If you live in Scotland and you’ve ever dropped into your local library or community centre and heard the familiar sounds of The Wheels on the Bus drifting across the shelves, you’ve probably found yourself in the middle of a Bookbug session. You might even find a session taking place in your school’s nursery and Primary 1 classes.
Run by the Scottish Book Trust, with funding from the Scottish government and Creative Scotland’s Youth Music Initiative, Bookbug is Scotland’s universal early years book gifting programme, giving every child in Scotland four free bags of books between birth and the age of five, while also running free story, song and rhyme sessions across the country.
In Primary 1, the annual gifting of book bags has become a special part of school’s annual calendars, with teachers building up the excitement before children take their books home.
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The high-quality books in the Bookbug bags change every year to ensure new, exciting and diverse children’s books are in the home of every child in Scotland. Each year a group of early-years experts select these thought-provoking and beloved books.
To celebrate 10 years of Bookbug, an exhibition showcasing the 113 books that have ever been in the bags will be touring Scotland. Sharing songs, rhymes and stories with children from birth has a proven impact on their development. Research highlights the importance of rhythm and rhyme in supporting speech, language and brain development, and social and emotional skills.
The Scottish Book Trust has created dedicated resources to support families and practitioners to share more songs and rhymes with children. Our website hosts a song and rhyme library with tips for sharing songs with children of different ages, and there’s also a free Bookbug app to share songs and rhymes on the go.
We will be celebrating songs and rhymes at this year’s Bookbug conference on 24 March. The programme will explore different ways in which they can support essential learning skills - numeracy, language development and acquisition - as well as developing empathy, understanding and bonding. Singing and rhyming also boost wellbeing and support physical coordination and movement skills, while being a fun activity for children, families and practitioners to share.
Songs and rhymes are the ideal cross-curricular activity and we hope to showcase how these overlooked tools are an easy way to support learning. Our keynote speaker, Dr Sue Gifford, a principal lecturer in maths at the School of Education at the University of Roehampton, will be exploring how songs and rhymes can support early maths skills, with practical curriculum-linked examples.
We will also be hearing directly from practitioners on how they have used songs and rhymes to engage with families and support home and school partnerships, as well as providing practical workshops looking at making songs and rhymes sensory and ideas for introducing them into nurseries and schools.
Beth Crozier is early years operations assistant manager at the Scottish Book Trust
To book tickets to the conference, or to access song and rhyme resources, visit scottishbooktrust.com/bookbug.
