Barnyard Dance and Backyard Crabwalk

Grab Your Partner…

“Stomp your feet! Clap your hands! Everybody ready for a barnyard dance?” The bouncy rhythm of Sandra Boynton’s Barnyard Dance is nearly impossible to read without dancing right along with it! T discovered clapping this weekend, which is an amusement in itself, but it prompted me to fish out Barnyard Dance from our board book bin in the living room. B loved listening to this one as an infant too, I think especially because I couldn’t help bouncing him in my lap and acting out some of the movements with his little hands. The book is not so much a story as a narration of a silly square dance caller in a barnyard full of animals where pigs twirl, ducks strut, and everybody promenades!

Physical Fun

All the action in Barnyard Dance lends itself to great physical development for your little one! Infants will love the rhythm, and by six months or so will likely bounce along on their own. “Helping” them with the movements as I did with T’s hands (and B’s before him) may help children learn about their muscle movements and the control of their limbs. Toddlers and preschoolers can practice both large muscle coordination and language processing if you read the book as directions for them to follow and complete the dance for you. B loved this activity, which prompted me to come up with a new game (see below).

If you don’t already have a shelf of Boynton books like I do, you might check out this pack from Amazon. It’s a good deal for a lot of fun!

Appropriate for babies, toddlers, preschoolers.

Roll the Dice…

 B had so much fun acting out the dance movements as I read to T that I decided to turn it into a game we could play beyond the book. Together, we came up with 6 movements he could do and 6 locations in our backyard. Our choices for actions were crabwalk, run, spin, flap, hop, and waddle. Our locations choices were sandbox, swing, gate, garden, playhouse, and basketball net. (You could just as easily make these locations in your house for a rainy day, or the classroom, or a park, etc.) I used a Dice Template from Sparkle Plus resources and cardstock, but he enjoyed this so much I may make a more durable version using foam cubes from the craft store or some other cube shaped object destined for the recycle bin. I made one cube for action and one cube for location. Complete directions for the dice are below. Once I completed the dice, we took them outside to play. We had a blast being silly, and we both got our hearts pumping! I can also see this game keeping B busy while I fix dinner or get a little clean-up done around the house by modifying the location cube for indoors (Most of our chores would allow for occasional breaks to roll the dice, right?)

How to Create the Game:
Materials Needed: Sparkle Plus dice template, cardstock or heavy paper, scissors, pen/marker, glue or tape.

1. Print the template on plain paper for tracing (what I did) or directly onto your cardstock.
2. Trace the template onto at least two pieces of cardstock (expansions are endless!)
3. Cut out each traced template.
4. On the first template, write and/or draw an action on each surface. I chose to write the actions accompanied by simple drawings to help my pre-reader.
5. On the second template, write and/or draw a location on each surface. Note: be careful to keep your pictures and labels from flowing onto the flaps which will be folded in during assembly.
6. Fold in flaps and edges of each of the cube surfaces (a straight edge is helpful if your paper is really stiff).
7. Glue or tape flaps to secure.
8. Go Play!

Options and Benefits:

If you wanted to avoid the crafty part of this game, or if you were working on number recognition, you could play the game with a pair of standard dice and a numbered list of actions and locations. Then your child would count the dots on the die and match them to the corresponding numeral before completing the action. This game can contribute to physical development much like Barnyard Dance noted above. Children practice large muscle movements for the various actions as well as language processing. Depending on how you prepare your materials, they can also practice word/picture correspondence or numerals.

The Game in Action:

Give it a try and let me know how it goes! If you think of some other fun actions to add to your dice, please share! I can see this game growing and growing!

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No Replacements Here: Mother, Mother, I Want Another

A Misleading Title:

The title of Mother, Mother I Want Another by Maria Polushkin Robbins made me think of some of my more exasperated moments with B: when he wants another drink of water before bed, or another cookie after the first four, or another game of hide and seek when I’ve found him behind the armchair five times already. I could not have been more wrong. This book gets its humor from an exasperated Mother Mouse who misunderstands her baby’s request.

A Mislead Mouse:

Mother Mouse tucks baby mouse into bed with his goodnight kiss, and he says, “Mother, Mother I want another!” Poor Mother Mouse thinks he has requested another mother instead of her, and goes about finding other animal mothers who come to her aid with an amusing assortment of lullabies. I made up a little tune to sing the lullabies to, but was even more tickled when B asked Grandma to read it one day, and she not only had a tune, but animal voices to go with it!

Mystery Solved:

After a parade of mothers, a tired baby mouse gets fed up and explains that what he wants is another KISS! Ah, poor Mother Mouse went to all that trouble… but who can deny their baby another kiss? So he gets kisses from Mother Mouse and all the other animal mothers too. Such a feel-good ending to the story – and I can’t help but pile the kisses on in the style of each of the mothers! This photo is me stealing some kisses from T.

Your Social Sprout:

Besides being a heart-warmer, Mother, Mother I Want Another may help support your child’s social-emotional development as you discuss whether each of the animal mothers could really be baby mouse’s mother, or whether he would even really want another mother. While the youngest infants recognize their mother’s scent, it is between 6 and 12 months that babies develop that social-emotional attachment to mom that makes it hard for us to even leave the room. I love the warm and humorous way this book shows how all of the animal mothers help care for the baby.

For a similar whose-is-whose discussion, I also love Is Your Mama a Llama? by Deborah Guarino. More animal mamas populate this humor-filled rhyming book.

Appropriate for toddlers-primary grades.

Happy Mother’s Day to any of my mom readers! I'm linking up with Feed Me Books Friday at the Adventure of Motherhood. I try to celebrate each Mother’s Day with a new book about moms, mothers, mamas, or mommies to share with my boys. Any suggestions?

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Beyond Bedtime: Make Your Travel Plans with Good Night America

From a Classic Bedtime Story:

Goodnight Moon became a trusted bedtime friend early in B’s infancy. As his language skills improved, he began to chime in or fill in the blanks as I read - an indicator of the success of the repetition, rhythm, and rhyme of the story. Admittedly, I found it a little odd to wish the comb, brush, and bowl full of mush a goodnight, but there is something quite lulling in the cadence of the book, and the final lines are especially soothing and peaceful: “Goodnight stars, goodnight air. Goodnight noises, everywhere.”

 

To an Up-to-Date Exploration Book Series:

Our comfort with Goodnight Moon contributed to the interest piqued in Adam Gamble’s Good Night World series. I purchased Good Night America first, and have since added Good Night California, Good Night Hawaii, Good Night World, Good Night Beach, and Good Night Zoo to our collection. Soothing cadences of rhythm and rhyme they are not, but they are reading treasures nonetheless.

One page reads, “Greetings, Everglades, home to alligators and so many other creatures.” (Good Night America) The structure of the text is appropriate for toddlers, but parents and caregivers will find themselves surprised by the complexity of the vocabulary introduced in a board book. Sometimes the word introduced is a proper noun, like Everglades, giving you the opportunity to discuss this person or place. Perhaps you already have some experience with it or maybe you’ll consider including it in your next family vacation.


 Travel Plans:
We have hopes to share some of the features of the book with B and T, like the Everglades, Grand Canyon, and California Redwoods. B is old enough to be curious about where these things are, and he can make the connection that the pictures in the books show something real. Reading about those elements we are familiar with invites discussion of our experiences and memories. Good Night America also features a desert, a beach, and a big city: places we can relate to our travels. B is pictured here with his papa admiring the “bright city lights” of Las Vegas.

The Sprout Connection:
Children learn what they are exposed to – this vocabulary is not too difficult provided it is supported by an adult reader who doesn’t rush through cover to cover. B has learned to recite several of this series along with us – challenging vocabulary and all. The key to making this an opportunity for growth and meaning is not just teaching your child to recite the words, but to enrich her vocabulary and her knowledge of the world around her through reading, illustration, and discussion. And if you have the opportunity to support the reading experience with a real-life field trip, that knowledge will be further deepened.


Your Developing Child:
The opportunities for cognitive development are many with this series – as I mentioned, the vocabulary affords many learning opportunities. What I love most though, is the opportunity to connect the books to reality, whether that’s on a family vacation or a visit to a local zoo. Differentiating between fantasy and reality is a cognitive skill acquired during the preschool years, but that doesn’t mean we have to wait until then to discuss it – compare Goodnight Moon to Good Night America with your child. Which characters and places are real and which are not? Also, engage your child in discussion of the places in the books that you have visited. Did you visit today? Yesterday? Months ago? Will you go there soon? Discussion of the passage of time will help to solidify his or her concept of time and memory – another preschool developmental milestone.


Appropriate for babies, toddlers, preschoolers, on up!


Have you read any books with your child that made you want to call the travel agent? Tell me about them!

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What is a Little Sprout Book?

A Little Sprout Book is a children’s book that is not only entertaining, but can be a tool for parents and caregivers to support their child’s developmental growth. The three main areas of human development are physical, cognitive, and social-emotional. I would argue that any book could contribute to a child’s cognitive development if only because enjoying it fosters an interest in reading. However, Little Sprout Books go further.

I do not assert or suggest that reading the books I recommend will result in developmental advances or treat developmental delays. Instead, I intend to help parents and caregivers make connections between the books they read with their children and the developmental processes their children are naturally experiencing. It is my hope that enjoying a recommended book or completing a suggested activity will help your child grow and perhaps give you a more concrete understanding of what you can do to support that growth.

For further information about developmental domains, please see my references page; links are updated there as I find them.

As a mom and as a teacher, I welcome your suggestions/input about the books I recommend or others you have found with similar qualities – please leave a comment on the related post, or contact me via littlesproutbooks AT gmail DOT com.

All of the books I review/recommend are those we’ve found in bookstores, libraries, catalogs, or through a friend; none are paid endorsements. However, I feature an Amazon link for anyone interested enough by a review to consider purchasing. If you choose to add a book to your library based on what you read here, I may receive a small percentage of the purchase price if you shop at Amazon. If so, I thank you for contributing to my book shopping habit!

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