Ask the Teachers-June 2013 Needs More Than Mother Goose

Dear Teachers,

I notice that you use nursery rhymes listed as a separate component in your curriculum. I can understand it for babies; however, I thought my child was getting too old for them and should be working on things that will better prepare them for school. Why are they included?

– Needs More Than Mother Goose

Dear Mother,

Nursery rhymes are classic and they have become classic because they fulfill a need in young children. If you repeat them to your child over (and over) cuddling together as part of your bedtime routine, you will create warm memories for your child and perhaps revisit similar memories from your own childhood as well.

In addition, nursery rhymes are a wonderful introduction to important prereading skills including: identifying characters; predicting what happens next; recognizing the cadence in the poetry; memorization of text; expansion of vocabulary; alliteration (We Willie Winkie); and as an introduction to rhyming (where letters that sound alike have the same ending pattern such as house/mouse) and riming (where words sound alike but have a different ending pattern such as fair/care.) There are entire thematic units lasting anywhere from a month to a full year built around nursery rhymes used in early childhood education, which includes the years birth to Grade 3. By beginning with recognizable literature, early elementary children can often learn more easily and can gain a sense of competence.

The theme for this yearʼs summer curriculum is Fairy Tales, Nursery Rhymes and Fables from Around the World. Each classroom will be delving more deeply into nursery rhymes with developmentally appropriate activities to make them come alive in such ways as: drama, tasting curds and whey, having a plum on their thumb, building with sticks, art, puppetry, sitting on a tuffet, clapping along to the rhythm the horses, pigs or goats might make, etc.

A list of common nursery rhymes, whether sung or spoken, used in early childhood classrooms and the rhyming/riming words found within them are found below. By recognizing and using these words and word families, children become more aware of the phonics (individual sounds of letters), letter chunks (prefixes and suffixes), and word families (rhyming) found in the English language. It appears that Simple Simon is not so simple after all.

Word Families Found in Nursery Rhymes

• Baa, Baa, Black Sheep – wool/full
• Bye Baby Bunting – bunting/a-hunting, milking/a-silking, skin/in
• Dance to Your Daddy – daddy/laddie, fishy/dishy
• Girls and Boys Come Out to Play – play/day, call/all/wall
• Hey Diddle, Diddle – diddle/fiddle
• Hickory Dickory Dock – dock/clock, five/hive, nine/fine
• Hot Cross Buns – buns/sons
• Humpty Dumpty – wall/fall, men/again
• Jack and Jill – Jill/hill, down/crown, got/trot, caper/paper, plaster/disaster
• Jack Be Nimble – quick/candlestick
• This Old Man – two/shoe, three/knee, four/door, five/hive, six/sticks, seven/heaven,
• nine/shine, ten/hen
• Little Bo Peep – Peep/sheep, by/dry/eye, bleating/fleeting
• Little Boy Blue – horn/corn. sheep/asleep
• Mary Had a LIttle Lamb – snow/go, school/rule, near/appear, cry/reply
• Mary, Mary Quite Contrary – Mary/contrary, grow/row, bells/shells
• Hush Little Baby – word/bird, ring/sing, brass/glass, pull/bull, over/Rover, down/town
• I Had a LIttle Nut tree – bear/pear, me/tree
• Mondayʼs Child – face/grace, woe/go,giving/living, day/gay
• The North Wind Doth Blow – blow/snow, wing/thing
• Old Mother Hubbard – Hubbard/cupboard, bread/dead, cat/hat, wig/jig, coat/goat
• One, Two Buckle My Shoe – two/shoe, four/door, six/sticks, eight/straight, ten/hen,
• Pat-A-Cake – man/can/pan, B/me
• Peter, Peter Pumpkin Eater – shell/well
• The Queen of Hearts – day/away, sore/more
• Rain, Rain, Go Away – away/day/play
• Rub-a-Dub-Dub – dub/tub, be/three, baker/maker
• See-Saw Margery Daw – daw/saw/straw
• Simple Simon – Simon/pie man, fair/ware, any/penny
• Sing a Song of Sixpence – rye/pie, sing/king, money/honey, clothes/nose
• Star LIght, Star Bright – light/bright/night
• There Was a Crooked Man – mile/stile, mouse/house
• There Was an Old Lady Who Lived in a Shoe – shoe/do, bread/bed
• Three Blind Mice – wife/knife/life
• Three LIttle Kittens – kitten/mitten, dear/fear, cry/pie/sigh/dry/by
• To Market, to Market – pig/jig, hog/jog
• Twinkle, Twinkle – star/are
• Wee Willie Winkie – town/gown, lock/oʼclock, cheep/asleep, moon/spoon