Play
Suggest different farm animals that your child may be less familiar with. If he doesn't know the animal's sound, demonstrate the sound for him or he can invent one.
Your child will:
Build his imaginative skills as he tries to make these new sounds and pretends to be farm animals. Toddlers especially are anxious to try new things and love to pretend.
If you do this:
Teach
Use a picture book about farm animals or puppets to make the activity visual and tactile. This will support children with little prior experience with farm animals.
Your child will:
Expand her vocabulary and build her understanding of how farm animals differ from pets or jungle animals. Your preschooler, who is now speaking in complete sentences, likely loves stories and will sit for longer periods as you read to her.
Songs like this one also build social skills. Children learn to take turns in activities and discussions. As they begin to experiment with sounds, words, word patterns, rhymes and rhythms, they build speaking, listening and reading skills. And, thinking skills and problem-solving skills are developed as children learn to identify familiar sounds in the environment.
So, before you fade from one more chorus of an old favourite, remember, there's more to it than meets the E-I-E-I-O.
This content was created by the child development and parenting experts who
developed www.parents2parents.ca. Visit the site to learn more about the ages and stages your young child is experiencing and to share in the parenting journey of other parents just like you.
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