Nursery rhymes… beyond the nursery!

Manaswini Sridhar

The magic of nursery rhymes continues to hold even in the world of technology and the Internet. Nursery rhymes develop listening skills and introduce children to verbal skills in a fun and sometimes silly fashion. The rhyme and the pictorial quality of the words mesmerize children. Unfortunately, as adults we grow weary of a child singing the same rhyme and try to zip him/her up, little comprehending that the words and the rhyme enthrall the child into becoming a more confident speaker and writer. In addition, nursery rhymes help children refine their motor skills since so many have to be acted out. (Where is Thumbkin?) The melody and rhythm sensitize the child’s ear to not only the sounds of the language but also to the melody and tunes, making the child a more spontaneous singer. Some children like a rhyme because of the tune and hence sing it all day long. Having learned rhymes at an early age, most people never forget them. The characters, the story and even the words remain etched in their minds, popping up occasionally in their minds, to either hum or whistle the rhyme or ponder over the simplicity of the words.

So can this be turned into a simple, more creative writing activity during which the students don’t chew their pencils and wear out their brains, and later transmit this weariness to the poor teacher who is painfully compelled to correct and offer feedback?

The following website uses Sing a Song of Sixpence to teach children to identify rhyming words and then to fill in the blanks with the correct word from the box. http://studenthandouts.com/01-Web-Pages/2014-01/sing-a-song-of-sixpence-nursery-rhyme-worksheets-for-kids.html.

Here, children are able to correlate spellings with the words and also to recall from memory the rhyme so that they fill in the blanks with the suitable word. This requires auditory skills and the skills of identifying and reproducing the correct word from the box. It relates more to recognition of the vocabulary, reading (of course!) and the ability to write, but not necessarily writing skills.

Let’s see if we can use the same rhyme to have children write sentences of their own. Here is the rhyme:

Sing a song of sixpence,
A pocket full of rye;
Four and twenty blackbirds
Baked in a pie.

When the pie was opened,
The birds began to sing;
Wasn’t that a dainty dish
To set before the king?

The king was in his counting-house
Counting out his money;
The queen was in the parlor
Eating bread and honey.

The maid was in the garden
Hanging out the clothes;
Along came a blackbird
And pecked off her nose.

This is a simple enough rhyme for students of lower middle school or upper primary, depending on how fluent the children are in the language. The only words that may need to be explained are sixpence, rye, pecked, and dainty.

Task
Students each get a copy of the rhyme, read through it, and ask questions, if they have any. The teacher now asks students to rewrite the verse in the form of a story, giving the story a twist or making it more detailed. The teacher sets a word limit so that students can keep control over their writing and have time to correct and edit it before submission. This is a simplified writing task especially for those who fumble and struggle for a theme or topic to write on. The vocabulary is already there; the student only has to restructure the existing sentences to compose a story, a conversation, a letter, an e mail, or even a diary entry. As a matter of fact, the teacher could assign a different format to each set of students. For instance, the following could be the diary entry by the (slightly eccentric!) cook who made this special cake:

Ah! I don’t know what got into me. I thought I would please the king with something amusing and fine. I baked a pie and then put inside it (only I know how tricky that was!) 24 live blackbirds…yes, the pie was that huge. That’s not a surprise since royalty eats so much! Well, it didn’t go quite as well as I had imagined. The King seemed to have a busy afternoon counting his money. In the meantime, someone made a small slit in the pie (must be the new lad who is supposed to help in the kitchen), and what do you know? The birds all flew right out of the pie, past the King in the counting house and past the Queen who was having her snack of bread and honey before dinner. The poor maid who was hanging out the clothes in the garden came in for a nasty shock when one of the birds just pecked off her nose! Oh my, oh my! What a dreadful day!

Writing skills are difficult to acquire, leave alone master. Children feel less threatened when they are on familiar grounds with a familiar topic and familiar vocabulary. The mastery of the vocabulary will come in its own time once the child learns to write confidently.

http://www.nurseryrhymes.org/nursery-rhymes.html is another great website that lists both well-known and the less familiar nursery rhymes in alphabetical order. For those who would like to sing it, there is an audio/video accompaniment that is both enjoyable and educative.

Let’s look at two rhymes, both very similar, one describing a snowman and the other describing a teapot. Our students are rather familiar with the latter rhyme. Even if they have not learned it as children, the vocabulary of both the rhymes is very, very simple. The idea behind the next task is to have children sort out the two poems and then put in the lines in the correct order. This helps students understand what vocabulary would fall under a theme, and when putting the rhyme in the correct order, they also learn to listen for words that rhyme.

I’m a little snowman short and fat,
Here’s my scarf and here’s my hat.
When I see the snowfall,
Hear me shout
– All you children please come out!

I’m a little teapot
Short and stout
Here is my handle
Here is my spout
When I get all steamed up
Hear me shout
Just tip me over and pour me out.

Worksheet
The lines below are from two nursery rhymes. They have been jumbled up. Do the following tasks.
1. Put the lines under the relevant picture.
2. Put the lines of each rhyme in the relevant order and write out the two rhymes.
Hint: The snowman rhyme has five lines; the teapot rhyme has seven lines.

I’m a little snowman short and fat,
Short and stout
I’m a little teapot
When I see the snowfall,
When I get all steamed up
Here is my spout
Hear me shout
– All you children please come out!
Just tip me over and pour me out.
Here’s my scarf and here’s my hat.
Just tip me over and pour me out.

Here is what the first part of the answer would look like:
Students have to study the lines carefully and ask themselves which words would describe the snowman or the kettle. The first line of the snowman nursery rhyme has the words short and fat in it, so obviously the next line would belong to the kettle, as otherwise it would be repetition. While doing this, students also understand that when they are writing a passage they should avoid repetition of words and phrases. The rhyming words and the punctuation also help students put the words in the correct order. It is a simple task but it also needs the students to focus and to ensure that what they are unravelling makes sense.

Once the exercise is complete, ask students to write a rhyme about themselves or anything else spanning over five or seven lines.

The way children look at nursery rhymes or recite them will never be the same again!

The author is a teacher educator and language trainer based in Hyderabad. She can be reached at manaswinisridhar@gmail.com.