Inside: A simple nursery rhyme activity to deepen kids’ understanding of their favorite rhymes.
When my kids ask me for a bedtime song, the first one that comes up is “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star”. When they ask for another (it’s inevitable they will want more than one song at bedtime), I usually go with “Hey Diddle Diddle”. Then I rack my brain thinking of several more nursery rhymes before we call it a night.
Need help remembering popular nursery rhymes? Refer to this list of the Best YouTube Nursery Rhymes for Children
But if you’re like us, we don’t just recite nursery rhymes at bedtime! They are so quick and easy to remember that we often use them in any moment we are waiting around (in line at the grocery store, in the car, while sitting on the potty . . . you get it 😉 ). My kids have memorized each and every word to their favorite rhymes. But I wondered, did they really know them?
Easy and Fun Nursery Rhyme Activity the Kids Will Love
While wondering how well my kids really knew the familiar rhymes, I thought of a sorting activity that we did with the book Goodnight, Moon. I decided to use the same idea for nursery rhymes. This activity was great for my house, but you could easily include it in a preschool curriculum too!
Supplies for Nursery Rhyme Sorting
- Small toys
- Basket or tray for sorting
- Memorized nursery rhyme
The first step to this nursery rhyme sorting activity is to sing the song together. Have fun with it, be silly and make faces. Give kids a chance to enjoy singing songs with you!
Next, set up a simple sorting tray with items from the song and items not from the song (I labeled our sorting tray with masking tape). Ask your kiddos to think about the song they just sang and choose which items from the tray were in the song and which weren’t.
Young students won’t be able to read the labels on the tray, so I like to leave a memorable example in each spot that they can refer to while sorting. (Note: even though students can’t read the label, don’t be tempted to leave it off! Being in a print-rich environment is beneficial to their literacy development!)
I decided to include objects from several familiar nursery rhymes in our sort so that we could do the activity again and again with different rhymes. No need to re-do the setup for each new rhyme!
How well did your kids know their nursery rhymes? Try learning some new ones with this easy nursery rhyme activity.
Clarissa Hooper
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