Nick Cope - Children's Songmeister and Entertainer Extraordinaire

For our theme this week I thought I'd shout from the rooftops about a local entertainer who trades pop superstardom with legendary Oxford band "The Candyskins" for singing silly songs and telling silly stories to children.

Nick Cope has been travelling around delivering his infectious mix of fun and laughter, songs and stories to children all around the country. We were lucky enough to have him sit in at Charlotte's preschool last summer (in a rare moment when the weather wasn't horrible) and since then it's been fun rediscovering some of his greatest hits now that he has his own YouTube Channel.

Nick Cope on YouTube

The key to his performances is to involve his audience, and kids absolutely love that level of interaction.

Check out his superb website at:

www.nickcope.co.uk

And if you're not humming "There's a nose in the middle of my face" all afternoon, there's definitely something wrong with you!

"I'm a Dingle Dangle Scarecrow" by Anne Kubler (Child's Play)

The earliest books we enjoyed with Charlotte were books where song and rhyme were key to enjoying the stories. For a long time, my usual choice of music in the car was replaced by all manner of story and song CDs (Mr Tumble, I think I know your songs better than most 4 year olds) and again at home we'd continue the theme.

It's always more enjoyable when your children start to want to sing along themselves, or join in with rhymes. Children are brought up on a whole range of popular nursery rhymes that have stayed more or less the same (despite various attempts to "politically correct" some like Baa Baa Black Sheep), and Child's Play's brilliant range of sing-a-long books are utterly fantastic. Big bold illustrations, chewable versions (not sure what Child's Play put in the 'recipe' for their card books but babies seem to love the taste of them) and even some that introduce sign language for added fun.

As Child's Play say themselves on their site, singing along with children as well as reading to them helps develop a strong parental bond, and even if you think you have the singing voice of a squashed crow, your child really won't mind (at least till they're 5, then they'll just tell you that you're rubbish but don't take it personally :)

Another book that was regularly demanded, mostly for its sing-a-long qualities was "Pants" by Giles Andreae and Nick Sharratt

New Pants, Blue Pants, One, Two, Three

Even now this book is a firm favourite (along with its sequel More Pants). We never quite got the hang of socks but both 'Pants' books are excellent for a bit of crazy sing-a-long action - particularly if you pick up the version with the musical CD accompaniment, by Lenny Henry. Ever sung about undercrackers in a reggae stylee? No? Well he has!