For Teachers and Teaching Artists: Mother Goose

Yesterday I taught a special class at my school that brought together 8th graders and kindergarteners. It was a fun lesson.

The kindergarteners are exploring "rain" so that was our central theme for the day. For one warm up, I used the nursery rhyme "Rain on the Green Grass."

I am a huge fan of incorporating nursery rhymes into preschool and kindergarten dance classes. They are important cultural references – both the language and the rhythm of the rhymes. They are fun, joyful, and silly too – which children love. I also recommend the article How to Choose a Goose by Joanna Rudge Long that appeared in the Horn Book Magazine in 2008. The article does a great job describing the value and importance of nursery rhymes.

Listed below are three books I use as references myself and keep on my teaching bookshelf:

Mother Goose Numbers on the Loose - Leo and Diane Dillon

The Neighborhood Mother Goose - Nina Crews

My Very First Mother Goose - Iona Opie and Rosemary Wells