Do any of you do Nursery Rhymes with your students? Tell me what you do!!! Which ones do you use (and how do you pick them)? How often do you teach them? How do you teach them? Do you do activities around them? How do you incorporate them into your themes? I feel Nursery Rhymes have so much to offer children. It breaks my heart that kids are growing up now days not knowing them. I wasn't able to focus on them as much as I wanted to last year (since it was my first year in preschool, I was in survival mode!) so I'm just looking for some new ideas. Any help would be greatly appreciated!!
I adore nursery rhymes! I taught a unit on them in middle school, and even at the college level their historical aspect is discussed. When I taught at the secondary level, I used to take a poll of who knew the most nursery rhymes. The G/T class knew hundreds, but the lower classes knew very few or none. Tells ya something about their families, yes? I do NOT, however, like edited nursery rhymes, or those Christian nursery rhymes. But you all know by now that I hate edited versions of most pieces of literature and none of you is surprised. Sigh. (I'm a Christian; I just don't like that book of stolen nursery rhymes with changed words. Couldn't the author think of anything original to write? Sheesh.)
I teach kinder now, and currently use Nursery Rhymes, and have used them previously with 3-5 year olds. I even use them with my Girl Scout troops. With younger, I like using felt. I show the Nursery Rhyme on the felt board, and then we act it out. The kids love it! When we act Nursery Rhymes with more than one character - Hey, diddle, diddle, for example, I allow the children to pick their characters. Sometimes we end up with 4 or 5 of one character, but that's okay. Also, there are times when I ask them to change the Nursery Rhymes ending. Often, with the younger kids, they want to change the end of Humpty Dumpty. I don't buy any special props, we just use what ever is in the classroom. I've made felt figures by using coloring books, or copying Nursery Rhyme figures from a book. I laminate, and then glue felt on the back so they will stick to the board.
I use nursery rhymes several times throughout the year. I begin the year with Jack be Nimble. I write it on sentence strips for my pocket chart. Later on in the week we use it for name recognition. We replace Jack's name with the name of a child. The children take turns jumping over a little brass candle stick I have. I also use One, Two Buckle, My Shoe when I start introducing numbers. I use nursery rhymes less throughout the year but I still tried to incorporate it by sending home back packs with a nursery rhyme and a highlighter. I called it "Highlights of nursery rhyme" which is supposed to be in the Mailbox sometime. I had the children sit down with parents and highlight the letter of the week and had the child memorize the nursery rhyme. I also included in their back pack some type of activity to go along with the nursery rhyme like a color page, a little book, etc. The child also had a book with tape (not really anything to do with the nursery rhyme), crayons, and a magna doodle (88 cents a peice at Wal-Mart). I gave specific directions and things about the book bags before I sent them home and had the parents send a signed permission form agreeing before the child was allowed to bring one home. Believe it or not, all the children were able to take home a book bag and they knew the consequences if they did not bring it back on Friday. These book bags went home on every Monday in the latter part of the year. The children really enjoyed doing the activities and listening to the books.
I love Nursery Rhymes. Some years I choose one day a week for a specific Nursery Rhyme. It can be included in our Alphabet/letter of the week, but it's not always necessary to stick to your theme. Nursery Rhymes are important in their own right. Just be sure not to use any of the edited versions. They must be learned in their original form.
Oh Grammy, I adore nursery rhymes... so sad that children today are not familiar with them. It's a rite of passage.
I love nursery rhymes. I write them out on sentence strips and we replace student's names like the poster above mentioned. I also put them on poetry cards and add them to the poetry center. We illustrate them, create projects, act them out. I start the year with a nursery rhyme unit starting with about 5 more familiar ones (Little Ms. Muffet, Humpty Dumpty, Jack and Jill, etc.) Then we also do one "Special Nursery Rhyme" a month. I can usually tie that into our theme. http://curry.edschool.virginia.edu/go/wil/rimes_and_rhymes.htm Has many ideas and lesson plans for different rhymes. Choose what works with your class. Here are a few other links that might help. http://www.kindergartentreehouse.com/nurseryrhymes.html http://www.thekcrew.net/mothergoose.html
Well I tried to quote mrs.oz and it didn't work. So I deleted it and I'll try this one more time I've thought about doing this but I can't even get all of my parents to return emergency cards I send home. What were the consequences?
I just wrote a note explaining to the parents that their child would earn BUG (Being Unusually Good) tickets for bringing back the book bag with everything in it and one for memorizing the nursery rhymes. I explained to them that their child would be unable to shop in the treasure box if they did not bring back their things on Friday. I also told them that anything that was lost or damaged would have to be replaced and they had to sign the permission form stating that they agreed before they could take the book bag home. Also, if the book bag came back on Friday without everything in it the child would not be allowed to bring it back home until those items were returned. I would send home a note on Friday listing the items that were missing. They all did very well. I only had one parent to have to buy a new magna doodle and I did not question what had happened to the other one.
We have a nursery rhyme that goes with each lettter of the week. We type it out for their unlined homework books, and they read, act, draw, circle letter of week, rhyming words, etc. We post and read each day in circle time, talking about the same as above. I can share what rhyme goes with each letter if you need me to-
I have my list at school! I will get it this week and post- here are some good websites that I have found that deal with nursery rhymes and letters- http://www.zelo.com/family/nursery/index.asp http://www.hubbardscupboard.org/letter_and_rhyme_a_day.html
We did an activity at our local playgroup last week. I had a small picnic basket and searched around my house for small objects that represented nursery rhymes/favourite songs e.g. a toy spider, a sheep, children's teapot etc. I covered it with a towel and the children got to choose an object from the basket. We then tried to think of a rhyme/song to sing for the object. The children took turns to do this and really loved it.
Thanks for your ideas! Wow! There is so much out there! As I was looking through the links you provided, I noticed more links. My gosh! There is so much you can do!! I'm excited to get started this year with my little ones!!
Rhymes Try "The Complete Book of rhymes,songs,Poems, and fingerplays and Chants : Pam Schiller I got it from amazon.com used great price Good Luck gospelcharlie
I have come to analogize "Humpty Dumpty" with accidental death because it is assumed that Humpty Dumpty died when he broke because he couldn't get put together again and one cannot live broken into pieces like that-having no shell is like having no body. My analysis is: Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall-The dead person did something dangerous. Humpty Dumpty had a great fall-Something bad happened to him or her that he or she died. All the King's Horses and all the King's Men couldn't put Humpty together again-He or she died and needless to say, could not be revived. Would any of you teachers use Humpty Dumpty if a student had lost a loved one to an accidental death?
Dear pastdweller, Thanks for sharing the rhymes sites. I viewed them and I foiund some great ideas. Thanks,gospelcharlie
