Following up on Patty Cake, today Veronika and I played another game to prep her for clapping. This time, she automatically tried to clap one of my hands between her two, almost as if it were a toy. This is a great first step towards bringing her own two hands together.

To make clapping fun, we put it to music of course – this time it was If You’re Happy and You Know It, concentrating on the first verse. 

I alternated clapping my own hands…

…bringing her two hands together in an imitation clap..

…letting her clap one of my hands between her two.

…and even modeling on a teddy bear!

We did then move on to the other verses, but only briefly. Get those baby toes tapping.

And those arms up for “hoorays”!

This might be a fun activity to involve big siblings, too, who can help out with the motions.

Finally, a cute video never hurts. We love this version from Little Baby Bum. We’ll certainly have something to clap about soon when Veronika does her first real one!