Top Toys for Music - Carousel

A carousel is a great starting point to introduce songs to small children, and gives them a sense of control as well. It is easy for a small child to bang the top of the carousel and make it spin. Then you can sing about whichever character lands in front of you.

Some carousels have characters such as people or ponies or teddies. Perhaps they are different colours. If so, then you can sing about that (eg, "green, green, green, green, teddy's wearing green today...")

My carousel has four different animals on it. The child presses the top, and I sing a song or say a rhyme about whichever animal stops at the front. There is a horse ("gee up horsey, don't you stop"), a cow ("What can a cow do but moo, moo, moo?) a pig ("this little piggie") and a sheep ("Baa baa white sheep" since it's white).

Another way to play is to simply make the noise of the animal. Encouraging young children to make animal noises helps with their annunciation (that is, it helps them to learn to make the sounds necessary to say words).

If all the characters are the same, you can always resort to "Round and round and round it goes, spinning and turning..."

The carousel pictured is by Tolo. I picked up mine at Learn4Fun which has shops in Tuggerah and Hornsby.