Nursery rhymes are a wonderful way to teach children needed reading, memorization, verbal, and listening skills. There are several nursery rhyme activities you can do to help your child improve their cognitive skills. Here are some great nursery rhyme activities you can enjoy with your children:
Mother Goose Field Day
This idea works best for children’s parties or for a school class. Have each child begin the day with a necklace that has a laminated picture of Mother Goose. Set up different stations that have nursery rhymes and a prop to go along with it. The stations that have been used by others are as follows:
· Humpty Dumpty – have plastic eggs placed on a 2 x 4 and let the children shoot the egg off the wood with squirt guns.
· Little Jack Horner – Give each child a slice of pie to eat.
· Jack Be Nimble – Have children jump over zigzagged pillar candles.
· Hey Diddle, Diddle – Children pretend to milk a cow by milking a plastic glove that is filled with water and tied off at the top.
· Mistress Mary – Use old egg cartons to have children make flowers
· The Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe – Let children participate in a relay race wearing large sized shoes.
· Baa, Baa, Black Sheep – Have children race to fill 3 bags full of packing materials.
Puppet Shows
Puppet shows are a great nursery rhyme activity. Use an old, clean sock and attach some other pieces of fabric to it. Turn a boring old sock into a great nursery rhyme activity like “Jack and Jill” or “Humpty Dumpty.”
Finger puppets are also easy to make and are perfect for children to place on their fingers when you read the nursery rhyme to them. Finger puppets will encourage great motor development skills to develop.
Humpty Dumpty
Using a plastic egg, you can re-create your version of Humpty Dumpty. Find some extra fabric and glue it to the egg. Grab a brick and read the nursery rhyme and knock Humpty Dumpty off the wall using a water pistol when you get to that part in the nursery rhyme.
For a larger group, have them play a Humpty Dumpty marathon. Give everyone a large piece of paper and markers. Give everyone a set time limit and have them draw their version of Humpty Dumpty. When the timer rings, everyone needs to put down their markers and judge who drew the best Humpty Dumpty.
Three Little Pigs
Another fun nursery rhyme activity you can recreate is the “Three Little Pigs.” Go outside and gather some twigs, straw, paper, glue and paint. Have your child use red paper to be the brick house, then use straw or spaghetti to make the straw house and of course twigs to be the stick house. To add a little fun, turn on your blow dryer when the houses are built to see if they can withstand the huffs and puffs of the big bad wolf.
Jack and the Beanstalk
Using some paper, glue, glitters and markers, you can re-create the popular nursery rhyme, “Jack and the Beanstalk”. Have each child draw their own leaf and hang the leaves from a beanstalk. The beanstalk can be made from paper sacks or rolling towels together. If you have a empty wall, place the beanstalk next to the wall so you can put a cloud on the ceiling to make it seem as if the beanstalk goes up to the clouds.
You can even give each child a bean for a beanstalk and have them plant it in a garden or in a pot. As the bean grows, your child will be able to see the similarities between the nursery rhyme and the actual beanstalk.
