Ideas for teaching songs, nursery rhymes and poems

Posted on 27 May 2009

There are many different methods which can be used and applied when attempting to teach nursery rhymes to children. No child knows a song, poem or nursery rhyme by birth and each child has to be at some point introduced. Upon introducing a rhyme to the child for the first time you can read it but it would be better if you would sing it while showing some pictures to them. Encourage them to sing along with you.

Rhymes that contain activity

Rhymes contain words about many kinds of activities that children take up in their every day life, like running, dancing, creating paper toys, colouring, drawing and many more. If rhymes that have similar wordings are taught to them then it shall assist them in being able to identify very quickly with that activity. Also make use of the dearest toys while enacting or singing the rhymes and poems, like by holding their bunny toy and use the bunny's hands to show them how to brush their teeth, once they see their favourite stuffed toy brushing its teeth they too shall find brushing their own teeth a fun activity to do. Also songs like Little Miss Muffet. Humptey Dumptey. Jack and Jill. Hickory Dickory Dock and Hide And Seek are great example of activity nursery rhymes that immensely benefits children by improving their all round activeness.

Using Nursery Rhymes to Teach Children New Concepts

1. The use of rhymes fits aptly when trying to reinforce other kindergarten and pre-school lessons. For instance, Hickory Dickory Dock could well be used where time is being mentioned or being used as description. Create a cardboard clock with string like hands to show the movement of clock's hands, also allow the children to move the strings while the song is being played or sung.
2. Another rhyme called Five Little Monkeys At The Zoo is a great way to teach the kids about a unit on numbers. Create (or ask the children to make) 5 paper monkeys, and when the rhyme is in progress the children can be asked to out the correct number of monkeys while each of the corresponding rhyme verse is read out. The rhyme One Two Three Four also works for this in a similar way.
3. The rhyme Monday's Child is apt while teaching kids about the different days of the week. There is another lovely weekday song called Sneezing that reads this way:
   If you sneeze on Monday, you sneeze for danger;
   Sneeze on a Tuesday, kiss a stranger;
   Sneeze on a Wednesday, sneeze for a letter;
   Sneeze on a Thursday, something better.
   Sneeze on a Friday, sneeze for sorrow;
   Sneeze on a Saturday, joy to-morrow.
4. Also rhymes can be used to teach children about the changes in languages and customs that have occurred over a period in time. Admittedly many words found in rhymes are somewhat outmoded but their modern-day equivalents can be found. For instance, in the nursery rhyme Old Mother Hubbard. tell the kids that these days cupboard is prevalent. That's not all, rhymes also act as a means of telling kids some really interesting differences in the way we live presently and how people lead a rather simple life long ago. For instance, in the rhyme Rub-a-dub-dub. there are three Men in a Tub, one of those three is a candle-stick maker. So you can tell them that many many years ago electricity wasn't available thus candles were a source for light. Jack and Jill fetches water; by reading this rhyme you can tell the kids that how water was sourced from wells and the carried all the way back home many hundred years ago.

There are many rhymes, songs and poems that you can use to teach children songs and conversely while teaching songs you can also teach children on what these rhymes have to convey. We also have a huge collection of lullabies and nursery rhymes to help keep alive the traditions of mums and dads singing their children to sleep.