what would be a funny thing to teach my 5 y/o niece?

Hurculina Drubman@lemm.ee to Asklemmy@lemmy.ml – 145 points –

I'm visiting extended family for the first time in a long time, and one of my nieces has reached the impressionable age where she keeps mimicking things that she sees me do. what's a really funny but fairly harmless thing I should teach her to do?

105

On a vacation when I was a teenager I taught my younger sibling the "SYN/ACK" game.

They still remember the TCP stack handshake protocol including resets and acks years later.

My niece and nephew loved the “this guy” gag. What’s got two thumbs and thinks you’re the coolest? THIS GUY! and point to yourself with your thumbs.

Teach her to order something off a foreign-language menu, invite the family out to dinner, and see if she can place her order fluently.

Doing the "Five year old white girl shocks waitress by ordering Orange Chicken in perfect Mandarian" bit IRL would be pretty funny and adorable.

  • Beatboxing. "Boots and cats and boots and cats"-style.
  • The pulling your thumb off trick.
  • The Macarena.
  • "The Game". ("You just lost The Game.")
  • Chopsticks on the piano/keyboard/toy xylophone/etc.
  • "The Name Game."

Lockpicking

Using Linux

Media piracy

Feeding the homeless

Wheatpasting / graffiti

Political theory

Shoplifting from corporate chains

First Aid

Legal observation

Black bloc tactics

Guerilla gardening

Spotting plainclothes cops / informants

Dialectical Materialism

Idk about some of these given the age bracket, but Spot the Fed is fun for the whole family.

Seconding lockpocking. Easy to learn, tactile feedback (very kid friendly!), can absolutely annoy parents. But be careful to teach children not to do anything that'll seriously get them into trouble

A buddy of mine taught his 5 yr old daughter to tell people "One time, at band camp...I stuck a flute in my..." *long pause* "nose".

And he gets joy remembering all of the people go wide-eyed waiting for that next word out of her mouth.

Just hope he’s prepared for when she finds out the quote’s origin

"Guess what?"

"What?"

"CHICKEN BUTT!"

I love this type of thing! There's also:

"Guess why?"/"Chicken thigh!"

"Guess who?"/"Chicken poo!"

As a kid I also came up with "Guess when?"/"Chicken shin!" "Guess where?"/"Chicken hair!" and "Guess how?"/"Chicken COW!!" but those may not be quite as good, hahaha.

If she's the right age, Teach her The Game. It's a brain virus game.

Rule number 1 of The Game, you can not think about The Game. When you think about The Game you lose.

Rule number 2, when you think of The Game you have to say that you've lost The Game. Ideally loudly and publicly.

Rule number 3, after losing the game you get 30 minutes grace period to stop thinking about it before The Game starts again.

Rule number 4, once you have learned about the game you may either play the game or cheat.

I taught my kid to say "mom drinks beer for breakfast" as soon as she could talk. Wasn't that popular with the family xD

Lol! That reminds me of how (when AOL was thing and I was probably way too young to be on it but would use it to talk to family) my mom had me type out and send "I bought a bunch of cars and RECTUM!" via email or AIM out of nowhere to random family members with no context, even though I had no idea why that was funny, but she thought it was hilarious. Which is pretty damn funny looking back!

The drums.

Or a less chaotic-evil suggestion, that water-drop sound made by flicking your cheek.

I think the water drop sound with your mouth is more chaotic evil than drums.

I have had pretty good luck with doing

High five Up high Down low Too slow

My nephew would just let me do it forever, always trying to beat me on the too slow bit.

Give her some unconventional future career ideas. Non-edgy ones, of course. I think it would be pretty funny if after a visit from an uncle your kid was talking about sailing knots or embalming procedures or something.

I taught my 18 month year old niece the sound a dinosaur makes. ROOOOOOOAAAR

Juggling ? beginning with two balls is fairly easy and is a slippery gateway to more balls

Poker. And proper bluffing.

Low-key one of the worst things I think you can possibly teach a child. I've actually considered this with my nieces because it would be fun, but teaching kids how to lie convincingly is just a terrible idea on every possible front.

Do something that will confuse her parents a ton. Like tell her that every time she wants something, she has to touch her nose three times then say the thing. Demonstrate it a lot to drill it in.

taps nose three times... COOKIES

Tell her a fun fact, in your best science teacher tone. It takes one billion microseconds to get to one second. Hopefully she can run with this and ask more questions.

What I like to do with kids that age is cartwheels. One hand, two hands, one foot, two feet.

Good time to introduce them to interesting foods too.

Spitting watermelon seeds really far is also fun.

The macarena.

Teach her to say "I was born on a pirate ship"

Once she's able to say it properly, tell her to open her mouth with a finger at each corner and say the phrase again. Get her to shout it out

Then tell her to show her new trick to mom and dad.

That white cows make milk for white coffee and black cows make milk for black coffee.

No no no. White cows make milk. Brown cows make chocolate milk.

1 more...

If you know how, teach her how to whistle real high using the fingers on top of the tongue. One way is by making an O with the thumb and the index finger, bending/rolling your tongue backwards a bit and pressing your fingers against it.

Oh look at Mr You can just do it this way or that way.

I STILL CANT WHISTLE ALL YOU WHISLTING ELITISTS!!!

😭

Me neither. I can buzz my lips to a melody without a needing an actual horn, though.

Do you play a brass instrument?

I did for like a decade. I'd still play, but I was never as good as my peers, and that shit's expensive.

It still took a long time to nail the exact movements down, after I made the sound accidentally a couple times. There's no resonance to rely on the way you can for low brass, at least.

Greasy, grimy gopher guts
Mutilated monkey meat
Dirty little birdy feet
Floatin in snake eyeballs

Too

Bad

I

Forgot

My

Spoon

But I got my straaaaaawwwwww. sluuuuurp

Wow!!! This is fascinating-- I was raised with

Great big gobs of Greasy, Grimy, Gopher Guts Propagated Porcus Puts Sterilized Monkey Eyes, And me without a spoon! scoop Too Bad!

I think my mom was crazy on second thought

A good mom is always a little crazy lol.

I've heard that version, and there was a version of the one I wrote out that started "great green gobs" too.

You wanna know what's surprising though? We were taught the song in school, by the elementary music teacher. She'd come through the district one school at a time, once a week and we'd have music class. Basic rhythm instruments (like those ridged sticks you rub together that we canned rhythm sticks, maracas, cabasas, etc) and folk songs and such.

It was awesome. Mrs Gore was her name. Really tall blonde lady with an incredible voice that had infinite patience with kids that couldn't sing worth a damn lol.

I've never been good at rote memorization, but I remember every damn song she taught us.

Michael row your boat ashore, Puff the magic dragon, she'll be comin round the mountain, Mary Mack, John Jacob Jingleheimer Smith (usually pronounced Yon Yacob Yingleheimer), and a bunch more.

Oh man, and my entire class when I was in second grade took part in a school show, where each class did a song. We did Amazing Grace, and there were tears among the parents, and not just of boredom or because we sounded like a random group of kids trying to sing lol. We wore these blue vests and pants (I think the girls could choose to wear skirts, I remember that not all did, but not any discussion about it). It was so damn fun.

Do the burp trick by swallowing air, and then giggle uncontrollably.

Teach her about Poseidon's Kiss.

Make a fist stick up your pinky, put your mouth next to your thumb puff out your cheeks, and repeat the word "girl".