I love nursery rhymes that lend themselves intuitively to hands-on play, and this one definitely fits the bill. If you don’t know this rhyme, here are the words:

These are grandmother’s glasses,

This is grandmother’s hat.

See the way she claps her hands

and folds them in her lap.

These are grandfather’s glasses,

This is grandfather’s hat.

See the way he folds his arms

and takes a little nap.

For grandmother, use a high, soft voice, and for grandfather, use a low, loud voice. You can also mime all the gestures. Circle your fingers over your eyes for glasses, pat your head for the hat, and copy the arm movements of each grandparent.

But for extra fun, today we turned the rhyme into a prompt for dress-up! I put on a different pair of sunglasses and silly hats for grandmother and grandfather, first on me, and then on Veronika.

She loved modeling all the accessories! And she got the giggles when dolls dressed up, too, to get in on the action. Long after the nursery rhyme fun was done, she was busy playing dress up.