I’ve really enjoyed the My Rhyme Time children’s books by Miles Kelly and illustrated by Barbara Bakos. These beautifully illustrated children’s books are such a wonderful way to introduce active young children to stories and classic children’s rhymes. Some preschool aged children might not yet be able to sit still for long enough to engage with a story. But preschoolers are always eager to join in with singing, dancing, action songs and an activity that engages their whole body.
I really love Mile Kelly’s My Rhyme Time books as this year I started out getting my preschoolers in the habit of singing some nursery rhyme songs together that they know and learning the actions. We’ve extended this to including some simple hand-held instruments that they can tap out and learn to follow a beat to or clap along with. Now that my preschoolers have formed this habit, I’ve introduced them to these My Rhyme Time books and I hold up the pictures of the book while they all stand around singing the song, or holding an instrument or doing the hand motions.
One book in this series has a lovely couple of illustrated pages of “Old MacDonald’s Farm”. The little ones love pointing out the animals that they can find in the illustrations. Another way I get my preschoolers to engage with this nursery rhyme song is by giving each of them a turn to pick which animal comes next in the song of “Old MacDonald”. If and when needed I might briefly pause our singing and help to recap which animals have already been said, which helps the little ones develop recall, sequencing, listening, and turn-taking skills. Sometimes, we extend this further with another memory, recall, and listening game where they each have to say what their animal on “Old MacDonald’s Farm” will be eating for dinner without repeating anything that anyone else has already said.