Imitation is the ability to watch what someone else is doing and then replicate their actions. It is an important aspect of social interaction \u2013 babies learn to communicate by imitating their mothers. Here are\u00a0 great imitation activities and games you can play with your kids anywhere, anytime.<\/p>\n
Enourage your children\u00a0 to copy your actions as you perform daily tasks such as<\/p>\n
Little toddlers love being able to help so make this part of your everyday routine.<\/p>\n
Remember\u00a0 Pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake, bakers man, bake me a cake as fast as you can ?\u00a0<\/em>This is a simple rhyme with easy clapping motions. With your child sitting down and facing you, begin by singing the rhyme and clapping along. Clap your own hands together and then use both hands to clap your child\u2019s hands then back to your own clap. Use a simple\u00a0 1,2,1,2 pattern.\u00a0 Once they master this pattern, you can move on to harder sequences such as clapping your hands together and then do a criss cross motion when clapping your child\u2019s hands.<\/p>\n Try to play this game as often as possible. Also great for eye-hand coordination.<\/p>\n Practice animal walks with your child that not only practices imitation skills but also works on your child\u2019s gross motor skills, balance and flexibility. \u2013 such as<\/p>\n Flying like a bird and flapping your arms as you \u201cfly\u201d around the room.<\/p>\n Action songs get your child moving, works on developing their muscles ( fine and gross muscles) , promotes listening skills\u00a0 and shows them how to follow directions and learn basic concepts.\u00a0 Examples of action songs that work on all these aspects are \u2013<\/p>\n This is a nice game to play with a group of children and the objective is to see who stays in the game the longest which also works on those all-important listening skills!<\/p>\n With this game you get to take turns.\u00a0 One person is designated as \u201cSimon\u201d and they must stand in front of everyone and then get the others to copy their movements.\u00a0 Your child must only follow commands preceded by the phrase \u201cSimon says\u2026\u201d\u00a0 So for example \u201cSimon Says\u2026 tap your head\u201d .\u00a0 If \u201cSimon\u201d simply says \u201crub your tummy\u201d and a child follows the command, then they are out of the game.<\/p>\n This is another traditional game that promotes imitation.\u00a0\u00a0 A leader is chosen and the children line up behind the leader.\u00a0 The leader then moves around the room and the children must copy the leader\u2019s actions. Begin with simple actions such as sitting down or putting your hands on your head.\u00a0 You can also make the game a little more challenging by putting up obstacles, so the children have to climb over a pile of pillows or crawl under a table. Change the leaders so that everybody has a chance to lead.<\/p>\n These games are all fun and bound to create lots of giggles and the bonus is that \u00a0you are helping your child to learn new things at the same time.<\/p>\n Happy playing!<\/p>\n Note:\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>If you enjoyed this article, subscribe to the uniquely detailed free weekly newsletter for parents in Gauteng \u2013\u00a0<\/em>Jozikids<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0\u2013\u00a0or KwaZulu-Natal\u00a0\u2013\u00a0Kznkids<\/strong><\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Imitation is the ability to watch what someone else is doing and then replicate their actions. It is an important aspect of social interaction \u2013 babies learn to communicate by imitating their mothers. Here are\u00a0 great imitation activities and games you can play with your kids anywhere, anytime.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":241,"featured_media":18731,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[866],"tags":[424,425,426],"class_list":["post-18725","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-games","tag-baby-stimulation","tag-imitation-games","tag-toddler-games"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jozikids.co.za\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18725","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jozikids.co.za\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jozikids.co.za\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jozikids.co.za\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/241"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jozikids.co.za\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18725"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jozikids.co.za\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18725\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jozikids.co.za\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18731"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jozikids.co.za\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18725"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jozikids.co.za\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18725"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jozikids.co.za\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18725"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Animal walks<\/h2>\n
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Action Songs<\/h2>\n
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For older kids<\/h2>\n
Play Simon Says<\/h3>\n
Follow my leader<\/h3>\n