Play, songs and small celebrations for the first six years.
Ladushki (Ладушки) is the Russian pat-a-cake: the first clapping game a grandmother plays with a baby. This site starts there and works outward: rhymes and finger-plays written out properly, with the hand actions line by line, then the things you do with a toddler on a wet Tuesday, then the games that make a birthday party work.
Start here
Pat-a-cake: words, hand actions and meaning, plus the Russian Ladushki
The whole rhyme, how to play it with a baby whose hands you hold and with a toddler who claps back, what age it lands, what "mark it with a B" is about, and the Ladushki words with how to say them. A printable card for the fridge.
What this site is for
Most of what is written for parents of small children is either a video wall or a list padded to rank. This is neither. Each rhyme here gets its own page, written out the way you would explain it to a friend holding a baby: the words, which hand does what on which line, the ages it tends to work, where it came from, and a card you can print. The collection is small and grows one rhyme at a time.
Three kinds of pages are planned, in this order:
- Rhymes and finger-plays. English classics and the clapping games families use in other languages, with the words, the sounds and the actions. The library starts with pat-a-cake.
- Things to do with a toddler. Short, low-prep activities sorted by age and by how much mess you can face.
- Parties and small celebrations. Games that suit the age, the room and the group, and the ones where nobody gets knocked out and cries.
The voice is a tired parent's, not a brand's. No sign-up walls, no filler, and the printables are plain pages that print on any printer.