Nursery Rhymes

Under the guise of children’s entertainment, many rhymes that were encoded with secret messages throughout history have endured the test of time and are still with us today. This fun, classic nursery rhyme, inspires young children to use their imagination. The kids say this is a funny nursery rhyme because how can an old lady actually live in a shoe. They ask questions such as “how many little boys live in the shoe?

"Pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake, baker's man" is one of the oldest surviving English nursery rhymes. The earliest recorded version of the rhyme appears in Thomas d'Urfey's play The Campaigners from 1698. Nursery rhymes with 17th century origins include, "Jack Sprat" , "The Grand Old Duke of York" , "Lavender's Blue" and "Rain Rain Go Away" . The first nursery rhymes can be traced back to the fourteenth century. While the Bubonic Plaque ravaged England, peasants used a rhyme to spread the word about equality. The “Adam and Eve” rhyme made peasants realize that they were important to the economy and contributed to the Peasants Revolt of 1381.

There was no fixing the cannon or the tower, and the Humpty Dumpty rhyme was born. Just reading the title probably immediately caused this rhyme to get stuck in your head for the rest of the day. Some of the oldest rhymes are probably those accompanying babies’ games, such as “Handy, dandy, prickly, pandy, which hand will you have? ” and its German equivalent, “Windle, wandle, in welchem Handle, oben oder unt? Reading Rockets is a national multimedia project that offers a wealth of research-based reading strategies, lessons, and activities designed to help young children learn how to read and read better. Our reading resources assist parents, teachers, and other educators in helping struggling readers build fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension skills.

Learning and repeating nursery rhymes supports foundational reading skills. They serve as fun, easy-to-remember introductions to language for young children. The rhyming patterns encourage phonological awareness and can even support spatial reasoning and other brain development. When supported by music, nursery rhymes are even more impactful. Perhaps most importantly, singing nursery rhymes with children encourages emotional connection. NurseryRhymes.com is a free Kids video site offering lyrics and music to hundreds of popular nursery rhymes that have been passed down through the ages.

When we think of Nursery Rhymes we often think about the "classics." However, tons of children's books are rhyming and have good messages or quality. Have your child put other letters in front of the word ending to create rhyming words . And finally, here is a song that makes no sense at all, but you would be amazed how many little French preschoolers know all the lyrics. It is a play on words, where the sound of the word before serves as a reminder of what the upcoming lyric should be. Another soft and jolly French nursery rhyme involves the tortoise family. They aren’t going anywhere fast, but they are doing it in step.