If You're Happy and You Know It

How does this nursery rhyme help?

If You're Happy and You Know It helps your young child in the development of their language skills as you are using words to describe actions such as clapping your hands, stamping your feet or shouting out hurray! It also encourages fine motor skills and coordination as babies and young children learn the fine art of clapping hands or stamping their feet. The parent or caregiver can help their babies with simple movements such as clapping hands by clasping their hands and clapping together. As your baby gets older, they will be able to do more movements and actions.

The movements described above helps with co-ordination as they are multi-tasking through doing the actions and singing. It also helps with their hand to eye coordination as they watch their parent or caregiver and try to repeat the actions. They enjoy the anticipation of the song and knowing the actions. This song helps them to learn about language, word association and understanding simple actions that they can do.

You can create your own actions instead of following the rhyme, it could be something like "If you're happy and you know it, touch your feet" or touch your knees. You can make it more complex as they get older and they can learn the names of their body parts such as shoulders, eyes, etc. This is also a great rhyme to sing when you are out and about, using nature such as leaves on the ground, you can incorporate this into your song. 

Rhyme lyrics

If you're happy and you know it, clap your hands
If you're happy and you know it, clap your hands
If you're happy and you know it, and you really want to show it 
If you're happy and you know it, clap your hands. 

If you're happy and you know it, stomp your feet
If you're happy and you know it, stomp your feet 
If you're happy and you know it, and you really want to show it 
If you're happy and you know it, stomp your feet. 

If you're happy and you know it, shout "Hurray!" 
If you're happy and you know it, shout "Hurray!" 
If you're happy and you know it, and you really want to show it 
If you're happy and you know it, shout "Hurray!" 

If you're happy and you know it, do all three 
If you're happy and you know it, do all three 
If you're happy and you know it, and you really want to show it 
If you're happy and you know it, do all three.