And one fell out..... (Ten in the Bed and Other Counting Rhymes - Zita Newcome)

Member Name: abbadabbado

Product:	Ten in the Bed and Other Counting Rhymes - Zita Newcome
Date:	21/08/09 (72 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: great way to learn rhymes

Disadvantages: some strange rhymes have been included

On our recent trip to the library, I was flicking through some of the books and asking my daughter if she'd like it. She generally tends to look at the cover and I'll read her the title and it's enough for her to decide if she wants to take it home or not.
We came across Ten in The Bed and other counting rhymes and immediately I thought it would be a good way of getting some different counting songs into her memory.

Written by Zita Newcome, this book was unfamiliar to me but as I quickly leafed through it in the library, I could see that my daughter would like the bright pictures of she didn't appreciate the rhymes.
Each of the rhymes concentrate on a number, for example, Ten Fat Sausages, Five Little Froggies, Ten in the Bed, One Man went to Mow and plenty of other rhymes.

Immediately I found we could read this book in stages and in any order than I chose. This would help with repetition or change, depending on which I thought my daughter, was going to need when we read the book each time.
Some of the rhymes are very short and sweet, but I did think that some of them were a bit long for a two year old to keep attention without wandering. I soon learnt which ones she liked and helped me to repeat, and which ones to avoid.
Occasionally I would go off the beaten track as it were and elaborate on the pictures on the pages. This helped us tell a different story altogether and sometimes it was nice to use our imagination.

There were some very traditional rhymes included in the book, but there were also ones that neither myself nor my partner have heard of. These were a nice change to read and learn together with my daughter. She amazed me with a couple of them as she had obviously heard them at nursery and was way ahead of me.
One really nice thing that was included in this book is that on a couple of the rhymes, there were additional pictures at the bottom of the pages which were the actions to the songs. This really helped us get into the spirit of the song and join in, making up a new song ready to show Daddy when he came home.

I thought this book was a great way to encourage number saying. My daughter is brilliant at repeating the numbers but gets a bit excited when left to say them on her own and misses out a couple which is perfectly normal. These rhymes and the repetition of them is a great way to organise the sequence of numbers and get them hopefully stored to memory the more we repeat them.
As this was a library book it'll obviously be going back but I do think that we will have taken some away with us that we'll remember in the future and have some fun with.
You can get this book from Amazon for £4.99. ISBN: 978-1406323207, Published 2004.

Summary: a great book for toddlers