Tag Archives: nursery rhymes

Ideas for Celebrating World Nursery Rhyme Week 2022 – #readilearn

14 Replies

Next week, from 14th – 18th November, is World Nursery Rhyme Week. Why not celebrate by revisiting some of the children’s (and your) favourite nursey rhymes. Children in our F – 2 classrooms can explore language features and use them as a springboard for writing, recitation, and role play. Children in older classrooms may like to investigate their (often dark) origins and history.

The aim of World Nursery Rhyme Week is to promote the importance of nursery rhymes in early education. The five official nursery rhymes for this year’s celebration are:

The Big Ship Sails

1, 2, 3, 4, 5 Once I Caught a Fish Alive

Five Little Speckled Frogs

B.I.N.G.O.

Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star.

However, you are welcome to use any nursery rhymes you like, and here at readilearn we have some resources to assist your teaching.

readilearn nursery rhyme resources

Humpty Dumpty

Teach literacy skills and develop creative thinking and imagination with Humpty Dumpty.

The Humpty Dumpty suite of resources includes:

The Accident — Humpty Dumpty’s Fall is an original story that innovates on the nursery rhyme by providing a scenario that might lead to Humpty’s falling from the wall. It is a digital estory which can be displayed and read on the interactive whiteboard. It can be read as a story on its own or as part of the writing unit Humpty Dumpty — a story in five sittings. (Note: if you wish to implement the writing unit, do so before reading the story.)

Humpty Dumpty — a story in five sittings is a series of five lessons in writing based upon the nursery rhyme. Each lesson provides opportunities for children to think creatively and imaginatively and to write using a basic narrative structure. It presupposes children already have an idea of sentence structure and some experience writing stories of their own.

Of course, before attempting to read or write an alternative, it is important that children are familiar with the nursery rhyme. We have that covered too, with a printable copy of the nursery rhyme Humpty Dumpty to download.

Continue reading: Ideas for Celebrating World Nursery Rhyme Week 2022 – readilearn

Writing Poetry with Children – #readilearn

25 Replies

With this month being National Poetry Month in the US and 17 April being International Haiku Day,  I thought it was timely to share some of our poetry resources. Here in Australia, we celebrate poetry month in August, but I don’t think we need wait until then. We can celebrate again in August or make every month poetry month. No month should go by without enjoying some poetry anyway.

Poetry is a great introduction to the rhythms and sounds of our language. Children are introduced to it from a young age through nursery rhymes and picture books. Some of children’s favourite picture books are those that read like poems with rhythm, rhyme and repetition. The books of Dr Seuss and Julia Donaldson come immediately to mind. But, of course, there are many others too.

When they enter school, children love listening to poetry and experimenting with writing poems of their own. Here at readilearn we have some resources to help you help them get started on their poetry writing journey. All poetry resources are found in their own section of the literacy collection.

Writing poetry

Writing Haiku with Children — This collection includes five haiku poems for reading and five stimulus photos for writing. It can be used to introduce children to the structure of haiku poetry and to encourage them to write haiku poems of their own. The resource includes information about the structure of haiku poetry as well as teaching suggestions.

If You Were an Animal — poem and teaching notes — The teacher notes accompanying this poem provide suggestions for both English and Science.

English teaching suggestions include:

  • Rhyming words
  • Questions and statements
  • Opposites
  • Writing
  • Recitation and performance

Science teaching suggestions include:

  • Features of living things
  • Needs of living things
  • Habitats of living things

Write your own “I love” poem — This resource encourages children to write their own poems by innovating on the traditional camping song ‘I love the Mountains’. Great for even beginning writers.

Continue reading: Writing Poetry with Children – #readilearn

Innovating on the nursery rhyme Row, Row, Row Your Boat – #readilearn

24 Replies

Innovating on familiar nursery rhymes and songs is an easy and fun way to encourage children to think creatively, to develop their writing skills and extend their vocabularies. There are many ways in which Row, Row, Row Your Boat can be used for these purposes. In this post, I share just some of them.

Rhyming words

stream/dream

What other words rhyme with stream and dream? List them.

beam, cream, gleam, meme, ream, seem, team

row

What other words rhyme with row? List them.

bow, blow, crow, dough, flow, go, hoe, Joe, know, low, mow, so, slow, show, tow, though, woe

Synonyms and alternatives

Substitute synonyms or other words to sing or write new versions.

Continue reading: Innovating on the nursery rhyme Row, Row, Row Your Boat – readilearn

teaching with nursery rhymes

The Cow Jumped Over the Moon — Really? – #readilearn

21 Replies

Nursery rhymes are fun, especially nonsense nursery rhymes like Hey Diddle, Diddle.

Benefits of Nursery Rhymes

But nursery rhymes are not just fun. They are often a child’s first introduction to our literary heritage and have many benefits for young children.

  • They help children learn the sounds and rhythms of the language.
  • They are short and easy to remember so help to develop memory.
  • They introduce children to rhyme and alliteration and help to develop phonemic awareness which is important to the development of skills in reading and writing.
  • They encourage a joy in language and inspire a playfulness that contributes to further language learning.

Australian author Mem Fox is often quoted as saying that

“Experts in literacy and child development have discovered that if children know eight nursery rhymes by heart by the time they’re four years old, they’re usually among the best readers by the time they’re eight.”

We know that success with literacy learning often correlates with success later in life. Most early childhood teachers agree that children who have been spoken to, sung to (including nursery rhymes) and read to before school find literacy learning much easier in our classrooms. However, the value of nursery rhymes doesn’t end when children begin school. They can be the focus of learning throughout school.

World Nursery Rhyme Week

If you are not already aware of it, you may wish to check out World Nursery Rhyme Week  that begins next week on 16 November and continues until 20 November. The purpose of World Nursery Rhyme Week is to promote the importance of nursery rhymes in early education. Follow the link to find lots of free resources to join in the worldwide celebration of nursery rhymes.

Learning with Hey Diddle, Diddle

Let’s begin with ten lesson ideas based upon the nonsense nursery rhyme Hey Diddle Diddle. I’m sure you are familiar with the rhyme.

Continue reading: The Cow Jumped Over the Moon — Really? – readilearn

First Cow in Space flash fiction

First Cow in Space #flashfiction

46 Replies

I’m sure you all know the nursery rhyme Hey Diddle Diddle about a cat playing a fiddle and a cow jumping over the moon.

I love using nursery rhymes with young children. They are a great way for them to learn the sounds and rhythms of our language, develop their memories and just have fun with nonsense. I’ve never considered it important for them (or me) to know the background of the rhymes. We can leave that to more serious students of literature.

The rhythm and rhyme of nursery rhymes encourage children to join in with the recitation and commit them to memory. Their memory for the rhymes can be used as a step into reading. I’ve written before about nursery rhymes, both on this blog and on the readilearn blog here and here. I have also some written some literacy lessons based on nursery rhymes that are available in the readilearn collection, including Let’s read and write with Little Miss Muffet, Humpty Dumpty — a story in five sittings and The Accident — Humpty Dumpty’s Fall.

This week at the Carrot Ranch, Charli Mills challenged writers to In 99 words (no more, no less), write a story about Clarice. She can be any Clarice real, historical, or imagined. What story does she have for you to tell? Go where she may lead!

You may well wonder what that prompt has to do with nursery rhymes. But Charli always says to go where the prompt leads. It usually leads me to children and education in some way. This time, and with a huge apology to all the Clarices out there, it led me to a cow in a nursery rhyme. Why should she be called Clarice? I don’t know, but I thought the first cow in space would be quite an imaginary historical figure. I hope you like my story. I’m certain, if given a chance, children would come up with their own wonderful innovations too.

First Cow in Space

“We are here today with the first cow in space, whose identity, until now, has been kept secret. Will you please welcome [drum roll] Clarice Cloverdale.”

[Applause]

“Clarice, please tell us about your adventure and why your identity was undisclosed for so long.”

“It was simply a non-disclosure agreement. That contract has now terminated so I’m free to tell.”

“Go on.”

“We were all tired of playing second-fiddle to Cat. Dish and Spoon ran away so Dog had no alternative but to make me the star. Needless to say, I was over the moon. The rest is history.”

[Applause]

Thank you blog post

Thank you for reading. I appreciate your feedback. Please share your thoughts.

teaching and learning with nursery rhymes

Teaching and learning with nursery rhymes – reblogged from readilearn

28 Replies

Nursery rhymes are often a child’s first introduction to our literary heritage. Parents sing nursery rhyme lullabies to soothe their babies to sleep and play nursery rhyme games to entertain them in their waking hours. All the while, children are learning the rhythms and tones of our language, developing vocabulary, ideas and imagination. When children learn the repetitive patterns of nursery rhymes, they are also developing their memories.

Australian author Mem Fox is often quoted as saying that

“Experts in literacy and child development have discovered that if children know eight nursery rhymes by heart by the time they’re four years old, they’re usually among the best readers by the time they’re eight.”

While I am aware that others question the existence of research to back up that statement, I think most teachers would agree that children who have been spoken to, sung to (including nursery rhymes) and read to before school will find literacy learning much easier in our classrooms. Success with literacy learning often correlates with success later in life.

Already on the readilearn website, there are resources to support your literacy teaching using the nursery rhymes Humpty Dumpty and Little Miss Muffet. More are in development. While some nursery rhymes may be considered to have questionable origins, those origins have no place when teaching them to children. The benefits flow from having fun with the rhythms and rhymes of language.

Teaching literacy skills & developing creative thinking with Humpty Dumpty

The Humpty Dumpty suite of resources includes:

Continue reading: Teaching and learning with nursery rhymes – readilearn

Guess what you’re getting for Christmas!

52 Replies

The love of reading is gift

I went Christmas shopping yesterday, and guess what I bought!

© Norah Colvin The titles of these books are hidden to maintain the “surprise” for the recipients.

© Norah Colvin
The titles of these books are hidden to maintain the “surprise” for the recipients.

Books! It wasn’t difficult to guess was it? I have written in previous posts about both giving and receiving books as gifts.  I’ll let you in on a little secret though. I did buy a few others things as well. That’s probably a good thing, otherwise the memory game “My grandmother went shopping and she bought …” would not do anything to develop memory and would be rather boring:

“My grandmother went shopping and she bought … a book … and a book … and a book … and a book …:

one

I have already received one beautiful book for Christmas this year: One: How many people does it take to make a difference?, and the recommendation of many others, some of which I have purchased for myself or as gifts. Books received as gifts often take a very special place in a collection.

HeidiHeidi inside

One of my strongest memories is of waking before sunrise one Christmas morning, checking to see if Santa had been, and discovering a book at the end of my bed. While there was not enough light at first to see the illustrations or read the words, I delighted in the smoothness of the cover and the smell of the pages. Slowly as the sun rose the title revealed itself: Heidi by Johanna Spyri, and I started to read. I loved that story and read it many times. After more than fifty years I still have the book in my possession, rather tattered and worn, not unlike its owner, but still loved.

In a recent post I shared some Australian Christmas picture books.   In a comment on that post Sherri Matthews, who blogs at A View from My Summerhouse,  reminded me of the Janet and Allan Ahlberg book, The Jolly Christmas Postman.   Although it was given to Bec for Christmas exactly thirty years after I received Heidi, I still have it in my possession. Shh! Don’t tell Bec. Of course the reason it was not included in my list of Christmas books is that the authors were British. (Allan is now aged 77. Janet passed away in 1994.)

cover

The Jolly Christmas Postman was published in 1991 and followed the success of the original Jolly Postman story. It is a delightful interactive book in which the postman delivers Christmas mail to storybook characters, including:

  • A Christmas card for Baby Bear from Goldilocks and her sister
  • A game about being safe in the woods for Red Riding Hood from Mr Wolf, who declares he is a “changed wolf”
  • A Humpty Dumpty jigsaw puzzle for Humpty Dumpty from all the king’s men
  • A Christmas annual and book in a book for the Gingerbread Man from Pat O’Cake Bakers
  • A Wolf Spotter’s Guide for Mr Wolf from Red Riding Hood , and
  • A special concertina “peep-show” for the postman from Santa and Mrs Santa.

activities

After the postman delivers the children’s letters to Santa, has a cup of tea and receives his gift, he hitches a ride back home on Santa’s sleigh. What a delightful conclusion to the story.

There is much to explore in this little book for both young and old; far too much for just one sitting. With books to read, games to play and puzzles to do it could entertain for hours. A full appreciation of the cleverness and humour in the story requires an understanding of fairy stories such as Goldilocks and the Three Bears, Red Riding Hood, The Gingerbread Man, The Three Little Pigs; and nursery rhymes such as Humpty Dumpty, Doctor Foster, and Pat-a-cake, amongst others. Reading the book is a literary adventure.

I wonder how soon before it will also be an adventure in history. It was published in 1991 before email became popular and social media was invented. The number of items sent by “snail mail” is decreasing. It may not be long before children also need a history lesson to understand what is mean by “a postman”.

Books make special memories. What special memories will you create for someone with a book this year? What books have made a special memory for you?

Thank you

Thank you for reading. I appreciate your feedback. Please share your thoughts.