From the moment your child discovered his own toes, he has been learning about his body and how it works. Toddlers are often eager to learn about the body and will show pride and share their knowledge as they explore and identify their body parts.

My Hands

This fun activity will help your child learn about different parts of his body and will enhance his verbal skills, too.

• Teach your child the following rhyme and encourage him to act out the words:

My hands upon my head I'll place

On my shoulders, on my face.

At my waist, and by my side.

I will raise them way up high

And then make my fingers fly.

Then I will clap one, two, three,

Then rest them gently on my knee.

Riddle Me This

Promote your child's problem-solving skills with this game. You can play it anywhere, any time.

• Ask your child to try to guess the answer to simple riddles. All the answers should be a part of the body. Here are a few examples:

• You use me to hold a crayon. (Hand)

• I am the part of the body that eats food. (Mouth)

Vary the complexity according to your toddler?s ability. You may even encourage him to think of some riddles for you.

Build a Person

Your child develops his fine motor skills and problem-solving ability as he pieces together a person.

• If you are using construction paper pieces, be sure to keep them very simple, such as a torso, arms, legs, and head. If you use magazine pictures, consider involving your child in the search for appropriate clippings.

• Assist your child in gluing the body-part pieces to the paper to create a person.

All about Me

Your toddler will delight in seeing a life-size copy of himself. If you cannot get a large enough roll of paper, you can use an old sheet and fabric paints instead.

• Have your child lay flat on his back on the paper. Experiment with different positions of his arms and legs. Trace an outline around his body.

• Point out to your child the different body parts on the outline. Label them if you wish.

• Let your child color the outline with crayons.

Touchy Touchy

This silly game will help your child learn body-part identification. (For older children, you may wish to talk about private body parts that other people should not touch.) This becomes like a simple game of Twister!

• Call out different parts of the body. You touch that part on your child while he touches that part of you.

• Let your older child take a turn calling out body parts, too.