Tag: wheels on the bus

Picture This, Sing That

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At just-shy of one year old, Veronika has very firm opinions about her favorite songs, and your little one no doubt does, too. Make it easy for pre-verbal kids to pick a song with visual clues!

For this activity, I went to the print shop to get brightly-colored high-quality images of a few favorite tunes. There was a cute spider for Itsy Bitsy Spider, a bright yellow bus for Wheels on the Bus, and a farm scene for Old Macdonald Had a Farm. I showed her one image and then sang that song.

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Pretty soon, she made the connection between image and song.

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Her big smiles made it clear she was having fun.

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Wheels on the Bus is her hands-down favorite. She saw the yellow bus and immediately began swishing her “wipers”.

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Later, I gave her the choice of all three pictures in the playroom. Sure enough, she selected the bus right away, so we sang that one.

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To add to the visuals, you can even add props! Soon she was scooting a bus back and forth as we sang Wheels.

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And playing with animals as we sang Old Macdonald.

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What’s your baby’s favorite song? Please share in the comments!

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The Wheels on the Bus

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Veronika and I had a bus-themed day today, threading the vehicle through our play and activities in just about every way! A theme-day like this can be a fantastic way to fill the time with your infant.

Babies love buses; somehow that’s just a thing. Maybe it’s because they’re so big and yellow, or the excitement of seeing big kids get on and off, or just the fact that they all hear ‘Wheels on the Bus’ from a young age. But babies love buses.

Veronika and I started with the song. I love the way the verses lend themselves so naturally to motions with baby’s body. To wit, I swish Veronika from the hips down for the wipers…

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…or pedal her legs round and round…

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…or beep her nose for the horn.

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You can also show your baby a cute clip of the song, like Little Baby Bum’s version.

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Then, we spent some time with bus-themed play. We read a book about buses (Usborne’s clever Baby’s Very First Bus Book has wheels that your little one can spin!) and played with a plastic bus toy; she couldn’t get enough of scooting it around during tummy time.

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How did we cap it all off? With a ride on a real bus, of course! I selected an easy route downtown where I could park the car, take the bus only a stop or two, and make it back to the car on a little walk. You could also pick a round-trip destination on a bus if there’s a place you and your baby need to visit.

She seemed very intrigued as we waited at the bus stop. Here comes our bus, right on time!

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Then she looked around wide-eyed during our ride! As the bus bounced along, I sang ‘Wheels on the Bus’ quietly into her ear.

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In sum, a bus-y day!