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Nursery Rhyme News
27 November 2020
Nursery rhymes are important for young children to learn because they help develop an ear for language. Both rhyme and rhythm help children to hear the sounds and syllables in words, which helps them learn to read! Nursery rhymes help develop inferencing skills, both with encountering new words and in reading comprehension. Experts in literacy and child development have discovered that if a child knows eight nursery rhymes by heart by the time they are four years old, they are usually among the best readers and spellers in their class by the time they are in Year 3.
So, last week, whilst having fun taking part in World Nursery Rhyme Week, girls in our Nursery were gaining important skills to help them become super readers.
On Monday, day 1 of the week the chosen rhyme was, ‘The Wheels on the Bus.’ Activities included using toy vehicles and paint in the tuff tray for mark making and driving wheelies covered in paint on long strips of paper. Number skills were practised too, putting teddies on a bus frame, counting them and then finding the corresponding numeral.
On day 2, the chosen rhyme was ‘Five Little Speckled Frogs’. The girls role played the rhyme as they sang. They also used a number line with lily pads and toy frogs for counting and ordering numbers.
‘Hickory Dickory Dock’ was Wednesday’s rhyme. Girls explored clocks and watches and made grandfather clocks. They also made up verses of the rhyme with different animals going up the clock in different ways. In their version the snake slid up the clock and the frog hopped.
A classroom visit to ‘Old Macdonald’s Farm’ was the next chosen rhyme. Thursday’s activities included role play, farmyard dominoes, small world farm play and matching fully grown and baby animals.
The last rhyme of the week was ‘Miss Polly Had a Dolly’. This day brought further opportunity to role play and the opportunity to have a go at writing prescriptions.
The girls also enjoyed visits from other school staff who were invited to join them to share a favourite rhyme. Mrs Macro visited via a video link and sang ‘Five Little Speckled Frogs’ using some teddies to help. Mrs Hartley brought along a friendly spider she had knitted to share ‘Incy Wincy Spider.’ Mrs Robinson sang ‘Hey Diddle Diddle’ and brought along a fiddle for the girls to play. ‘Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star’ was shared by Mrs Hart and was followed with the making of sparkly stars.
Nursery Rhyme News
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