Nursery Rhymes

We learned all about Nursery Rhymes in tot school today.  Nursery Rhymes are important to introduce to toddlers and preschoolers for a variety of reasons.  Listening to and learning nursery rhymes aids in understanding of the sounds that make up language.  Children are able to play with the language as they learn to rhyme words. They are also a fantastic way to introduce new and less used vocabulary.  Nursery rhymes use patterns and teach sequencing.  Children act out the stories and exercise their speech muscles while singing/chanting along.  I could go on forever, but instead I'll just share a link with you to a well written article about how awesome they are for children's development: Rhymers are Readers.

 We started the day playing with mittens and books, exploring hole punches and learning to glue little shapes onto our Old King Cole crowns.

 When we headed outside the kids were immediately drawn to the buckets of water and acting out Jack and Jill.  They also just love to play in the sandbox and playhouse!

 This series of pictures just makes me giggle :).  We were playing Jack be Nimble and practicing jumping over a candlestick.  The kids LOVED this activity!

 It was also exciting to play with the Nursery Rhymes tot pack.  I love how the girls were engaged in it and the other children came over one by one to join in on the excitement.  And they all played the game (shadow matching) together.  It was so fun!