Animals

5min read

Singing songs with a baby is a great way to encourage their early communication. It helps the bond between adult and child, supports brain development and language development as it increases access to key words and sounds.

How does this nursery rhyme help?

This is a great simple song to sing with children, especially older children as they will enjoy pretending to be their chosen animal and acting out the sounds and movements the animal makes. This type of song helps with their co-ordination as they are both singing and doing the actions. They will also like choosing which animal they want to be. You can go all out with your imagination and use dinosaurs or create an animal. We made up this simple song and you can make up songs too, if you want to.

Rhyme lyrics

How do animals move?
Ok, lets be a ....... (name of animal)
(Then you pretend to be the animal)
And repeat!

Further resources

If you would like further support and advice, call our helpline on 0808 800 2222 or email us at askus@familylives.org.uk. You can talk to us online via our live chat service or message us via WhatsApp on 07441 444125 to connect with experienced professional family support workers and highly-trained volunteers. You may find it helps to find out how other parents and carers have coped with this on our online forums. We also have a range of free self-guided online parenting courses that can help through the ages and stages of parenting. 

Our online parenting information is written by experienced parenting professionals. Find out more about our content authors, how it is produced, reviewed and edited.

More videos

Explore all (12)

Last updated: January 2025