Nursery Rhymes Circle Time Fun!

Circle Time was a blast these past couple of weeks.  We took off our shoes and socks for This Little Piggy.  We got to play in the rocking boat for Rub A Dub Dub and Row Row Row Your Boat.  One of our little friends even taught us a new ending for Row Your Boat that had an alligator in it!  Jumping over the candlestick gave us a new appreciation for Jack Be Nimble.  We also had fun changing the rhyme with other positional words such as "around the candlestick, stand next to the candlestick, put the candlestick over your head", etc.  Who knew it would be so much fun to fall down with Jack and Jill and Humpty Dumpty sitting on a wall.  We counted drum beats for Hickory Dickory.  That poor mouse went up and down that clock so many times!  For Twinkle Twinkle, we played a visual memory game where Mrs. D would take away colors and we had to guess what color star was missing and a flashlight game where we turned off the lights, laid on our backs on the big rug and followed the star on the ceiling (flashlight) with our fingers.  Three Billy Goats Gruff is always a hoot acting it out with paper puppets and the wooden bridge.  A few other games we played were hunting for a clock timer hidden in the classroom for Wee Willie Winkie.  If the kids found the clock before it "dung", they won.  If the timer went off before they found the clock, the teachers won!  "Doggie, Doggie Where's Your Bone?" is a favorite game for Old Mother Hubbard.  Someone gets to play the dog and someone hides a plastic dog bone.  The doggie has 3 guesses to see who is hiding their bone.  We searched the room for Little Bo Peep's Sheep that were lost.  When we found them, we made a graph that sorted the sheep by colors.  We looked to see which color we found the most of and what colors were the least.  Then we kept going back and looking for more until we found them all.  We danced to Peas Porridge Hot and acted out the Three Bears.  There were also many other crazy ways we played with rhymes.

Nursery Rhymes Tabletop Games

Learning rhymes is one of the best pre-reading activities you can do with your child.    Repetition, repetition, repetition is how we learn them.  Boring you say?  Not if you are having fun.  We had a great time playing games to go along with the rhymes, acting out rhymes, and making rhyme crafts.  We also use different voices (soft, loud, squeaky, deep, etc.) to practice rhymes and keep it interesting.  No matter what way you do it, you're sure to have fun!

In this collage, we worked on Twinkle, Twinkle by sorting colored stars onto pipe cleaners and matching star cards.  We sorted spider shape cards, matched spider cards onto stool pictures, and played an "up the water spout" game for Little Miss Muffet and Isty Bitsy Spider.  We also played a "spider in, spider out" game where kids spun a spinner and had to put plastic spiders in their box card or take it out based on the spinner.  It was fun pretending to make alphabet soup with magnetic letters.  Poor Humpty Dumpty was put back together again many times with band aids and silly puzzles.  We had a great time making a giant pie with pom poms and tweezers for Little Jack Horner and Simple Simon.

In this collage, we played with plastic men and boats (and some other fun toys) and sudsy water for Rub A Dub Dub.  Plastic spiders were washed out the spout with a spout made out of an old soda bottle and PVC pipe.  Many Humpties were balanced on a wall.  We got to make our sheep fluffy with a simple addition game using cotton balls for Baa, Baa Black Sheep & Little Bo Peep.  Old Mother Hubbard's dog was very happy with all the bones we had for weighing.  Old King Cole was thrilled with all of the jewels kids put on his crown.  We made Hot Cross Buns with playdough and pipecleaner crosses.  Jack Be Nimble was very proud how kids could match the different sizes of candle sticks.  The Three Bears also got dressed nice and warmly.  We also played a Nursery Rhyme Lotto game with all of the famous rhymes.

Hickory Dickory Dock the mouse went up and down the clock with a magnet wand under the paper to help him move.  The dog from Mother Hubbard also found his bone thanks to the magnet wand too.  We made birthday cakes with colored playdough and colored peg "candles".  We got to blow them out and sing Happy Birthday a hundred times!  Doggie was fed more bones with tweezers.  Humpty made a return appearance as we had to move him across the wall without falling using a magnet wand.  Gingerbread Men were made by matching the shapes on his buttons.  We found alphabet letters hiding in a rice bottle.  When we found all the letters, we sang the Alphabet Song.  We played a Candyland type game with Nursery Rhyme characters, put characters together with the items they need for their rhyme (such as Old Mother Hubbard and her children needed a shoe).

Phew!  That was a lot of fun.  There were many other games not even on here, such as lacing different shoe cards (ballerina slippers, cowboy boots, sneakers, etc.) or putting cotton into number bags for Baa Baa Black Sheep.  Look at how interesting rhymes can be!