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Cover of Pat-a-Cake

Pat-a-Cake

Traditional

ages 0 to 2poetryread aloudabout 25 seconds aloud

A clapping rhyme built for hands rather than ears alone. Pat on "pat-a-cake," prick on "prick it," then trace a letter on "mark it with T" and swap in your own child's initial, which turns a very old rhyme into something addressed directly to them.

From Mother Goose / Nursery Rhymes (traditional). See the whole collection.

Pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake,
  Baker's man!
So I do, master,
  As fast as I can.

Pat it, and prick it,
  And mark it with T,
Put it in the oven
  For Tommy and me.

Public domain. Text from The Real Mother Goose (Blanche Fisher Wright, 1916), via Project Gutenberg. View the source edition

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