Nursery Rhyme Study

Our Nursery Rhyme Study has launched and over the past few weeks students have been visiting stations with different nursery rhyme themed learning experiences. There are seven stations which involve different modalities of learning: verbal-linguistic, visual-spatial, logical-mathematical, musical, kinesthetic, and interpersonal. Students visit each of these stations in small groups and then share out with the larger group. As groups share out, kids practice their speaking skills to the group and other groups get inspiration for what they will take on at that station. Details about each station are described below with pictures from our latest round.

Nursery Rhyme Games:
Kids play a nursery rhyme themed game with a partner or small group. Each gameboard features a follow-the-path journey through a nursery rhyme where, instead of colors, cards have pictures of words with different long and short vowel sounds. They move their piece to the next vowel spot that matches their picture. But there are some fun and frustrating cards in the mix! And many children have had to deal with the joy of an "extra turn" card followed immediately by a "return to start" card! Luckily they are learning to laugh off the bad luck cards and be good sports no matter who wins.

Math Problems:
At this station, kids choose between various nursery rhymes that pose a math problem. How far is it from Wibbleton to Wobbleton and back? How many ways can you make an equation for the four and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie? How many animals went out for a walk in this rhyme? (and for challenge - how many feet?). Kids often choose to work with a buddy to puzzle out these problems and then share a strategy that helped them with the group.

Tongue Twisters:
This fun station challenges kids to learn a tongue twister and practice saying it to the group. It is tricky to keep your "s" and "sh" sounds straight when you are reciting She sells seashells down by the seashore. Or keep swim, swan and swum straight! Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers and How much wood could a woodchuck chuck are also popular picks that trip up your tongue.

 

Mix-up Fix-up Rhymes:
At this station, students use sentence strips to construct the lines of a nursery rhyme and then practice reading it. After several rhymes have been mixed-up and fixed-up, kids choose one to memorize and recite to the group. As so many of our children have learned a lot of rhymes, some new challenge rhymes have been added to add levels of rigor!

Dance:
At this station, kids collaborate to choreograph a dance to a nursery rhyme song. Kids pull inspiration from dance classes, dances they've seen, and their own interpretive dances to create dances with movements in high, medium, and low spaces to make them visually interesting to our audience.

 

Jumproping:
At this station, kids learn a jumprope rhyme and then practice jumping rope through the rhyme. Most have an opening slow beat followed by a "pepper" of fast spins to see how high a number of jumps they can do, or how far through the alphabet, or how far through the months of the year. Other rhymes incorporate additional movements that add extra challenge!