coordination down you can start to challenge them by having them reach off to one side or add a dynamic surface such as a therapy ball, disc or peanut.

What are other ideas you use for core muscle control and upright posture?

This is a continuation of Motor Tips for Parents – Part 1 where I try to summarize the answers to questions and pointers I’ve given to my friends who have become parents in recent years.

1. Less Equipment, More Floor Time – I know its a challenge in this day and age to avoid the plethora of equipment that is available for kids and babies because they make parents lives easier and can keep kids contained and occupied.  However, this limits their chances for movement, sensory and environmental exploration.  Equipment such as exersaucers and bumbo chairs, while not bad when used in moderation or for therapeutic purposes with kiddos who need extra support, can get in the way of movement development if used excessively.  Kids benefit from practicing figuring out sitting and standing through trial and error, not to mention they develop their motor planning by figuring out what works and what doesn’t work as they not only try to maintain sitting and standing but also work to get into those positions.  By just putting your kiddos in bumbo chairs and exersaucers all day long (okay exaggeration there to help my point) they are getting extra stability and support that they wouldn’t normally have when trying to explore the motion on their own.  Now I’m not saying don’t use equipment but be aware of how much time your child gets for floor time.
2. Practice, Repetition, Consistency – A lot of times parents, or my friends have questions about how to teach their child a new skill.  Obviously depending on the skill there are going to be different techniques involved but a big factor is that to master a new skill kids (and adults) need lots of practice, repetition and consistency.  If you want your child to learn how to get off the couch without diving head first then every time you get them off the couch help them to turn around and go down feet first (it even helps if you add a consistent phrase to the activity).  If you pick them up and set them down on the floor every time it doesn’t give them any frame of reference.  Same for a kiddo learning to sit up on their own.  If they are lying down and you want to get them into sitting, help them move through the motions of getting into sitting rather than picking them up and placing them in a nice sitting position.  In the beginning you will probably have to help them a lot but they will start to get the hang of it and figure it out on their own.  Feel free to apply this concept to almost any skill your child is working to develop!

The Pirate Song

This new favorite song of ours.  One of my coworkers started using it and we have all picked it up.  Its great for ball or balance board work.  Its especially great if you add a dramatic pause after the line ‘the captain said to me…’ because the kids love the anticipation of what comes next and it usually results in a great giggle!  I love it because I can switch it up.  I can move the child slowly on the ball during parts of the songs, I can hold them for slightly longer so they have to work on various trunk muscles, and then I can speed it up when it comes to ‘We’ll go this way and that way and forwards and backwards’.  I mean the song helps you out with trunk control right in the verse!  I usually add in some bouncing too.  Its great for the kids to come up with items that rhyme with the numbers and to pick up the vocals at different parts.  Definitely 2 thumbs up for this song from us and our kiddos!

The Ants Go Marching

This is a great one for working on walking or crawling or knee walking or wheelbarrow walking.  I loved it when I used to do treadmill training with the kiddos.  I don’t have access to a treadmill anymore but I still use it when I am gait training a kiddo using an assistive device or where I have to manually help them.  It provides a nice steady rhythm to go with walking and it engages the kiddos while they work on a harder skill.  I also use this for ball work as well because the kids love to bounce during the ‘boom, boom, boom’ part!

The Wheels on the Bus

This is a classic favorite.  Depending on what I am doing or how long I want the activity to last I add in my own verses.  I’ll share a few of mine but feel free to make up your own.  I was trying to keep a kiddo entertained and she loves Disney characters so while we were slowly commando crawling across the floor I pulled every Disney character out of my memory and added them as riders onto the bus.  Let your creativity and imagination run wild and I bet your kiddos will love it!  See who they come up with too, you might be surprised!

• The parrot on the bus says ‘Polly want a cracker’
• The pirate on the bus says ‘walk the plank’
• The baker on the bus says ‘have some cake’
• The genie on the bus says ‘your wish is my command’
• The butterfly on the bus says ‘flutter, flutter, flutter’
• The Winnie the Pooh on the bus says ‘where’s my hunny’
• The ballerina on the bus says ‘twirl, twirl, twirl’
• The Dorothy on the bus says ‘there’s no place like home’
• Use animals too and have them make whatever sound you usually have them make

Ok, I think you get the idea.  We’ve also adapted it for bike riding so it can be the wheels on the bike.  This way the feet can ‘pedal, pedal, pedal’ and the hand can ‘steer, steer, steer’.  Hope you enjoy the adaptations as much as we do!

Ten Little Monkeys

Another favorite that can be used for gross motor play or for ball work again.  It can be used while working on jumping on the trampoline or across the floor.  My favorite line is the last one when there are no monkeys jumping on the bed and when mom calls the doctor the doctor says ‘put those monkeys back in bed’! (see Kids Games – New Twists on Old Favorites for a gross motor idea for this song)

Where is Thumbkin

We use this one on the ball to keep a kiddos hands occupied with a task or just sitting down and working on posture or from a fine motor standpoint, working on finger isolation or imitation.  Its a fun one!

Creating My Own Version

I have a kiddo who I work with whose mom is amazing at coming up with lyrics to well known tunes or just making up her own tune.  Her child responds really well to songs and will do any activity if there is a song to it.  Well I have been able to practice a bit with this and I’m not nearly as talented as her but I’m getting better with practice (well at least the kiddos don’t mind my attempts, my coworkers continue to giggle at me)!  Here are a few that I have added in to work on the skills we are doing (I will try to keep it to tunes that are already in existance):

• Five Little Ducks – We are working on climbing a climbing net and to get multiple repetitions involved we are putting bean bag animals at the top for the kiddo to rescue.  On the way up we use the words: ‘5 little friends went out to play, up the net and far away, (kiddo’s name) said ‘hey where are you?  I’m coming to rescue you’, up the net he went to them, left foot right foot and two hands.‘  (If it takes him longer than this to get to the top I have to get creative so it changes on a weekly basis)  On the way down we sing: ‘down the net he went once more, left foot right foot to the floor, over and over he climbed back down, until his feet were on the ground.‘ (same deal for if it takes him longer).  We then repeat with one less friend for the next time.
• Farmer in the Dell – Ok, I had to get really creative on this one because we were working on standing from the ground using a half kneel (not something any kid really wants to practice over and over).  Since I was using a farm puzzle to help with the repetions, I adapted Farmer in the Dell to the following words: ‘There’s a (kiddo’s name) on the ground, there’s a (name) on the ground, hi ho the dairy oh, there’s a (name) on the ground.’  Next verses I will just give the first line, hopefully you get the idea: ‘(name) takes a sheep (or whatever animal piece you want them to pick up)‘ next verse ‘There’s a (name) on his knees‘ next verse ‘And, (name) stands up‘.  Hopefully you could follow that, believe me I’m a novice at this song writing stuff!

I’d love to hear any of your favorite songs to use.  I generally use any song that has lots of verses from the pre-existing kids songs but I also would love to hear any creative adaptations!