Two Little Animals: A Rhyming Song!

Once again, I'm figuring out ways to use existing felt board sets in new, engaging, fun ways.  Multi-use felt board sets for the big win, right?!

This time, I'm using my Over in the Meadow animal felt board set.  I've written about these cuties here, and now I have another new video for you!

This is a song I've used a million times with kids during circle time.  You can use your fingers to be the animals.  You can use big puppets.  Or finger puppets.  And hey, if you've got this felt board set, you can use the same adorable critters I use in the video!

This song is wonderful for rhyming, naming and demonstrating opposites, using position words, etc. etc.  It's just full of early literacy benefits.  And a tiny bit of math, even.  Oh--and it's cute.  And fun.  I love it. Let's sing!

And look, now you can get the pattern for these cuties, too!

Little Bo Peep Hide & Seek: A Little Mouse Variation

I love using one felt board set to accomplish many things.  

In this case, it's my Hey Diddle Diddle set, which I've written about before right here.  

Nursery rhymes are wonderful ways to build early literacy skills like rhyming and vocabulary.  Plus, they're comforting in their familiarity and they're often a little bit silly.  Silly means fun, and fun means kids are engaged.  Winning.

In that post, I mentioned my little laminated Bo Peep.  

Hiding her behind one of the felt characters and trying to find her while chanting a wee rhyme is such a fun way to get the kids involved.  

And now I've got a video of this activity!  

So much easier to just show you how it works instead of trying to explain it!  But in case you need to copy and print the chant, here it is:

Bo Peep, Bo Peep, playing hide and seek...

Are you behind the orange cat?

Let's take a peek!

OR 

Bo Peep has lost her sheep, and we've lost HER somewhere!

Is she behind the brown fiddle?  Let's look under there!

Down at The Bus Stop (video!)

Need a fun song using animals and a bus?  Well, here you go!  (I used my Hickory Dickory Dock set for this one.  You can see my other post about it right here.)

This bus and animal version of Down by the Station is counting and animal vocabulary fun.  Plus there's naming of movements and speeds and other fun early math and literacy stuff tucked in there--your toddler and preschool kids will love this one.  

And you could of course invite them to perform the movements of the animals with their hands or with their whole bodies...

Click the picture below to watch the video :)

Want some books to go along with this song?  How about some of these...

The Bus for Us by Suzanne Bloom

Down by the Station by Will Hillenbrand

School Bus by Donald Crews

Toot Toot Beep Beep by Emma Garcia

Hey Diddle Diddle Remix--Video!

You may have read about my Hey Diddle Diddle set before--I wrote about it here.  But I didn't have a video using the set until right this very minute :)  So...here it is!  Classic Nursery Rhyme fun--but with a twist!  

Let's get all mixed up (click the picture to watch the video!)