Nursery Rhymes Theme

Nursery rhymes are traditional poems or songs in different languages from many countries. When I was a child, I remember we used to sing "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star", "I'm a Little Teapot", "London Bridge is Falling Down" as well as other Sunday school songs such as "Community Song (It's I Who Build Community)" and "Making Melody in my Heart". Of course we had some in Tagalog too, such as "Bahay Kubo", about all the vegetables found in the nipa hut garden and "Leron, Leron, Sinta", is more of a traditional song about climbing a papaya tree to get the fruit (if I translated them well!). I think I remember them most because I enjoyed doing the actions that go with them. Being silly while singing "Making Melody in my Heart" is so much fun!

Teaching in early years, I always say that my day is like a musical. There's a song for everything we do, greeting one another, walking and even while washing hands! It captures the children's interest and enjoy what they are doing.

For this theme, I selected some nursery rhymes that we focused on. There are a lot of activities you can do for every rhyme. Here are the rhymes we did:

OLD MACDONALD HAD A FARM

Old MacDonald Had A Farm E-I-E-I-O And on his farm he had a cow E-I-E-I-O With a moo moo here And a moo moo there Here a moo, there a moo Everywhere a moo moo Old MacDonald had a farm E-I-E-I-O

Old MacDonald Had A Farm E-I-E-I-O And on his farm he had a duck E-I-E-I-O With a quack quack here And a quack quack there Here a quack, there a quack Everywhere a quack quack Old MacDonald had a farm E-I-E-I-O

(repeat for different animals such as pig, sheep, chicken, etc.)

Children love learning about the animals and the sounds they make. Old MacDonald Had a Farm is a nursery rhyme that most of the children know. You can start by singing the rhyme or use puppets like this.

We read a lot of books about farm animals.

We also talked about the letter t by doing tractor tracks with paint which the children loved!

Added FIVE LITTLE DUCKS and counting to the theme by making a DIY Five Little Ducks puzzle using recycled cardboard.

Five little ducks went out one day Over the hill and far away Mother duck said, "Quack, quack, quack, quack" But only four little ducks came back One, two, three, four

Four little ducks went out one day Over the hill and far away Mother duck said, "Quack, quack, quack, quack" But only three little ducks came back One, two, three

Three little ducks went out one day Over the hill and far away Mother duck said, "Quack, quack, quack, quack" But only two little ducks came back One, two

Two little ducks went out one day Over the hill and far away Mother duck said, "Quack, quack, quack, quack" But only one little duck came back One

One little duck went out one day Over the hill and far away Mother duck said, "Quack, quack, quack, quack" But none of the five little ducks came back

Sad mother duck went out one day Over the hill and far away Mother duck said, "Quack, quack, quack, quack" And all of five little ducks came back

Five little ducks went out to play Over the hill and far away Mother duck said, "Quack, quack, quack, quack" And all of the five little ducks came back!

HICKORY DICKORY DOCK

Hickory, dickory, dock.

The mouse ran up the clock.

The clock struck one,

The mouse ran down,

Hickory, dickory, dock.

(You can find a lot of versions if you want to do more numbers)

I made another cardboard DIY, this time, it's a circle time props for Hickory Dickory Dock. We talked about prepositions such as up, down, in front, behind. For older children, you can use this to learn about sequencing of numbers and telling time.

INCY WINCY SPIDER

Incy wincy spider climbed up the waterspout,

Down came the rain and washed the spider out,

Out came the sun and dried up all the rain,

So Incy wincy spider climbed up the spout again.

For this cardboard craft, I stuck numbers where the legs supposedly go and used numbered pegs for matching and counting. It's a great fine motor activity too.

I added holes at the bottom so the children can play with it too.

HUMPTY DUMPTY

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall

Humpty Dumpty had a great fall

All the king's horses and all the king's men

Couldn't put Humpty together again.

And lastly, we talked about Humpty Dumpty. We learnt that Humpty Dumpty is an egg and he broke when he fell so we did a "put-Humpty-together-again" sticking activity with eggshells.