Nursery Rhymes

As some of you know I am Laura, and I have created this blog to share with you my opinions, knowledge or something I could find interesting about Childrens’s Literature in English.

 

We have done almost a month of classes, so I have chosen my favourite class to talk about it. Do you remember what we did in Nursery Rhymes class?

It was a middle-group class, we were about 20 people, and we started the class talking with our partner about what could be the meaning of Nursery Rhymes. I have to say that I didn’t listen about that before. We finally found the definition and some characteristics through a fast dictation. But the most interesting part of the class came when we had to link different nursery rhymes with its historical event.

 

I want to try to explain you why this topic was interesting to me. Well, I have listened lots of children songs since I was a child, but I think I have never thought about the meaning before. Probably you can hear some words and you are able to relate this word to a children story without thinking in why someone has written or invented this song. But I could be able to see the reasons of some stories, and I understood the difference between being a child and being a teacher. A teacher knows that children won’t understand the whole meaning while they are listening the song, but I think a part of their minds will get the information and they will use it in another moment of their lives.

 

I also think that if you want to show your children nursery rhymes you should take into account that there are different types of choral speaking as refrain, unison, antiphon, cumulative, solo lines or line around. Why am I saying this? Because when you know which are the objectives that you want to get with your students, you can study what type will be easy for children to get it. As I said before I have never worked with Nursery Rhymes but I think if you want everything to understand what they are singing at the same moment, they should sing together. Or for example, if you want them to make a group task will be better use an antiphon choral speaking.

 

Finally, I want to show you my favourite nursery rhyme. I have song lots of times as a summer camp instructor without knowing that is called nursery rhyme.

Have you ever listened or song “If you are happy and you know it?”

In my opinion this song is very useful for 4-5 year-old-children because they can understand it and it is easy to follow, and also they can learn vocabulary specific with body parts or body movements.

 

 
 
I hope you liked it and I am waiting for your posts!