Nursery rhyme activities are a great way to help your child learn needed cognitive skills. You can find nursery rhyme activities online at popular web sites like Teachers’ Paradise. This website not only provides flip books, flannel board cut outs, it also is a great place to learn other ideas for nursery rhyme activities.
You can create your own nursery rhyme activities with a little imagination. Most children love flannel boards and the flannel board characters. Flannel can be purchased at any craft store or even Wal-Mart. You will need a piece of flannel to cover a large piece of cardboard or plywood. Have a few different colored pieces so you can change the background color if you like. Craft stores and school supply stores often sell flannel board characters that you can purchase. If you can’t find flannel board characters that are themed around different nursery rhymes, you can create them on your own.
Another great place to find nursery rhyme activities is in your closet or at a second hand store. It is quite easy to find props for some of the nursery rhyme activities by browsing through your own closet. For example, if you are doing a reading of the nursery rhyme “The Old Woman in the Shoe”, you can get a large shoe and display it on the table as you read. Another great idea is to have all the children participate in a relay race after the nursery rhyme has been read. Have all of the children put on shoes that are too big for them and participate in a short relay race.
Wal-Mart or any other retail store will have plenty of supplies you need to create nursery rhyme paper finger puppets. You will need stiff paper, scissors, markers or crayons, and glue. Then you will cut the paper around the width of your finger and glue the ends together. You can then decorate the puppet to be your favorite nursery rhyme.
Another great place to find nursery rhyme activities is online at First-school. This web site has several different nursery rhyme activities you can create with small items found around your home. If you are a fan of Humpty Dumpty, you can create a great nursery rhyme activity using a plastic egg, building blocks, and toy soldiers. Each time you read the nursery rhyme, you can use the building blocks, plastic egg, and toy soldiers to re-enact what is happening in the nursery rhyme.
Once you have begun creating different nursery rhyme activities, it is a great idea to store them somewhere. Find an old detergent box with a handle and place all the different props you use for the nursery rhymes inside. This is a great way to keep all the flannel board characters together so you have them ready for the next reading. Allow your children to paint the exterior of the detergent box with nursery rhyme characters so they know where to find the box when they are ready to read nursery rhymes with you. It is a great idea to leave a nursery rhyme book in the box or laminated copies of different nursery rhymes inside the box, so you always have them ready when your child wants to read.
There are other places to order nursery rhyme games and activities, but most of these sources will come through school teachers. Ask your child’s teacher if they have a supplier who sells different nursery rhyme activities and then find out the ordering information so you can get the activities without having to create them on your own. Nursery rhyme activities are a great way to rekindle your childhood imagination and spend quality time with your child.
