By Holly Engel-Smothers
As your twins move into the preschool years, songs and fingerplays become exciting, happy ways to increase vocabulary, teach rhyming, and practice fine motor skills.
Children's minds are actually not able to have memories until around age 3. (My twins don't even remember the humongous double stroller we used several times a day!) That means that your three-year-old twins may now be able to remember trips to the zoo, library, and park. But just because babies don't have actual memories before age 3, their minds are still working on growing, learning how to manipulate their gross and fine motor skills, talking, eating, etc. During this period, their minds will recall the "feelings" in their environment, such as the sense of security they feel when they are hugged, kissed, read to, and played with. Your babies' minds will not achieve optimal growth without these loving feelings.
In the preschool years, fingerplays are fun literacy boosters and create a time for bonding. My twins recall Sunday nights, after their baths, getting their nails trimmed to the long-loved song "Where Is Thumbkin?" I sang the song to quiet my nerves and mind at the end of a long weekend, but my girls remember the loving, quiet way we ended the evening.
Here are a few easy-to-remember fingerplays. Copy them and hang them up in various spots in your house: on the bathroom mirror, the refrigerator, a wall by the breakfast table, etc. You can even have a few close at hand to refer to during red lights or traffic stops. Fun poems work well, too. Type "fingerplays" into a search engine on the Internet to discover more fun!
Here we go to the zoo in the park,
the zoo in the park, the zoo in the park;
Here we go to the zoo in the park so early in the morning.
This is the way the elephant walks,
the elephant walks, the elephant walks;
This is the way the elephant walks so early in the morning.
This is the way the big bear walks,
the big bear walks, the big bear walks;
This is the way the big bear walks so early in the morning.
This is the way the kangaroo hops,
the kangaroo hops, the kangaroo hops;
This is the way the kangaroo hops so early in the morning.
This is the way the penguin walks,
the penguin walks, the penguin walks;
This is the way the penguin walks so early in the morning.
(Create your own version of "Zoo" by singing about more animals and the ways they move!)
Baby bunny bounces high (jump high)
Baby bunny bounces low (jump low)
Baby bunny blinks his eyes (blink eyes)
Baby bunny waves good-bye (wave good-bye)
A little ball, a larger ball,
A great big ball I see;
Now let us count the balls we've made,
One, two, three.
Here is the beehive.
Where are the bees?
Hidden away where nobody sees (bend thumb and fingers into your palm)
Watch and you'll see them
Come out of the hive
One, two, three, four, five (one finger out on each count)
Buzz-z-z-z-z-z (flutter fingers and tickle your kiddos)
[NOTE: This article is one of many from parent educator and mom of twins (and a twingle), Holly Engel-Smothers, who will be sharing her wisdom and expertise on the subject of reading through this "Literacy for All" column, which will appear on a regular basis on TwinsTalk.]