Nursery Rhymes
Sandy Moline, Early Childhood Educator

Why Children Need to Hear Them:
Mother Goose Nursery Rhymes have been around for many, many years. The rhymes are as enjoyable for children to hear and say today as they were to children one hundred or more years ago. The rhymes provide hours of enjoyment as they are fun to hear and to repeat. While children are having fun with a trusted adult as they listen and say nursery rhymes together, they are also developing skills needed to read.

What Children Learn from Hearing Nursery Rhymes:
Even though many of the original meanings for nursery rhymes have been lost, the rhyming, rhythm and repetition of sounds remain. Having fun together with the rhymes helps children hear the sounds of language and develop a love for language. Nursery rhymes provide a good base for helping children develop phonemic awareness which means helping children hear the sounds of language (beginning letter sounds, ending word sounds and combinations of consonants and vowels).

When Reading Nursery Rhymes with Your Child:

• Remember to read the rhymes over and over. Children love repetition and hearing the rhymes many times helps children remember the rhymes and helps children develop pre-reading skills.
• Talk about the vocabulary words that may be new to children. 
• After reading the rhymes together numerous times, pause at the end of a sentence and have children fill in the last word of the rhyme.
• Talk about the rhyming words that you hear.
• After many repetitions, read the rhymes with different voices. You could also have fun reading the rhymes fast or slow.
• After many repetitions, you can change words as you read to make the nursery rhyme sound silly. Observe to see if children hear your silly mistake. 

Fun Ways to Extend Play with Nursery Rhymes Include:

• Let children act out nursery rhymes. 
• Pretend to fall off Humpty Dumpty’s wall. 
• Turn a block into a candlestick and let children jump over it when saying, “Jack Be Nimble”.  
• Hide mittens for children to find when reading, “The Three Little Kittens”. 
• Have one child sit on a small stool holding a bowl and a spoon.  A second child can hold a toy spider and frighten “Little Miss Muffet” away. 
• Cook together to extend the Nursery rhymes. 
• Make oatmeal when reading “The Three Bears”. 
• Make muffins when reading “The Muffin Man.”
•  Eat hard boiled eggs or make egg salad when reading “Humpty Dumpty”. 
• Mix cottage cheese and fruit to imitate “Little Miss Muffet’s” curds and whey.
• Do art projects together to make the rhymes come alive.
•  Give children an oval cut from construction paper when reading “Humpty Dumpty”. Children can decorate the oval and then cut or tear it into pieces to try to put Humpty together again.
•  Glue cotton balls or paint with cotton balls on a lamb cutout when reading “Mary Had A Little Lamb”. 
• Make your own spider when reading “Little Miss Muffet.”  Color a paper plate black.  Add legs of pipe cleaners or strips of construction paper.  Attach a string to the paper plate to hold the spider.

Additional Resources:

drjean.org – search for nursery rhymes.  Dr. Jean also has a CD titled “Nursery Rhymes and Good Ole Times” that includes many favorites and is sung in a tempo and rhythm that is very easy for children to listen to and sing along.

http://ngfl.northumberland.gov.uk/Foundation/nurseryrhymes/default.htm

http://www.hclib.org/birthto6/ELSIE.cfm - search for Nursery Rhyme books to buy or rent from the library.

Sandy Moline, Early Childhood Educator
Rosemount, Apple Valley, Eagan Area Schools