Here are some simple activities for integrating nursery rhymes daily in your classroom.

Nursery Rhyme Marathon  -  Sing traditional nursery rhymes to familiar tunes such as “100 Bottles of Pop on the Wall,” “Yankee Doodle,” “Sweet Betsy from Pike,” and “What Do You Do with a Drunken Sailor?”
Move To the Beat - Have children clap hands, patty cake with a partner, march, swim, hula, or make other dance movements to the syllables in nursery rhymes.
Story Elements - Discuss the characters, setting, problem, resolution, etc. in nursery rhymes.
Rhyme of The Week - Select a rhyme each week and write it on a poster or language experience chart. Reread the rhyme each day.

  • Clap the syllables.
  • Put dots under each word to help children connect the spoken word and printed word.
  • Find words that rhyme.
  • Listen for words that start the same.
  • Identify letters and words they know.

Nursery Rhyme Notebook - Check out drjean.org “Monthly Activities” for February, 2008, to see how to make individual nursery rhyme notebooks for your students.

My Nursery Rhymes
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Roll a Rhyme – Make a paper cube from the attached pattern you can download and write the title of a different rhyme on each side. (It would also be helpful to add a picture clue.) A child rolls the cube and then leads the class in saying the rhyme that she rolls. Click here to download a pdf file.

Roll a Rhyme
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Nursery Rhymes  _|_ Marathon  _|_ Vocabulary  _|_ Nursery Rhyme Snacks _|_ Take Home Book
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