Teaching Your Little One to Recognize Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes

With my first two children, I had to work full time, but with my last too I am finally at a place to stay home with them. With the first two, they would come home from daycare or preschool and sing me songs they had learned or surprise me with new words or actions. This time, I get to be the one teaching my children and it is so much fun! This weeks' topic is "body parts." Stay at home moms and infant/toddler teachers alike may enjoy the activities that I have been using to teach the girls all about their body.

We sing together, Head and Shoulders, Knees and Toes. Yes, most mommies probably already do this, and to your toddler it is something familiar. In some instances, the more familiar the better, especially if you are introducing new activities into the routine. Mommy does the motions, touching head and shoulders, knees and toes. While the toddler does it for herself, Mommy touches head, shoulders, knees and toes for the baby. Eyes, ears, mouth and nose are all thing that make my daughters giggle because we make a little game of it similar to the faces of the monkeys who "see and hear no evil." The little one enjoys having her toes tickled when we get to the toe part. If you children are patient enough to do another chorus, try out the ankles, elbows, feet and seat, feat and seat, feat and seat, round.

Another great song was just introduced to us this week at story time at the library. Baby and toddler alike can do this one. It is "Put Your Little Foot." In this song you point your right foot to a spot in front of you; saying put your little foot, put your little foot, put your little foot right there, and then repeat the chorus with your left foot. We take our shoes off and do this barefoot and my toddler just thinks it is too funny for some reason when she is pointing her little foot. Or maybe she is laughing at her mommy, who isn't exactly doing a ballet move when she puts her little foot right there.

If you have older children or a toddler who can participate you can also add the "Hokey Pokey," to your music time. Each verse allows you to reinforce right and left for the older crowd and each of the main body parts to the younger. Even my infant likes to "turn herself about" and clap to "that's what it's all about."

Our books this week included Jabari Asim's "Whose Toes are Those?" and "Whose Knees are These?" These books are wonderful in their rhyming and rhythm, and I suspect from the colors, the authors name and the illustrations may be derived from possibly an African culture. In "Whose Toes are Those," a child is hidden on each page, with nothing showing but the toes, as different activities are done. My favorite rhyme in this book is, "Ten little lovelies all in a row. Whose toes are those? Do you know?" My toddler and I take the opportunity to count the toes; it is wonderful number recognition reinforcement. At the end you see that these cute little toes belong to a little girl, with the exclamation, "Why those are your toes!" My little one thinks this part is too funny as we wiggle and play with her toes and ours to emphasis the point. "Whose Knees are These?" is similar in nature, but features a little boy instead of a little girl. Each page has some cute little knees, but not until the end do you find out who they belong to.

For the car rides I picked up Baby Einstein-Baby Da Vinci - Head to Toe. The girls can watch it in the back seat with minivan's DVD player and be entertained by the classical music which includes the music of master composers Vivaldi, Bach, and Handel. There are also real life children representing parts of the body through play as well as the five senses. For extra "oomph," there are segments on the DVD in not only English, but French and Spanish also, so if your child is in a "Little Amigo" class this will reinforce the vocabulary he or she is learning there.

For creative time, I have precut people from magazines. These pictures are of people of different ages, cultures, and some are physically disabled. My daughter had scribble time or paint time to decorate the paper and then we add the pictures of the people pointing out different body parts. She loves being able to "name" the people that she is placing on the paper and pointing out to me all the parts that she recognizes. I thought about trying to just have some cut out parts of the body, but that seemed a little too gruesome, even with Halloween approaching. I also picked up some foam cut outs of hands and feet from a craft store as well as 4x6 foam pages. All my little one had to do was peel and stick, we drew a stick figure on the foam sheet with a marker and then she added the hands and feet. It was fun to pretend that they belonged in different places. "Silly mommy," she said.

The cost of this week's activities: the DVD came from the Harris County Public Library for a one week borrow so it was free. To purchase it new it is approximately $16.00. Each of the books are $6.99 (combine it all together on Amazon.com and get free shipping). The magazines were laying around the house as were the paper, crayons, paints and the music and gross motor activities costs nothing. If on a budget or not sure if you want to keep the books, borrow them from your local library and now your week's activities are free. Or if you you add the foam sheets, they were approximately $3.00 on the clearance section at JoAnn Fabrics.

While you may need to adjust these activities to fit your child's age or interest, they can provide you with a basic building block of activities for the times you are teaching this particular theme. You don't need to be an artist, or a singer or a ballet dancer. My children think the sillier the better. Just remember when you are doing your activities with your children to let them do them. It's not your glue time. Even if your activity does not turn out as planned, it does not matter. The children will have had a good time with you just trying it.