Songs and rhymes

All children like songs and rhymes, even small babies. They like your voice, the repetitive language and the actions.

How nursery rhymes support your child's learning and development:

• You will be supporting them to learn to talk as they become familiar with the words and rhythm, and begin to imitate the sounds you make, or join in with the words.
• You will support the bond between you to develop as you look at each other and imitate one another’s actions.
• You will be supporting them to develop muscle control and coordination as you help them to follow the actions in rhymes.
• You will be supporting pre-reading and pre-writing skills as they develop phonological awareness by hearing sounds in the rhymes.
• You will support them to learn to count, add and subtract numbers when you sing number rhymes.

If your first language is not English, then make sure you sing rhymes in your home language, the benefits to your baby or child will be just the same!

It’s good to sing rhymes together when you are playing with your baby or child, so you can give them your full attention. But you could also fit some more rhymes into your day by singing them during nappy changing, while getting dressed in the morning, as you prepare lunch, while doing the shopping or while you’re in the car, or on a bus!

Here are the words and actions to lots of popular songs and nursery rhymes. Have a listen and see if you and your little one can follow along.