YUCKY: NURSERY RHYME LESSON PLAN

Grade Level: K-1

Subject(s): Language Arts

Duration: 15-20 minutes a day over four days with a fifth day culminating activity

Description: Nursery Rhymes are an important part of cultural literacy in the United States and serve as an introduction to poetry for children. Properly chimed, they also help children develop a sense of rhythm. Unfortunately, many of today’s children do not learn Nursery Rhymes in the home setting. This lesson is designed to help students learn several Nursery Rhymes.

Goals:

Students will experience the fun of hearing and sharing Nursery Rhymes Students will begin to understand the concepts of rhyme

Students will develop a sense of rhythm Students’ cultural literacy will be enriched.

Objectives: At the end of the lesson, students will be able to recite Humpty Dumpty, Little Miss Muffet, Georgie Porgie and There Was an Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe.

Materials:

• Weird Things are Everywhere! CD by Judy Pancoast • Collected works of Nursery Rhymes • Nursery Rhyme coloring sheets (available here:

http://www.mothergoose.com/Crafts/crafts.htm) • Internet resource: www.mothergoose.com (lots of nursery rhymes, games,

printables, crafts and suggested activities) Procedure: Each lesson begins with the teacher sharing the Nursery Rhyme of the Day. Say it once, repeat it, then help children learn it. Once they have sufficiently learned it, invite the students to bounce in their seats while saying it to help them develop rhythm, or join hands in circles and dance around the circle while reciting the rhyme.

Follow this activity with a short discussion. Suggested questions:

Do you like the rhyme and why? How would you change the story to make it better? Describe what the character looks like The daily lesson should culminate with the students drawing a picture illustrating the Nursery Rhyme of the Day. Younger students may color one of the activity sheets from the website www.mothergoose.com.

Fifth Day: As a class the students should recite the four nursery rhymes they learned. Then play the song “Yucky” from Weird Things are Everywhere!

Invite the students to join in the response. Spend some time after playing the song inviting students to try the YUCKY game with other nursery rhymes they may know.

Assessment: Throughout the rest of the school year randomly invite the students to recite the four rhymes.