The Complete Book of Rhymes, Songs, Poems, Fingerplays and Chants

The Complete Book of Rhymes, Songs, Poems, Fingerplays, and Chants is certainly a heft title and I assure you it is an equally hefty — and amazing! – book. As a mother of a two year old, I can’t say enough nice things about this book. It is a delight.

Although I dearly love stories and songs, I’m incredibly inept and making things up to share with my son. I need pre-packaged material! It’s awful and I know I should be able to spout rhymes and ditties off the top of my head (goodness knows I read enough that you’d think it’s possible!) but I also know my limits. Therefore I understand the great blessing that is this book!

The Complete Book of Rhymes, Songs, Poems, Fingerplays, and Chants has, quite literally, provided hours of fun for my son and me. We’re learning new rhymes and chants for all sorts of things and now my husband has no idea what our son of limited vocabulary is referencing when he wakes up in the morning and won’t stop saying, “Dark. As. NIGHT!” (One of the rhymes concludes “when my eyes are open I can see the light, when my eyes are closed it’s as dark as night!”)

Our favorite little ditty so far is Little Red Caboose. I suspect this is due to our love of Thomas but whatever. We’re memorizing, learning and playing.

Little red caboose, chug, chug, chug.
Little red caboose, chug, chug, chug.
Little red caboose, behind the train, train, train, train.
Smokestack on his back, back, back, back.
Chugging down the track, track, track, track.
Little red caboose behind the train.

We added our own hand and body motions and voila! It’s an instant hit! This book has also reminded me of several Mother Goose poems of long ago and songs like The Ants Go Marching (Hurrah! Hurrah!). My two year old flips through this book and points to the pictures asking me to read him the rhymes and sing him the songs. The Complete Book of Rhymes, Songs, Poems, Fingerplays, and Chants IS a treasure and we love it. You can pick up a copy on Amazon that also includes a CD which might help you with some of the songs which are included, but we are using our copy without the CD well and often!

Reasons to use this book? From the publisher’s website:

The Complete Book of Rhymes, Songs, Poems, Fingerplays, and Chants gives children a variety of ways to fall in love with rhythm, rhyme, repetition, and structural sequence-important building blocks for future readers. The 700 selections will help children ages 3 to 6 build a strong foundation in listening skills, imagination, coordination, and spatial and body awareness.

That, and it’s just plain fun!

Carrie comes by her book obsession honestly, having descended from a long line of bibliophiles. She blogs about books regularly at Reading to Know.