#atozchallenge: N is for Nursery Rhymes

Say it Rah-shay By Rachee Apr 16, 2013 No Comments

In which Mother Goose comes to life!

Last week we featured nursery rhymes during our Preschool Playschool. I have been wanting to do a Mother Goose Program for a while ever since I attended a Mother Goose on the Loose training and then an awards presentation for Pennsylvania’s Library Associations Best Practices and saw the program put together by Nina Edgerton from the James V. Brown Library. But what to do? The rhymes are short and were not something That I would traditionally use during storytime but they are full of action and motion and also featured prominently during the Every Child Ready to Read training I attended back on January.

So I hit Pinterest (My happy place!) and looked for ideas. I have since created a board of nursery rhyme activities and you can view it below or visit it here.

For our Rhyme Time I created stations.

Crafts (Make and Take)

Make a star wand using a stick and a star that you’ve decorated or create a booklet.
Decorate a Teddy Bear Puppet for The Teddy Bear Picnic or Teddy Bear Teddy Bear song
Make a pig puppet for This little Piggy or Three Little Pigs
Decorate a candle for your own candle stick
Cut and collect Nursery Rhymes to go

Getting ready for the picnic

Jack be nimble!

Action

Activity cube with Nursery Rhyme Prompts

London Bridges (we all fell down)
I’m a Little Tea Pot (we all sang and did the motions)
Jack Be Nimble (we took turns jumping over a candle stick)
Ring Around a Roses
Pat A Cake

Simple Simon Pie Obstacle Course

We set up chairs that designated a road to the fair. Pie tins were at the start. Children and adults were challenged to go through the route balancing a pie on their head, one hand, two hands or on head and hands.

Nursery Rhyme Mystery Box

Children had to reach into the box and guess what they were feeling. They could pull the item out and sing the rhyme.

Items in the box

Owl (Owl and the Pussycat)
Foam Pumpkins (Peter, Peter Pumpkin Eater)
Stuffed Frog (Five Green and Speckled Frogs)
Sticks (this old man)
Styffed bird (to go along with owl) for two little dickey birds
Cotton Balls (Baa, Baa Black Sheep/Little Bo Peep/ Mary Had a Little Lamb)
Plastic Spider (Itsy Bitsy Spider/ Little Miss Muffet)

Alphabet Pie Roll a Block

At this activity children rolled the cubes and acted out the letters from “A was an Apple Pie”

(We made copies of the books and taped the pictures to cubes. I love cubes and roll a stories.)

Can you act out the alphabet?

Books

Books were available for check out including:

The neighborhood Mother Goose by Nina Crews
Mother Goose. Selections by Sylvia Long
Mother Goose by Richard Scarry

Mother Goose Day is May 1st and I plan to have another go at this activity. This time I’ll add Three Blind/Hickory Dickory Dock (so that we can add a clock and mice), Humpty Dumpty (I have plastic eggs left over for Easter and they need some use) and more.

Do you Mother Goose?
What’s your favorite rhymes and do you have ideas to share?
Leave a comment with your favorites!

Having a rhyming good time!
-r