Fun ways to incorporate song into your child care routines

Children often like to sing naturally, and it can be much easier for them to remember phrases and facts that are linked to a tune. This is a great way to use child care to help your child enjoy their routines and reduce your need to nag them!

Here are some good items to consider setting to tune.

Hand washing after toileting

Hand washing after going to the toilet is a good way to avoid contracting and spreading a number of unpleasant viruses. In order to effectively wash your hands, it's important to wash them with soap and rubbing for at least 20 seconds. Children often have trouble judging how long to wash their hands for so you can set the routine to a tune such as the 'Happy Birthday' song, which takes about 10 seconds beginning to end. Singing it twice makes sure that the child has washed their hands for long enough. 

Brushing your teeth

Another common task for children that needs to be timed is teeth brushing. There are several cool songs online such as 'Brush your teeth' which you can practise with your child during the day, then play at night. As they get older they will start to have a natural sense of how long they need to brush for, as well as the correct brushing technique.

Long instructions

If you have a particular routine that you need to follow as you leave the house, you can set this to your own song. This could be as simple as "We put on socks and shoes then brush our hair, we put on our bag with a care, we check our coat and close the door and check the locks and head off for sure". This can help the child learn their own routine and stop how much you need to nag.

Tying shoelaces

Complex tasks such as tying shoelaces can be tricky to master. It can be useful to set these to tune to help the child remember the steps and order to get the shoelaces tied. It can also help remind them by humming the laces during the day.

Setting jobs to music can be a good way to make the jobs more enjoyable and stop the amount of nagging that you want to do. Music not only helps kids to remember complex multi-stage instructions, as well as the time frame to do timed tasks such as hand washing and teeth brushing.