I Like to Move It Move It

You’ve all probably noticed how cold it’s been lately and with all the rain, the kids have had a lot of inside time. Fine for a while but little boys need to jump and run so you soon get wrestling and fighting and destroying the house type activities.

As soon as things get out of hand, we put on Connor’s favourite CD really loud and the boys boogie all over the lounge to the music, making up crazy dance moves and then trying to copy each other.

Our current favourite, which is brilliant for dancing to is the Madagascar Soundtrack with “Move It, Move It” sung by Sascha Baron Cohen who plays King of the Lemurs in the movie. The CD also features “Stayin Alive” by the BeeGees, “What a Wonderful World” and a whole lot of other classics.

Buy Madagascar Soundtrack (NZ$ with free delivery)

Could be your chance to teach the kids some of your own dance moves before they’re too old to be embarrassed.

Little Boys Toys – Blog and Shop

I have had so much fun writing this blog and have so much to talk about that I have decided to setup a hosted WordPress blog with my own domain name.

You can now see this blog at www.littleboystoys.co.nz/reviews. I will still be writing reviews of my boys toys, books, games, dvds, activities etc and talking about places we have been in New Zealand.

I have also set up a shop linking to the little boys toys, books etc I write about. View at www.littleboystoys.co.nz.

Make Kids Songs Really Special

I have a repertoire of maybe 10 or so kids songs which was great when the kids were really little. I would just pick one and they would love it. Now they make requests (1 each at bedtime) and sometimes, instead of “Twinkle Twinkle…” etc, they say things like, “I want a song about a truck”!

I used to panic but now I just make one up to the tune of one of the following old favourites:

• You are my sunshine
• Yellow Submarine
• Twinkle Twinkle Little Star
• Rudolph the red nose reindeer

Here’s one we sing about Connor’s special bunny rabbit he takes everywhere. (To the tune of “You are my sunshine…)

You are my bunny, my special bunny
You make me happy
When I go to bed
You’ll never know bunny
How much I love to cuddle you
Please don’t take my bunny away

We also make them up more complicated ones about holidays we’ve had to remember things we’ve done. Our 5 week caravan holiday at the beach song has at least 20 verses. The boys had great fun helping me make them up and by the end of the holiday knew most of the words to our special song. This is going to be printed with our holiday photos (eventually).

We also changed the end of “Sing a Song of Sixpence” from “When along came a blackbird and pecked off her nose” to “When along came a truck and ran over her toes“. That’s boys for you!!!

Audio Books for Kids – Badjelly the Witch

When I was young, we used to stay the night sometimes with my grandparents, when Mum and Dad went out. My most vivid memories of these visits are Grandad bringing my sister and I a cup of real hot chocolate in bed and then listening to BadJelly the Witch, Molly Woppie and other stories on the radio.

Buy BadJelly the Witch on CD

Our kids now listen to BadJelly the Witch on CD, written and read by Spike Milligan. It is brilliant for long car trips, a bit of quiet time at home or recently on holiday with no tv for weeks. The boys listen very carefully except for the parts of the story when the witch is trying hurt the children. Then they jump up and pretend to shoot the witch.

As well as the fact that is is such a clever and entertaining story, I believe the kids are listening more carefully due to the lack of pictures or screen images, they are more relaxed because they can lie down and listen and their imaginations are stimulated from trying to imagine characters such as Mud Wiggle (strongest worm in all the world), Silly Sausage (grasshopper watchdog), and Dingle Mouse (who used to be a banana).

The Gruffalo Audio CD is another great buy. Read my review…

New Zealand Christmas Songs

We’ve always sung songs each night at bedtime…the boys get to choose one song each. It is a great way to wind down and is a bedtime routine which can be done anywhere without any props. Some times when the kids are sick or we’re staying somewhere and they’re unsure, an extra song or two does the trick to calm them.

After all these years, they know all the most popular ones off by heart. As part of our build up to the excitement of Chritmas, we’ve started singing Christmas songs each night.

Some of our favourite New Zealand Christmas songs are:

• A Pukeko in a Ponga Tree: (the Twelve Days of Christmas)
• One on Tractor (We three kings…)

The Crazy Frog CD below is a special Christmas edition of the boys favourite CD and has a lot of the same songs plus some funky Christmas tunes. Click on the image to buy from Amazon.

Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer (our all time favourite)
Dashing through the snow
On a one-horse open sleigh,
Over the fields we go,
Laughing all the way; (Remember to laugh – HoHoHo)
Bells on bob-tail ring,
Making spirits bright,
Oh what fun it is to ride
On a one-horse sleigh tonight

Repeat Twice
Jingle bells, jingle bells,
Jingle all the way!
O what fun it is to ride
In a one-horse open sleigh

• Jingle Bells
• Away in a Manger
• Silent Night

Songs to Get Boys Dancing

Each morning at kindy, the kids dance and do action songs. They absolutely love it. There are some great songs like “Who Let the Frogs Out” and actions ones like “Dumper Truck” and the “Limbo Rock” song.  I’ve just found the CD they have at kindy on Amazon. Buy Crazy Frog Presents Crazy Hits from Amazon and get your boys dancing.

At home, the songs which really get the boys dancing are “Hit the Road Jack” by Ray Charles (Click on album cover above to buy from Amazon) and “Crocodile Rock” by Elton John (cartoon version of Elton John plays himself composing and singing Crocodile Rock in Bob the Builder Christmas with Bob and the Crew video we have – really worth seeing). Unfortunately, I showed Kyle how to backtrack to no.10 on the DVD Player so we get the same song over and over again.

The kindy held a disco at night a few months ago, blacked out the windows, had a spinning disco light and lots of loud music and food. This was a really fun night!

Songs to Teach Counting

Lately, we’ve been getting lots of requests for “the bottle song”.

“Ten Green Bottles”

The words are still the same as when I was a kid but when each bottle falls we all yell smash or splash to spice things up a bit. In case anyone could ever forget, the words to this song are…

Ten green bottles sitting on the wall (hold up 10 fingers)
10 green bottles sitting on the wall
And if one green bottle should accidently fall…. SMASH!!!!!!
There’d be 9 green bottles sitting on the wall (Hold up 9 fingers)
9 green bottles sitting on the wall etc etc (Hopefully you get the picture)

Another version I heard recently at kindy is “Ten Fat Sausages”

Ten fat sausages sizzling in the pan
One went pop and the other went bang
Then there were eight fat sausages sizzling in the pan etc etc

If you wanted to make things even more visual, you could always line up ten soft and unbreakable items on the edge of the couch and have the kids push one off at the end of each chorus.

Action Songs for Boys

The action song that really captured the boys imaginations a few months ago is about a crocodile and 3 or 4 or 5 monkeys (depending on how long you want the song to take). The words and actions are:

Three little monkeys sitting in a tree (hold up 3 fingers)
Teasing Mr Crocodile, “Can’t catch me” (waggle fingers around)
Here comes Mr Crocodile swimming through the swamp (palms together and make swimming movement)
Watch out monkeys (loud voice)
Chomp, chomp, chomp (wide arms, one up one down and chomp)

Two little monkeys sitting in a tree (hold up 2 fingers)
Teasing Mr Crocodile, “Can’t catch me”
Here comes Mr Crocodile swimming through the swamp
Watch out monkeys
Chomp, chomp, chomp
One little monkey sitting in a tree (hold up 1 finger)
Teasing Mr Crocodile, “Can’t catch me”
Here comes Mr Crocodile swimming through the swamp
Watch out monkeys!
Chomp, chomp, chomp

One little monkey still sitting in the tree
Ha, ha Mr Crocodile, you didn’t catch me.

 I’ve seen this song acted out at kindergarten a couple of times. Some kids stand up the front and hold toy monkeys and one child is choosen from the audience to come and snatch a monkey away with each verse. Great fun until someone decides they don’t want to let go of their monkey.

Warning: Do not let your boys sing this in front of small babies or easily frightened little ones as it can be quite scarey for them. (I speak from experience!)