A Rhyme a Week: Nursery Rhymes for Early Literacy
Why use classical nursery rhymes? Well, quite simply, they are fun. They are also easy to learn, greatly enriching a young childs learning experience. A child learns vocabulary, rhyming, thinking skills, etc. Learn more here.
This curriculum is provided by WIL (Webbing Into Literacy) for rural Head Start programs in New Mexico. For each Rhyme-A-Week, there is a featured nursery rhyme card, rhyming picture sets, riddle rhymes, and a lesson plan. Each one is for a full five days.
From WIL: Our A-Rhyme-a-Week phonological awareness program features 30 different nursery rhymes. The phonograms or "rimes" emphasized in our program were first identified by Richard Wylie and Donald Durrell in 1970. Examining a list of 1, 437 words commonly spoken by children in primary grades (Murphy, 1957), Wylie and Durrell identified 37 rimes that accounted for almost 500 words of Murphy's list. In determining the order of rhymes and rimes to present each week, we are following Fry's (1998) suggested consideration of frequency.
The 28 units are here with seventy additional rhymes here. Here are WIL's thirty featured rhymes; these are the rhymes that make up the units. You may have noticed that there are supposed to be 30 units, but only 28 are listed. The last two are still to be provided. However, you will find them listed in the featured rhymes, along with their picture cards. The lesson plans are pretty much the same every week, and it would be easy to come up with your own riddles for each set of cards if you so wish.
Some of the nursery rhymes include:
rhyme: associated phonogram:
If Wishes Were Horses IDE
Peter, Peter, Pumpkin Eater ELL
The Queen of Hearts ORE
Star Light, Star Bright IGHT
Jack and Jill ILL
Hickory Dickory Dock OCK
I Saw a Ship A-Sailing ACK
Ladybug, Ladybug AN
Your week would look something like this:
Monday - Revisit favorite rhymes and learn the new featured one.
Tuesday - Act out the rhyme.
Wednesday - Introduce the rhyming pictures.
Thursday - Review the picture sets and riddle rhymes.
Friday - Review.
I'll be starting this with my little guy next week. He got really excited about it when I showd it to him and it will be a fun, simple way for him to learn. It's especiall appropriate for his level and it's perfect to tie into his weekly reading curriculum. On that note, there is also a book and activity card associated with most of the rhymes. You will find those here. Also, if you choose to keep a reading log, you will find the files for that too. You will find a Book-A-Week curriculum here; there are twenty-five books, several of which also tie in with the activity cards and rhymes.
We'll be doing the activity card / book The Gingerbread Man for my Gingerbread Man Thematic Unit and it's associated with Tom, Tom, The Pipers Son. So, of course, that weeks rhyme is Tom, Tom. :D
One little rhyme I always liked is Little Miss Muffet. Although it isn't one of the curriculum rhymes, I have decided to tie it in, especially after I noticed there wasn't a set for the phonogram ET. So, along that line, I took advantage of Hands of a Child awesome Black Friday Sale and got their Little Miss Muffet lap book 50% off. LOL, I had to get up super early to take advantage of it since it only lasted from 4 a.m. - 7 a.m. in my time zone. Bleh. What's really cool is that the illustrations in the project pack match the illustration on the rhyme card. So that week will be extra fun.
Oh, and DLTK has a cool nursery rhyme section here.
These are all in pdf files, so Adobe will be needed.
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