Just in time for us to restart this program. The kids are bugging me constantly to pull out the nursery rhyme book. We really enjoyed our look into history last year and with the twins one year older I am hoping their enthusiasm to find out the weird but true will help keep me on my toes!!!  

So, as I promised HERE… the further adventures (and really mostly resources) of our foray into Nursery Rhymes. I try to pick rhymes that I remember and that may be at least a fun challenge to learn for half of the kids. As I am sure those who are on my Facebook or Instagram have noticed, not all of our rhymes have gone over well with the minions.

Hush a Bye Baby/Rock a Bye Baby is another of those. While looking into cradleboards was fun and interesting and the multiple origin theories fun to explore some of the kids were put out by the “meanness” of the original rhyme. Echo espeically disliked the idea that ANY babies were harmed in the making of the story. After all for the rhyme to have been written she believed at least one baby had to fall. So of course we included the “not scary” version in our copy work. You can read about that version HERE. I didn’t make them memorize this vsersion as it is not common, but it was fun to read through the sweetened up version and wonder if it was necessary to do so.

We made sure to do some research about Cradleboards as soon as it was made clear that that is what the poem is referring to. And am I ever glad we did, they are BEAUTIFUL! And then, at the science museum, we found an actual example of one. You can read all about them HERE.

There is always Wiki for a brief write up HERE, try Song Facts for more information about various uses of this rhyme HERE, and Mom.me for a dark origin HERE.

MotherGoose.com has a cute colouring page HERE. We did a craft for this rhyme with Education.com called Baby Footprints. As you can see from the additional picture… we really didn’t stop there!

3 Blind Mice was our next nursery rhyme. It was sadly much delayed with noise from siding construction. We could not get our video recorded and everyone was out of sorts so rather large amounts of work did NOT get done. BUT I do have links to share…

KidZone had an Itsy Bisty Book to share HERE. DLTK has a fun number sheet related to our rhyme HERE. A cute shaped colouring picture HERE was used by the kids. Check out Reading With Kids for another colouring page HERE

For research purposes check out rhymes.org.uk HERE or All Nursery Rhymes HERE. For a good joke page with animal related jokes, and most of the way down one specifically about the 3 blind mice head to THIS Activity Village link. Education.com has a list of brief information for various rhymes including this one HERE.

Hot Cross Buns came next with a lovely printable of pennies and buns that I printed in colour and laminated from Play at Home Teacher HERE. DLTK has a printable recipe HERE. Sadly we did not have time to bake buns but we saved the recipe for the holiday season to add to our cooking experience.

There is definitely religious significance to the rhyme in the subject matter, so if you are researching be aware. But the actual origins of the rhyme are as a selling tool. End of story. So not the most exciting. Though the kids loved singing it with the extended verse about having a daughter or son. You can read about it all on Powerfulwords.info HERE, Rhymes.org.uk HERE, Smithsonianmag.com HERE.

Kiddyhouse.com has both verses HERE.

Now as an additional bit of info Zander took some time and researched Mother Goose herself. Not an easy woman to pin down. But you can do your own reading with our resources. Bluebonkers.com HERE.

Back to the rhymes and Ring Around The Rosies (which does not have the origin story most people think it does). Echo really enjoyed learning the dance.

I will say straight off, I too thought it was about the plague. Wiki has a good run down HERE. Library of Congress has a helpful site HERE, Dictionary.com has information HERE. Dover Publications has a great colouring page with the lines of the rhyme in a traditional style HERE. And that is where we ended our series. Check back in the next months to see how we get on with our reboot!!

This summer I got the grand idea to have us go through nursery rhymes and learn more about them. This is a great way to expose Echo to them all and in turn refresh the rest. Additionally the twins are looking into the history of the rhyme (if there is one) and we are doing lots of little side reports.

We had 2 books initially. The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes by Iona and Peter Opie HERE which was a bit too dry for the kids but a good (though pricey) resource for me. Our second book was easier for the kids to comprehend – Pop Goes the Weasel by Albert Jack HERE.

Zander picked our first rhyme – Itsy Betsy Spider.

For our historical significance we used the site All Nursery Rhymes HERE.

Our second choice was Hickory Dickory Dock.

For our historical significance we went beyond our books with the site Nursery Rhymes With Mother Goose HERE. Also check out All Nursery Rhymes HERE

Our third rhyme got two weeks as Emanuel had a week of camp. We chose London Bridge is Falling Down. A fun nursery rhyme AND game.

For historical significance we went beyond the book to All Nursery Rhymes HERE and Nursery Rhymes Lyrics and Origins HERE. An explanation of versions of games connected to the rhyme (and the extended version) we used Encyclopaedia Britannica HERE.

We worked on a short write up about what is actually the London Bridge vs what is sometimes mistaken as the same bridge in the song – Tower Bridge. The best place for statistics on these bridges was Wiki. And colouring pages are all over the place (though be careful, often Tower Bridge pictures are mislabeled as LONDON BRIDGE).

We had an extended run at that one with Emanuel gone for camp for a week, then its was onto Little Miss Muffet.

Super Coloring has some great vintage style colouring pages for many of the common nursery rhymes HERE. Since we already did a spider report for Itsy Bitsy we chose a couple spider crafts instead. One with First-School.WS HERE and the other on Red Ted Art HERE.

For further historical past our book… check out Treasury Islands HERE, Rhymes.org.uk HERE or All Nursery Rhymes HERE.

From Little Miss Muffet to Jack and Jill Went Up the Hill.

If you want some fun printables that practice spelling, printing, even handwriting head over to Free Homeschool Deals HERE.

We supplemented the books on hand with a few sites for this nursery rhyme – Rhymes.org.uk HERE and Funlinks Daily HERE. Gavin found this a more complicated nursery rhyme to explain as one possible interpretation requires some knowledge of taxes and liquor and kings, but he has taken on this aspect of the program with great enjoyment.

For a lot of our crafts and printables head over to Education.com and my Nursery Rhymes collection HERE

At this point I originally intended to end our summer program and wrap it all up for a September reboot, but the kids are loving the rhymes. This means extension time. Especially since we lost about 2 weeks of half days to a surprise cousin visit. So… I will end this post with our 5th rhyme. Watch for the second half of our foray into the history of popular nursery rhymes!