The Rhyme and Reason for Nursery Rhymes in the Elementary Music Classroom

Abstract

Many educators have recognized how nursery rhymes can be used in classrooms to nurture the cognitive, physical, social, emotional, and music development of children. In the elementary music classroom, nursery rhymes can be used to foster a playful and engaging music learning environment, and prompt interdisciplinary learning opportunities. The vast repertoire of nursery rhymes from all over the world enables music educators to be conscientious and creative practitioners.

Keywords

arts integration children’s literature folk music interdisciplinary music integration nursery rhymes

Last week, I had the opportunity to test the very limits of my patience while sitting in a doctor’s office waiting room. In an effort to distract myself from thinking about the boundless to-do list awaiting me, I decided to take a minute to put my cell phone away and be present in the room. As I looked around, I noticed that there were only two children (who appeared to be 8 to 10 years old) in a room full of adults. Most of the adults looked as exasperated as I felt, and almost all of them were engaged in activities on their cell phones. Unlike the adults, the children were engrossed in a hand-clapping game with one another. From across the room, I could hear their laughter as they chanted:

Pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake, baker’s man,

Bake me a cake as fast as you can,

Roll it, and pat it, and mark it with an E,

And put it in the oven for Evie and me.

Over the course of a few minutes, I observed the children absorbed in play as they repeated the nursery rhyme again and again. I watched intently as they created and amended different variations of the hand-clapping game, intentionally and unintentionally adjusted the tempo and dynamics, altered the rhythm and flow of their speech, and modified the words of the chant to include their names and other rhyming words. The adults in the room were bored and impatient, but the children were involved in meaningful music play! The four artistic processes that make up the national music standards—creating, performing, responding, and connecting—were evident in their play. My experience observing the two children in the waiting room prompted me to reflect on the enduring power of nursery rhymes; specifically, how they can be used to nurture a playful learning environment, encourage interdisciplinary learning opportunities, and empower teachers to be conscientious and creative practitioners.

Playful Learning

The importance of play in childhood cannot be overstated, as it provides children with opportunities to be active participants in their learning through investigation and exploration of the world around them. As children play, they participate in activities that foster the development of vital 21st-century skills, such as communicating and collaborating with others, engaging in critical thinking, and exercising creativity. American philosopher and educator, John Dewey, recognized the natural link between play and work, and believed that teacher-guided free play could promote both children’s individual and social learning, and also nurture democracy (Beatty, 2017). Research shows play to be intrinsically motivating to children, emphasizes that strong curricular goals can be met within playful pedagogies, and identifies that children learn best in environments that encourage playful learning or guided play (Fisher, Hirsh-Pasek, Golinkoff, Berk, & Singer, 2011; Jones & Reynolds, 2011). Elementary children can benefit from playful, teacher-designed learning challenges that prompt children to think critically to uncover new learning through exploration and investigation (Jones & Reynolds, 2011).

What makes nursery rhymes so powerful in the music classroom is that they epitomize play. Not just through the games and fingerplays that typically accompany them, but via the innate playfulness of the language itself, the rhythm and rhyme that evokes joy and sparks the imagination. In the preface to the book, Rhymeplay: Playing With Children and Mother Goose, Bennett (2010) explains,

Nursery rhymes are not simplified speech, in fact, the richness of these poems often lies in their fluid use of unfamiliar words and the delightful lilt of phrases. Speaking the rhymes, over and over again, stimulates language and sweeps your children into the fascinating world of “languaging.” The wonderful imagery and patterns of sound present in nursery rhymes construct an interactive, verbal playground for children. (p. 4)

Nursery rhymes are examples of “language play” in that they are passed down by oral tradition and enjoyed between an adult and a child or a group of children (Cobb, 2007 as cited by Mullen, 2017). According to Mullen (2017), nursery rhymes and songs can provide an environment that is “rich in language, joy, and playfulness” because they have always existed as an “interactive childhood experience” (p. 43). The study of nursery rhymes nurtures the development of the whole child (i.e., cognitive, physical, social, and emotional development), and engages children in meaningful music study as they explore the voice, beat, rhythm, tempo, dynamics, and formal structures of the rhymes (Kenney, 2005). Nursery rhymes can be used as prompts to engage students in creative music and language arts activities as children improvise stories, sounds, melodies, and more, which are all-natural extensions of child’s play (Cooper, 2010).

Interdisciplinary Study

The rich language, sound, imagery, and playfulness that are inherent in nursery rhymes making them ideal for music study can also prompt meaningful interdisciplinary learning opportunities. Music educators have acknowledged the need for a more comprehensive music curriculum to provide children with multiple ways to engage in music experiences and help them develop their interests and music roles in various capacities (Barrett & Veblan, 2018). Barrett and Veblan (2018), advise music educators to adopt an interdisciplinary approach to teaching music in order to provide an expanded music curriculum that encompasses many forms of music-making, study, styles, and genres of music that will yield meaningful music experiences for children. According to Barrett (2005),

A curriculum centered on meaning provides time for students and teachers to reflect on music and its value, uses an array of instructional strategies to promote inquiry, features varied settings to promote independence and offers plentiful avenues for exploring diverse musics in school and community settings. (p. 23)

Whether a particular music experience is meaningful can be attributed to a number of things, including the characteristics within the music itself (e.g., dynamics, tempo, rhythm, melody, and harmony); personal associations and responses to music; and the context of where, when, how, and by whom the music is created (Barrett & Veblan, 2018; Green, 1988; Street, 2017). The inherent linguistic and music qualities of nursery rhymes and the playful processes and interactions through which they are experienced account for their ability to delight children for centuries and provide meaningful and memorable learning opportunities for children of all ages.

As I sat and observed the two children playing “Pat-a-Cake” in the doctor’s office, I noted their use of memorization, sequencing, rhyme scheme, vocabulary, fine and gross motor skills, eye contact, touch, tempo, dynamics, rhythm, pitch, beat, fluency, and pattern as they collaborated and created together. Within a single activity, the children simultaneously demonstrated proficiencies in the areas of language arts, physical education, music, as well as social and emotional skills. A nursery rhyme can serve as an ideal “organizing center” to develop a unit of interdisciplinary study. Lalor (2016), defines an organizing center as “the central idea upon which a unit of study is built . . . quality organizing centers are built around themes, concepts, issues, problems, processes, or phenomena” (Consideration 1, Summary, para. 1).

After selecting a particular nursery rhyme as the organizing center for a unit of study, it is helpful to analyze the rhyme as you speak it to establish the flow of the language, identify the words that are naturally emphasized, and explore the possibilities for expressivity. It is also beneficial to determine any poetic and literary devices found within the nursery rhyme, such as the following:

Alliteration: The repetition of initial consonant sounds (e.g., Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers . . . )

Assonance: The repetition of vowel sounds (e.g., Tom, Tom, the piper’s son . . . )

Imagery: Words or phrases that appeal to any sense or any combination of senses (e.g., January bring the snow, makes the feet and fingers glow . . . )

Metaphor: A comparison between two objects with the intent of giving clearer meaning to one of them (e.g., . . . with silver bells and cockleshells and pretty maids all in a row.)

Onomatopoeia: The use of words which imitate sound (e.g., Baa Baa Black Sheep)

Personification: A figure of speech which gives inanimate objects human traits or abilities (e.g., . . . and the dish ran away with the spoon)

Repetition: The repeating of words, phrases, lines, or stanzas (e.g., Three blind mice, three blind mice . . . )

Stanza: A grouping of two or more lines of a poem in terms of length, metrical form, or rhyme scheme (e.g., Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall. Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.)

Rhyme Scheme: The sequence or form in which the rhyme occurs (e.g., the rhyme scheme for Wee Willie Winkie is aabb)

Simile: A grouping of two or comparison between two objects using a specific word or comparison such as “like” or “as” (e.g., Mary had a little lamb its fleece was white as snow . . . )

Conducting an analysis of the inherent linguistic elements within a rhyme is fundamental in establishing the potential music concepts to study. For instance, identifying the stanzas and rhyme scheme in a nursery rhyme can determine how to approach teaching meter, rhythm, phrasing, form, and cadence. Nursery rhymes provide an effective means for students to investigate natural connections between music and language arts. Other language arts concepts and ideas that can also be explored when studying nursery rhymes include speaking, listening, vocabulary, fluency, phonemic awareness, homophones, parts of speech, storytelling, cause and effect, conflict, connections (prior knowledge, text-to-self, text-to-text, or text-to-world), context clues, predictions, main idea, theme/central message, tone, sequencing, and character. Some examples of language arts activities include the following:

Exploring and/or changing parts of speech (e.g., verbs and prepositions)

Changing the rhyming words

Altering the rhyme scheme

Extending the rhyme or story and providing more details

Combining nursery rhymes to tell a silly story

Creating a new rhyme or story from a different character’s point of view

Exploring children’s literature based on nursery rhymes (see Table 2)

Creating an original rhyme using the same rhyme scheme from a nursery rhyme

Creating a different ending for a nursery rhyme

Writing a play based on a nursery rhyme

Comparing and contrasting nursery rhymes

With a nursery rhyme as the organizing center for a unit of study it is easy to devise extension activities that afford opportunities to delve into the artistic processes (i.e., creating, performing, responding, and connecting) that are used in all of the art forms (see Table 1). Additional interdisciplinary learning challenges can be created and taught in the music room or in collaboration with elementary and arts classroom teachers for more meaningful learning. Teacher collaboration is key to successful integrated and interdisciplinary teaching and learning (May, 2013). An effective collaboration team consists of members with complimentary skills who can work together to raise important questions to identify and create purposeful and authentic learning opportunities across disciplines.

Table 1.

Nursery Rhyme Arts Extension Activity Ideas.

Music	• Create a soundscape using instruments • Improvise an accompanying rhythmic or melodic ostinato • Compose a melody for the rhyme • Read and perform a rhyme from iconic notation • Play with the form of the rhyme by mixing up or adding additional phrases • Create a larger music form (e.g., rondo) by combining nursery rhymes, folk songs, or creating new sections of music to add to nursery rhymes using speech, body percussion, or instruments • Rap a nursery rhyme over a background instrumental track created in GarageBand • Sing and study other folk songs that share the same theme as a nursery rhyme (e.g., Hot Cross Buns and Pat-a-Cake) • Listen and identify nursery rhymes in popular music (e.g., Baa Baa Black Sheep in Gotye, Hey Diddle Diddle in Aerosmith’s “Walk this Way”) Note: whosampled.com is a great resource • Listen to instrumental works that include nursery rhymes (e.g., Harl McDonald’s Suite from Childhood, Leroy Anderson’s Fiddle Faddle, “Three Blind Mice” in Gustav Mahler’s Symphony no. 1 in D major, mvt. 3)
Drama	• Dramatize the nursery rhyme • Engage in improvised role play of the different characters • Engage in character study by acting out and guessing clues about the traits of nursery rhyme characters • Practice voice exploration through dramatic storytelling • Create a freeze frame (still image) of one moment in a nursery rhyme • Create a tableau of nursery rhyme by having students create three still images of the beginning, middle, and end • Improvise a flashback or flash-forward scene that provides more context for a dramatic moment in the nursery rhyme • Invite students to question the main character of a nursery rhyme (teacher or student) about their background, behavior, and motivation
Visual Art	• Illustrate a phrase or stanza • Create an individual, group, or class picture book of a nursery rhyme • Create costumes for dramatic play • Imagine and create a portrait of a specific nursery rhyme character • Draw a scene from a nursery rhyme to explore various elements of art (i.e., line, shape, space, value, form, texture, and color) • Examine and study the work of famous illustrators of nursery rhymes (e.g., Kate Greenaway, Arthur Rackham, Fredrick Richardson, Randolph Caldecott, and Leonard Leslie Brooke) • Examine contemporary artwork inspired by nursery rhymes (e.g., New Yorker Artists, James C. Christensen, Frances Broomfield, and Mary Engelbreit)
Dance	• Create movements or make different body shapes for the rhyming words • Find a movement/action words in a rhyme and think of synonyms and related words to explore through movement • Invite students to make shapes with their body from interesting words in the rhyme • Consider ways characters might move and try moving as they do • Identify parts of speech (verbs, adverbs, and prepositions) and explore them through movement • Explore the elements of dance (i.e., body, space, energy, and time) by dancing (not pantomiming) the rhyme • Read a nursery rhyme first, then, reread and invite the students to do interpretive movement • Give groups of students a stanza or verse of a nursery rhyme to explore movement possibilities • Create a dance to accompany a music composition of a nursery rhyme that the students create

For instance, in drama the students might analyze “Humpty Dumpty” to identify the sequence of the story and work in small groups to create a tableau—still representation with their bodies to represent a scene—for the beginning, middle, and end of the rhyme. In music, the students might create soundscapes for their tableau, compose a melody for the nursery rhyme, and/or improvise a rhythmic ostinato accompaniment in 6/8 meter using body percussion or unpitched percussion instruments. In the classroom, the students might engage in conducting a character analysis of “Humpty Dumpty” after reading the story After the Fall: How Humpty Dumpty Got Back Up Again (Santat, 2017). “Humpty Dumpty” might also be used as a prompt for students to explore engineering by designing and building a wall for Humpty Dumpty, or engaging in the scientific method by creating and testing an apparatus that will protect Humpty Dumpty (an egg) from his fall. Communication and collaboration with other arts and/or classroom teachers can provide deeper exploration of a topic or idea than what can be covered in a series of music lessons, which ultimately affords students more time and space to immerse themselves in a given topic or idea.

Empowering Conscientious and Creative Practitioners

Elementary general music teachers have the opportunity to explore all aspects of the music discipline, reach and teach the majority of students, and create meaningful curriculum that meets the needs and interests of their students. In my experience, creating meaningful music lessons that include opportunities for interdisciplinary study allows me to delve deeper into my discipline and examine it from different perspectives. Integrated and interdisciplinary teaching also affords me the opportunity to be innovative in developing engaging and meaningful lessons for my students, and to think critically about all aspects of my teaching.

Recently, there have been a number of news articles, blog posts, and social media discussions urging music educators to carefully consider the repertoire they use in their classrooms. Specifically, they call into question the appropriateness of some traditional folk songs and nursery rhymes. These conversations should be celebrated for emphasizing the profound importance of being culturally responsive practitioners and fostering inclusive learning environments for our students. However, it would be unfortunate if music educators discontinue the use of folk songs and nursery rhymes in their classrooms out of fear for political correctness run amuck, or a tortured attempt to propagandize the classroom. Nursery rhymes have so much to offer in terms of child, language, and music development (Fountas & Pinnell, 2018; Knapton, 2015; Mullen, 2017), yet an increasing number of children are not being exposed to them (Kenney, 2005; “Traditional Nursery Rhymes Could Be Heading for Extinction,” 2009). Music educators have the tremendous opportunity to continue to nurture playful and meaningful music making with nursery rhymes, while also modeling conscientious teaching by carefully considering which rhymes to use with their students.

The long, oral tradition of nursery rhymes can often make it difficult to pinpoint the origin. Many rhymes that are inappropriate for children in their original wording are omitted from contemporary collections for children, and some rhymes have been altered over the years to remove offensive content (Cardany, 2013). Additionally, some nursery rhymes have apocryphal histories attributed to them, such as “Ring Around the Rosy,” which is not actually about the Great Plague (Ferguson, 2018). There are a number of resources available that provide historical context for nursery rhymes that are useful in determining whether a particular rhyme is appropriate for use in the classroom. One of my favorite nursery rhyme resources is The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes edited by Iona and Peter Opie. The book presents and examines over 500 rhymes, songs, and riddles, and is invaluable in providing insight into the origin of many well-known nursery rhymes.

The oral tradition of nursery rhymes has also resulted in the alteration or abridgment of many rhymes over the years (Cardany, 2013). According to Opie and Opie (1997), the popular counting-out rhyme “Eeny, Meeny, Miney, Moe” was first recorded in 1888, but is said to have existed long before that, with scholars linking it to an ancient British counting system: the Anglo-Cymric Score (Raphel, 2015). Unfortunately, the rhyme was corrupted in America and England sometime during the 1800s, and even though necessary changes have been made to the rhyme, racist connotations from this corruption cannot be ignored. While “Eeny, Meeny, Miney, Moe” and similarly situated rhymes may no longer be suitable for use in the classroom, there are hundreds of nursery rhymes to choose from! For instance, the tremendously fun American counting-out rhyme:

Inty minty tibblety fig,

Deema dima doma jig,

Howchy powchy domi nowchy,

Jom tom tout,

Olligo bolliga boo,

Out goes you!

There are so many wonderful nursery rhyme collections that are available including collections that contain nursery rhymes from other cultures (see Table 2). One of my favorite nursery rhyme collections is Over the Hills and Far Away: A Treasury of Nursery Rhymes collected by Elizabeth Hammill, which contains both familiar and unfamiliar nursery rhymes from around the world and is beautifully illustrated by more than 70 celebrated artists. While there are many nursery rhymes that are unique to a particular culture, there are also opportunities to discover common ground between cultures by investigating cultural variations of the same rhyme. For instance, the Jamaican version of “Little Miss Muffet,”

Lickle Miss Julie

Kotch pon ar stoolie,

An nyam wan ripe Bombay;

Den bredda Anancy

Come frighten de pickney

An tief de ripe mango away.

Table 2.

A Limited List of Nursery Rhyme Resources.

Nursery rhyme collections
Ada, A. F. (2006). Pio peep! Traditional Spanish nursery rhymes. New York, NY: HarperFestival.
Benjamin, F. (1995). Skip across the ocean: Nursery rhymes from around the world. London, England: Orchard Books.
Crews, N. (2004). The neighborhood Mother Goose. New York, NY: Greenwillow Books. Goldstein, B. S. (2003). Mother Goose on the loose: Illustrated with cartoons from the New Yorker. Lebanon, IN: Harry N. Abrams.
Hallworth, G. (2011). Down by the river: Afro-Caribbean rhymes, games, and songs for children. London, England: Frances Lincoln Children’s Books.
Hammill, E. (2014). Over the hills and far away: A treasury of nursery rhymes. Somerville, MA: Candlewick Press. McKissack, P. C. (2017). Let’s clap, jump, sing and shout; dance, spin and turn it out: Games, songs and stories from an African American childhood. New York, NY: Schwartz & Wade.
Opie, I., & Opie, P. (1992). I saw Esau: The schoolchild’s pocket book. Somerville, MA: Candlewick Press.
Opie, I., & Opie, P. (1955). The Oxford nursery rhyme book. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press. Orozco, J. (1997). Diez deditos: Ten little fingers and other play rhymes and action songs from Latin America. New York, NY: Dutton Children’s Books.
Pridhee. (2019). Gol mol bol: Hindi nursery rhymes (2nd ed.). Malaysia: T4Tales.
Ritchie, J., & Brumfield, S. (2015). Jean Ritchie’s Kentucky Mother Goose: Songs and stories from my childhood. Milwaukee, WI: Hal Leonard Books.
Origin and history of nursery rhymes
Barring-Gould, W. S., & Barring-Gould, C. (1962). The annotated Mother Goose: Nursery rhymes old and new arranged and explained. New York, NY: Clarkson N. Potter. Butler, F. (1990). Skipping around the world: The ritual nature of folk rhymes. New York, NY: Ballantine Books.
Ferguson, D. (2018). Ring-a-ring o’roses: Old rhymes and their true meanings. London, England: Michael O’Mara Books. Knapp, M., & Knapp, H. (1978). One potato, two potato: The folklore of American children. New York, NY: W. W. Norton.
Opie, I., & Opie, P. (1997). The Oxford dictionary of nursery rhymes (New ed.). New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Nursery rhyme resources for the elementary music classroom
Bennett, P. D. (2010). Rhymeplay: Playing with children and Mother Goose. Van Nuys, CA: Alfred.
Brumfield, S. (2018). First, we sing! 100 little songs and rhymes for reading, writing and more! Milwaukee, WI: Hal Leonard.
Delelles, R., & Kriske, J. (1988). Tyme for a rhyme: Nursery rhymes with music for children. Las Vegas, NV: Kid Sounds
Delelles, R., & Kriske, J. (1995). 2nd rhyme around: More nursery rhymes with music for children. Las Vegas, NV: Kid Sounds
Delelles, R., & Kriske, J. (2001). 3rd rhyme’s the charm: Even more nursery rhymes with music for children. Las Vegas, NV: Kid Sounds.
Goodkin, D. (1997). A rhyme in time: Rhythm, speech activities and improvisation for the classroom. Van Nuys, CA: Alfred.
Goodkin, D. (2008). Intery mintery: Nursery rhymes for body, voice and Orff ensemble. San Francisco, CA: Pentatonic Press.
Pfitzner, A. C. (2015). Hands to hands: Hand clapping songs and games around the world. Bridgewater, VA: Beatin’ Path Publications.Pfitzner, A. C. (2016). Hands to hands, too! Hand clapping songs and games from the USA and Canada. Bridgewater, VA: Beatin’ Path Publications.Weikart, P. (1997). Movement plus rhymes, songs and singing games. Ypsilanti, MI: High/Scope Educational Research Foundation.

Conclusion

On August 23, 2019 Taylor Swift released a new album, Lover, which attained the status of best-selling U.S. album of the year in a mere 48-hour period (Caufield, 2019). My daughter has been listening to the album on repeat since it was released, and I could not help but smile yesterday when I happened to catch Taylor sing “All the king’s horses, all the king’s men, couldn’t put me together again” (Swift & Antonoff, 2019). The familiar lyrics Taylor borrowed from “Humpty Dumpty” brought me back to the two children playing “Pat-a-Cake” in the doctor’s office last week, and recalling some of my favorite teaching memories playfully exploring the nursery rhymes “Wee Willie Winkie” and “Hickory Dickory Dock” with my students. I also recalled the story of Jessica McClure, the 18-month-old who was trapped in a Texas well for days in 1987. It was reported that Jessica found comfort by singing nursery rhymes as rescue teams worked tirelessly to reach her (Nix, 1987). To quote Kenney (2005),

Can we give too much praise to nursery rhymes? I don’t think so. Children who have grown up without nursery rhymes have been denied a great gift, for they have not enjoyed the social, emotional, intellectual, physical, and musical foundations that rhymes provide. (p. 30)

Nursery rhymes are indispensable to teachers because they provide the means to effectively teach students through play. The vast repertoire of nursery rhymes from all over the world also affords teachers with opportunities to create meaningful interdisciplinary learning experiences tailored to the needs, interests, and abilities of their students.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Brittany Nixon May

Author Biography

Brittany Nixon May is an assistant professor of music education at Brigham Young University.

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