Bedtime routines can often be hard to master. After a busy day for both parent and child, it is important to recognise the time before your child goes to bed as a period in which both you and your child can unwind and connect.
Rhyme and song are a great way to connect and use as a resource to encourage imagination, while unwinding from the day. Whether this be by incorporating it into your bath time routine by getting your child to imagine their bath is as a sail boat while you sing “The Big Ship Sails” with them, or during the time they un-wind before bed, where you can sing songs from our “Twinkle-Twinkle (Little Star)” extended album, perfect for children of all ages. It is this time that is cherished by many children and parents and allows for connection within the business of everyday life.
We have chosen to take this idea of singing with your child during their bedtime routine a step further. How have we done this? We believe it is important for your child to be able to express themselves both through song and speech but also physicality. While this might seem peculiar in the fact night time routines should encourage an air of calm, and physicality usually being associated with the opposite, we use a method called “Sing and Draw” this does not involve drawing in the usual sense, as we encourage the children (with your permission) to use either you, the parent or a teddy bear of your child’s choice to draw with their finger on yours or the bears back, telling the story of the song they are listening to.
This method is a great way of communication without the use of words and encourages your child to get creative with the ideas of the shapes and actions they are using to represent the different words of the song. The idea was originally developed as “Story Massage” but we have taken this further, using rhymes as the inspiration for the stories being told. This method encourages children to listen to the words of the rhyme and understand both the meaning of the song and how they can associate actions with words.