Why teach Nursery Rhymes? To feed the musical child

Posted on May 8, 2012 by Carol

We now know that every child is born musical.  What do children learn musically from nursery rhymes?

  1. Because young children love repetition, it is easy to teach a specific melody and indeed a wide range of melodies through this shared resource.  An often repeated melody is easily memorised. Here is a delightful melody in Little Jack Horner that is also used for Little Miss Muffet.

    Cobbler Cobbler

     

  2. The rhythm of spoken English is formalised within the spoken or sung nursery rhyme.  Repetition of the lyrics over time sets up a preference in the mind for these lilting patterns of sound. Listen to the strong rhythm in Cobbler Cobbler.    
  3. Those delightful patterns – the phonology – are caused by the repetitions of vowel and consonant sounds that drive the lyric forward.  They present a “mouth feel” to borrow a phrase from the popular TV cooking programs.  There is pleasure in the way the words sound in the cranial spaces,  feel on the palate and trip off the tongue.  There is enjoyment in the way the breath is regulated. Try singing Wee Willie Winkie and enjoy the sensations.                    
  4. Western music time signatures or metric patterns are learned experientially in a pleasurable fashion so the child who is fortunate enough to learn to play an instrument in middle childhood already has a repertoire tucked into their memory. Chook Chook is in four four time mimicking the staccato calls of a chicken. Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush is in six eight time encouraging a skipping, light-footed response.

    Rhythmic response

  5. The spoken and sung versions of nursery rhymes have power because of their form or structure. Young children incidentally learn the basic forms that music takes with contrasting and repeated sections. In fact, according to neurosciemntist such as Dr Daniel Levitin, the rhymes themselves wire up the children’s brains to search for and enjoy these forms in other poetry and songs later in life.  In the song, I Had a Little Nut Tree, it is the ternary form that gives a “complete” feeling as the first and third/final sections are the same melody.
  6. Learning nursery rhymes in early childhood is a foundation stone for learning to sing, play instruments, move expressively and improvise.We often see that in the un-self-conscious three-year old dancing their way through the supermarket aisles singing a stream of consciousness that sounds awfully like a nursery rhyme but isn’t. It’s something they’re making up “on the go”.

    Moving and playing

Regarding improvisation, Daniel Levitin talks about the cognitive faculty of “rearrangement: the ability to combine, recombine and impose hierarchical order on elements in the world.” (The World in Six Songs p15) A child’s creativity knows no bounds and the musical material learned in the nursery rhymes is a large part of the “stuff” for combination and recombination in the child’s musical play.  Nursery rhymes are great in themselves and are forever recyclable.

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Why teach nursery rhymes? To develop a literate child with a feel for history

Posted on May 1, 2012 by Carol

Mother Goose

Why do we teach English nursery rhymes?  Because they are the children’s history and language lessons.  From them they inherit a version of the English language rich with influences from ancient Rome, the Norman invasion and Elizabethan times. How many people, do you think, and in what circumstances have sung this old multi-verse nursery rhyme, London Bridge?

London Bridge is broken down, broken down, broken down,

London Bridge is broken down, my fair lady.

Diddle Diddle Dumpling

Nursery rhymes and songs nurture the past and yet breathe with the life of the present day.  They are well-used references with excerpts being used in book-titles, songs, jokes, parodies, advertisements, comedy sketches and political jibes.

Quotes from nursery rhymes keep showing up in the same way as do quotes from Shakespeare and other revered authors, only in the case of nursery rhymes the authors are anonymous. Newspaper headlines feature them because phrases learned in the early years of life grab out attention and “hit a nerve” at a cultural substrate.  Does reading Diddle Diddle Dumpling make you smile?

A literate child who has learned many nursery rhymes can tune into reference points and jokes in other forms of literature and multi-media, not just in childhood but for the whole of lifespan.

Jack Be Nimble

The child can also get a ‘feel’ for history through hearing and using rare or arcane words and descriptions of objects, tools, foodstuffs and practices from earlier times.  The once everyday word “candlestick” is now evocative of the pre-electric era.   Who knows what forms of energy will replace electricity in the future, and yet we still want to remember how the ancestors lived.  And so we will continue singing Jack Be Nimble.

Jack be nimble, Jack be quick,

Jack jump over the candlestick.

The nursery rhymes themselves are historical artefacts that have no need to be confined to a museum.  They can be stored, mothproof, in our minds.

Most people living in cities don’t have a well as their water supply or keep chickens for eggs and meat, let alone roosters or sheep, but water management and farm animals are economically and culturally of the highest importance. How charming and full of pride is the alliterative title Hickety Pickety My Black Hen.

Hickety Pickety My Black Hen

Nursery rhymes also deal with matters of social graces and interactions.  Children can be trained to go to bed with the use of simple routines such as the singing of certain nursery rhymes such as The Man in the Moon Looked Out or Wee Willie Winkie.

The Man in the Moon Looked Out

Seasons, weather and the planetary movements are important too. We can draw attention to clouds, rain, wind, thunder, sun, moon and stars through nursery rhyme and song.

How many nursery rhymes can you recite or sing? If you were lucky enough to be brought up in a family where nursery rhymes were quoted, if your preschool and early years teachers were enlightened enough to help you learn to read and write with them you’re probably a highly literate person by now. So “pay it forward” and pass them on to the little children in your life.

The delightful images are by Blanche Fisher Wright and are available through the Project Gutenberg.

 

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Want a farm lesson plan with songs?

Posted on April 24, 2012 by Carol

Beautiful FarmTry our lesson plan Beautiful Farm to support your children’s early learning about farms through music.  This suits children aged about three to five and up. We start and finish seated on the floor, but in the middle it gets pretty active.  The activities include a body percussion, a finger play, a memory song about remembering the order of numbers 1-5 both forwards and backwards, a rhythm instrument song, a song for melody and harmony instruments, two songs for drama and movement, a game / dance  and a story song.

We start with a brain and body connection activity. We tell the children that the farmer’s son, Johnny, has to fix the fence in order  to stop the pigs running away. Johnny Works With One Hammer is a body percussion that has the children unable to resist copying our hand actions due to its delightful pace, rhythm and sheer silliness. One hammer is one fist pounding on the thigh, for two hammers we pound two fists, for three hammers move foot, for four hammers add another foot, for five hammers we nod our heads and finally, after all that work, we need to collapse and rest.

Next we do a finger play called Piggy Wig and Piggy Wee.  The pigs are represented by two thumbs and their little curly tails are our two little fingers.  It’s great fun and good for strengthening the muscles in the hands. We swap between bending the thumbs-pigs and waggling the pinkies-tails, as well as doing lots of other actions with our hands and fingers.

The pigs get lost in the tall grass in the meadow so it’s time to bring in the mowing men and their dog, Spot.  The song is One Man Went to Mow and we support the learning by holding up five cards each with a man with/on a mower and a numeral 1-5.  Spot, the dog, can be either a soft toy or another image on a card.   I like to hide him behind my back and pull him out each time his name is sung.  Apparently this is highly amusing to a three or four or even a five year-old!

Goats in a paddock

We love this Argentinian folk song  - Come and See My Farm. It has a very pretty chorus that expresses the pride and joy of the farmer.

Oh come my friend, oh come my friend,

Oh come along with me,

Oh come my friend, oh come my friend,

Oh come along with me.

In our version we have chicken, sheep, pigs and a cat but you can substitute any animals you like such as goats or even crocodiles.  Simply choose an instrument to represent each animal and ask the children to play only when it’s their animal’s turn. Children who can restrain themselves have much better outcomes in their lives so it’s worth gently persevering with this idea of playing ‘at the right time’.  Of course some three year olds may not be ready, so we need to be senstitve to this and allow free-play time where necessary.

Another instrument song is Hickety Pickety My Black Hen.   We find we’re better off restricting the age range to four and over when using melody and harmony instruments such as chime bars, or other Orff instruments.   We distribute only the note names C, D, E, G and A and encourage the children to play (on any note, being a pentatonic scale they all harmonise) on the beat or along with the rhythm.  Some older children who are precocious readers may even manage to read and play the letter names from a wall chart but that is not the main game.  We supply a wall chart with a grid notation but it’s mainly for the adults in the room.

After all that concetration it’s a good idea to follow with a movement activity and what could be better than horse-riding.  If we have enough hobby horses for one each that’s great but if we are in a large child care centre and can’t bring twenty five hobby horses in the car, we can easily turn a bag of coloured scarves into tails and voila! everyone’s ready to trot, canter and gallop to a three-tempo game of I Have a Little Pony using all the available space.

The ringer shearing a sheepOur next drama activity is based on the Australian folk song Click Go the Shears.We introduce the idea that sheep need haircuts just like us.  The difference is that we have hair and sheep have wool. Sheep they don’t like having their wool cut off even though it doesn’t hurt when you shear a sheep.  In our story two shearers, one old and one young, are having a competition to find out who can shear the most sheep.  The “old snagger” wins and the young shearer, “the ringer” is cross because he lost. There are many ways to dramatise this story.  In the simplest version we pretend to shear a toy sheep. The children clap when they hear/sing the words “click, click, click.” If we have children who like to perform, four come out in front of the group and play the two sheep and the two shearers. Or for a whole group activity, we make two sheep pen spaces, one for wooly sheep and one for shorn sheep.  All the children play the sheep and two adults play the two shearers.  Each takes a woolly sheep from one pen, shears it, and leads it to the other pen as fast as she/he can.

Our dance activity is to the old singing game The Farmer in the Dell.  We make a circle and give out some simple costume elements, e g a farmer’s hat, a wife’s hat (of course she might be the farmer too), a child’s toy, dog ears head-band or tail, cat ears head-band, whiskers or tail, mouse ears head-band, whiskers or tail, a wearable placard with an image of a cheese.  This will serve seven children.  If we have more children, we repeat the game/dance so everyone gets to “be” someone (or better still, we stay up the night before and make multiple costumes).  With preschoolers, we use a slightly simplified version than the one played in traditional schoolyards.  We leave out the mighty game of chasey at the end.  You can spice it up. If you want to play chasey- you’ll need to add the verse “They all chase the cheese.”

Finally, when everyone is exhasuted, it is time to sit down to rest and finish the lesson with a good story. Our choice is Mary Had a Little Lamb.  We know that farming families sometimes bring orphaned lambs into the domestic setting to care for them.  This song teaches us about compassion in farming.  Mary brings up a lamb and the lamb, attached to Mary, thinks it can go to school with her. Children understand this song and love to sing it. Look through your nursery rhyme collections for the sweetest illustration you can find.  Our favourite is an illustration from an oil painting by Scott Gustafson in Favourite Nursery Rhymes from Mother Goose.

This lesson takes a good 45 minutes if you include everything.  Of course you can split it up and do a few songs a day over the week but make sure you do them all at least twice in a fortnight so the learning can deepen. And don’t forget to visit a Beautiful Farm with your beautiful kids.  We hope you enjoy the lesson.  You can find all the music backing tracks, vocal tracks, lyrics, written activity suggestions and wall charts over at our music curriculum website, Musical Child. 

Posted in 3-5 year-old, body percussion, drama and movement, finger play, games and dances, melody and harmony instruments, memory song, Preschool Music Lesson Plans, rhythm instrument, story song, theme lesson plan | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Why teach nursery rhymes? Social bonding through song.

Posted on April 12, 2012 by Carol

I’ve written before about the benefits of singing nursery rhymes with young children.  In this post we explore ideas about social bonding and the pleasurable aspects of being in a group.

The child who knows a lot of nursery rhymes gains social benefits.  These lucky children can sing-along, or listen intently if pre-verbal, with grandparents, aunties and uncles, cousins and friends or even with perfect strangers they meet, say, in child care or preschool settings.  Those of you who work in these organisations may notice that a child who is quite upset cheers up considerably at group time when familiar songs are sung together.  They suddenly feel as though they belong.  Singing together allays feelings of abandonment.

Nursery rhymes and nursery songs are the “pop songs” of the very young that bind together peer groups, with the all time favourite being Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.

Little Bo Peep

Other favourites are Baa Baa Black Sheep and another one featuring sheep, Little Bo Peep. Click here to listen to a sample of our version and try it with your favourite illustrated nursery rhyme book.

Circle or group time spent singing well-known songs together is an opportunity for time to pass pleasantly. Nursery rhymes are songs that encourage children to enjoy participating in music-making, through the various activities of listening and predicting, singing, signing and moving to music.

Many nursery rhymes are also associated with finger-plays, such as Polly Whoops (click here) action games, such as Leg Over Leg (click here) or dances, such as Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush (click here). Such songs are are short enough for the child to comprehend (unless the content is obscure such as in Goosey Goosey Gander) and master.

They can see each other all enjoying the same thing and if able to sing, they can also hear each other.  Singing helps form social bonds. Best-selling author, neuroscientist and music producer Dr Daniel Levitin tells us “Singing together releases oxytocin, a neurochemical now known to be involved in establishing bonds of trust between people.” (pp50-51 The World in Six Songs)

By the way, I never teach Goosey Goosey Gander because the content is thoroughly nasty.  It is purportedly about the Roundheads seeking out Catholic priests hiding in concealed chambers and throwing them downstairs to maim or kill them. Explanations of nursery rhymes are tricky and often spurious, so I’m not claiming it’s true but the mere thought of throwing someone downstairs is enough reason for me to leave it out of the repertoire for under fives.  I think many traditional songs and rhymes teach children to ponder problems and enjoy being intrigued but the moral dilemmas in this one can wait for a few years!

Goosey Goosey Gander

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Why should I teach nursery rhymes? Because they are Songs of Knowledge

Posted on April 3, 2012 by Carol

I have many reasons for teaching nursery rhymes.  This post is about passing on common knowledge such as rudimentary counting skills, letters of the alphabet, or the names of the days of the week.

One of my favourite authors on music is Dr Daniel J Levitin at McGill University in Montreal where he runs the Laboratory for Music Cognition, Perception and Expertise.  In his second book, The World in Six Songs, he proposes that the human brain co-evolved along with music and that six types of song have been helping to shape us throughout tens of thousands of years.

Blanche Fisher Wright

One of those types of song is the knowledge song.  In pre-literate societies, people remember things that are sung to them – important information about which plants are poisonous, which waterholes are safe – for drinking the water and for likely predators.

At a less risky point on the scale of human communication, information is passed on about the way we talk about different days, seasons and festivals, and here I’m reminded of the Nursery Rhyme Monday’s Child.

Eventually, there’s the nitty gritty of how to count.  And once we do reach a need for literacy, we need an easy way  to remember the order of letters or the spelling of certain words.

Why is it easier to remember the numbers up to twenty or the letters of the alphabet when they are sung? Partly it is the rhythm of the song that helps it stick in human memory.   Underlying the patterns in rhythm, the regular beat attracts our attention and so we are able to tune in to the lyrics.

Rhyme is another attraction and aid to memory so, when reciting or singing the Nursery Rhyme One Two Buckle My Shoe, a four -year old can remember “nineteen twenty, my plate’s empty”.

S/he and will find the idea highly amusing if you pull a face and cry when you show them your empty two palms joined as your ‘plate’.  The poetic imagery of song is another powerful pathway to the human brain’s store of memories.

In the Nursery Rhyme One for Sorrow, a poignant little verse, children learn to say their numbers in order up to seven aided by the rhyming words joy and boy, gold and told and the strong meter.

One for sorrow, two for joy,

Three for a girl, four for a boy,

Five for silver, six for gold,

Seven for a secret ne’er to be told.

We like this one so we put it to music played on the harp to reinforce it’s ancient origin.  You can listen to a preview here.  In this way, other elements are added to the honey-trap.  Melody and harmony also attract the brain to listen to the lyrics because they give enjoyment.  Pleasure chemicals are released when we listen to the music that we like.  Go ahead and sing your ABC’s next time you are with young children and watch their faces shine.

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Not musical? How to get started planning preschool music lessons

Posted on February 28, 2012 by Carol

Listening in a group

Are you nervous about starting teaching music in preschool? Why is it that you lack confidence? My guess is that you think you are not musical yourself.  You don’t like singing in front of people.

If that’s you then let me suggest a short lesson plan that gets you out of the limelight and lets the confident child-singers shine.  Once it’s no longer “all about you” you might find that your reticence disappears.

7 Steps to Success

1.  Sit on your favourite story time chair and gather the children into a seated group so they can all see you clearly.

2. Introduce the idea that we are going to have a concert and that any child who wants to can come up the front right next to you and sing a song while everyone listens.

3. Once you have discovered a child who can sing convincingly to the group, ask everyone to sing their song again and keep that child at your side to be the model singer or music leader.

4. Continue in this manner with other volunteers until you have made a mental list of four or five songs to work with and at least one child to be your “co-teacher”.  It may take longer than one session to get songs you can work with. Prepare to be surprised at the song lyrics some children know!

5.  Later, spend some of you planning time finding those songs lyrics in your CD collections of favourite children’s songs. Then turn them into wall charts of lyrics.

6. Next you need to work out what kind of activity suits each song.  They might work best as finger plays, hand and body percussion songs,  or you might find reading resources or illustrated story books to suit them.  You might also play instruments to them, make up circle dances or dramatise them.   A selection of different activities is a great basis for a varied and interesting music session.  (You are well on your way to planning an excellent preschool music program.)

7.  Success brings success – you and your talented children, the music leaders,  will soon be having fun running music sessions together because we are all born musical- but some adults just need to find that out through musical play with children.

If you want any inspiration in finding music activities to do with children aged from twelve months to five years have a look here.

Posted in 3-5 year-old, body percussion, child song, circle dances, drama and movement, finger play, games and dances, music activity, Preschool Music Lesson Plans, rhythm instrument, story song, teacher confidence | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Why teach silly songs in preschool? “One Two Three Flea”

Posted on February 22, 2012 by Carol

One Two Three-Flea!

Yesterday I had the pleasure of finding out how much children love singing really silly songs.

I was in a local preschool with about thirty children, late morning just before the younger ones went home.

Their teacher, Louise, had bought our Term 1 Program, “Singing All Day Long” with 44 titles and 10 different music activities. There were a few songs she hadn’t made use of so I went in to teach them directly to the kids and staff.

I started with ‘One Two Three Flea’, a body percussion activity.  I love it because it’s a song my own mother and father used to sing at the kitchen table which often had a teapot on it. These are the lyrics:

One, two, three, Mother caught a flea,

Put it in a teapot and made a cup of tea,

The flea jumped out,

Mother gave a shout, “Dad”

And in came Father with his shirt hanging out.

I introduced this ridiculous idea by pulling out a large teapot, my prop to gain their attention.  I talked about and acted out a dog scratching under the tea table, a flea escaping from the dog and jumping around the teapot, the mum catching the flea and so on until the whole story was exposed. (No animals were harmed in the telling of this story.)

Then I slowly sang the song without accompaniment while demonstrating the much simpler hand actions – starting by counting to three on fingers and finishing by fast slapping on the inner thighs for dad’s dramatic entrance.

When I finally put on the backing track and we took off with the whole song at speed there was an amazing energy released into the room. At the end, children and staff alike were chortling with laughter and voices called out ‘again. again’.

One Two Three Flea (fast)

That release of joy reminded me of why we sing songs together.  A quote from my favourite writer on music, Daniel Levitin now springs to mind and once again my profession as a music teacher is confirmed in my heart.  Dan says:

Singing together releases oxytocin, a neurochemical now known to be involved in establishing bonds of trust between people.

Daniel J Levitin 2008, The World in Six Songs.

(This backing track with a slow and a fast version and the accompanying vocal tracks with written activity will be available on our website over at Musical Child in the next few weeks on the body percussion page.)

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Why teach nursery rhymes? Emergent literacy

Posted on February 7, 2012 by Carol

Polly Put the Kettle On- Kate Greenaway

I have many reasons for teaching nursery rhymes.  This post is about how singing nursery rhymes prepares the young child for a lifetime of literacy.

The 3 R’s – Rhythm, Rhyme and Repetition are building blocks of early literacy. Nursery rhymes are purpose-built around rhythm and rhyme.  So that ticks two boxes.  Thirdly, because they are short and easily memorised, children love them and so repetition comes easily.

Have you noticed that a one or two year-old  child will often say “Again!” when you sit with her and her nursery rhyme book? She loves repetition.

What about how a three or four-year old will often be heard singing a nursery rhyme as he sits in the car gazing out the window or meanders around the back yard poking things with a stick?  He loves knowing something by heart so he can repeat it as many times as he likes.

The oft heard maxim is that children who have memorised  several nursery rhymes by the age of three are most likely to be the best readers by the time they leave early childhood at age eight. It’s because they intuitively feel the prosody or flow of language.  Such children deeply understand the natural ups and downs, twists and turns, rhythms and silences, predictions and surprises of spoken language.  That’s what helps them to eventually decode the written word.

Nursery rhymes are old poems that are “worn in”.  They’ve had their rough edges smoothed off and, as a consequence, they trip easily off the tongue.  The rhythms of natural speech become familiar and pleasurable as a mother-tongue works its magic binding people together.  It’s the same  force of nature at work as in fairy tales.  With so many tale-tellers passing them on, the phrases have to be memorable so the best rhythms are kept in play to aid memory.

The way our brains work best is to look for patterns hence the value of the 3 R’s – Rhythm, Rhyme and Repetition. It’s a “no-brainer” really.  Teach them nursery rhymes and watch them thrive.  Add picture books are you’re well on the way to educating a literate child in love with books.

Warm Hands Warm-Kate Greenaway

Here is a link to a lesser known nursery rhyme, Warm Hands Warm that didn’t have a tune so we wrote one. It’s great for the younger child.  The rhyme is in “plough” with “now”.

When you get to the Musical Child website scroll down the product page to see the PLAY button for the sound files.

For the older preschooler or five year-old try this one when you are cooking cakes, pies or cookies with nutmeg or cutting juicy pears to share at fruit time. The tune for this one should be familiar, I Had a Little Nut Tree. The rhymes are in “bear” with “pear” and “me” with “tree”, “sea” and once again “me”.

Stay tuned for more reasons why you should teach nursery rhymes to the young children in your loving care in coming blog posts. Now it’s time for Polly to put the kettle on.

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How to successfully play musical instruments with toddlers

Posted on January 31, 2012 by Carol

Play the bells

Want to get better at running music activities for toddlers?

Maybe you’re a room leader in a childcare centre, or have your own home family day care or even lead a playgroup in your neighbourhood.

You know that music is good for developing so many things in early childhood. You know how to teach them songs with hand actions, but you want to go further and let them experience playing in time with instruments.

How are you going to manage musical instruments in a way that is meaningful and not just a mish-mash of sound and noise?

Try this simple activity plan and post a comment afterwards.

  1.  Choose just one type of instrument, let’s say bells.  Bells are for joy so that’s a good start. (It’s extremely important to have the same instrument for every child because what you want to happen is community music-making, not snatch and grab.  We all know the toddler rule, “If I want it, it’s mine!”  If you can’t supply enough bells then make some simple shakers.)
  2. Sit in a circle so everyone can see.
  3. Distribute the instruments from a sturdy container or place it in the middle of the circle so they can come and get one.  Make sure you have one set of sleigh bells for each child and one for yourself as you’ll be modelling what to do.
  4. As soon as they all have one, start singing.
  5. Repeat the song until you get to the magical “three times through” which seems to get the idea into their brains. (First time it’s new, second time it’s familiar, third time they know it.) Each time you sing it do something different with your bells.
  6. Hold the bells up high, then down low, out to the side, in close to your body all the time shaking them in time with the strong beat.
  7. Change hands. Hold out your arm so they can see the bells in your hand.  Now bring out the other arm and slowly transfer the bells into the other hand, all the while saying “other hand, other hand”.
  8. Pop the bells onto your foot and tap your heel to the beat.  Think of your own variations and observe the children.
  9. Finally, pack up the instruments to a Pack Away Song, you can listen to ours here.  You can either collect them by walking around the circle with the container or let them come into the centre and put them away themselves.

Here are the lyrics to an easy song, ‘Oh We Can Play’ you can listen to a preview here:

Oh we can play on the silver bells and this is the music to it,

Shake, shake, shake go the silver bells and that is the way we do it.

Basket of sleigh bells

When buying this instrument look for a product with large, bright-sounding bells on a sturdy strap or wooden handle with between three and five bells.  Some come with velcro fasteners so you can strap them onto wrists or ankles for some dancing fun.

Whatever bells you buy should produce a clear ringing sound, not a weak tinny sound.  There are lots that look pretty but have poor sound quality and break easily. The kind we recommend are usually quite hardy.  We’ve used ours in classes for years with some minor repairs to the straps but never to the bells themselves.  As you know two year-olds can be mighty strong and they will test with mouths and fingers to see if they can pull the bells off!

The authentic sleigh bells on leather straps are made for horses to wear outside in the snow.  If you can ever get your hands on one of those I’m sure it will last for as long as you care to use it.

Once you’ve tried this activity, please post a comment so we can all improve our skills. Happy playing!

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How to play “Dr Knickerbocker” with a 3 year-old or 4 year-old

Posted on January 12, 2012 by Carol

Dr Knickerbocker

Doctor Knickerbocker, Knickerbocker, Number Nine,

He likes to dance and keep in time,

Now let’s get the rhythm of our hands, clap, clap,

Now we’ve got the rhythm of our hands, clap, clap,

Now let’s get the rhythm of the number nine,

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9.

I’ve played this circle game with kids in primary/elementary school using quite a complicated set of instructions but with preschoolers I find simplicity works best.

We “slap knees once clap hands once” for most of the song except when the lyrics “tell us” to do something different.  In the first verse (above) the new thing is “clap clap”.  In subsequent verses the lyrics say “feet, stamp, stamp”, “eyes, blink, blink”, and “lips, kiss, kiss.”  I’ve found that four verses are enough with the young ones.

When we say the numbers 1 through 9, I might touch count on my fingers or do nothing and simply concentrate on getting the order right. Sometimes it’s fun to be like The Count in Sesame Street and just enjoy counting.

This activity is one of the games and dances available over at Musical Child.  You can hear a sample of the Dr Knickerbocker backing track here or if you’ve never heard the song before you can hear a preview of the vocal track here. Scroll down the page till you see the play buttons.

Try this simplified version and let us know how it went by posting a comment.  We also love to hear of other variations that work for you.  This is a lively activity – have fun!

Posted in 3-5 year-old, circle dances, drama and movement, games and dances, music activity, Preschool Music Lesson Plans | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment