Comentarios en: Learning from Nursery Rhymes

Por: Raquel Fernández Fernández

Raquel Fernández Fernández — Sun, 05 Oct 2014 18:50:42 +0000

Excellent post and great exchange of ideas. Carla, your comment is really relevant and appropriate. Eva, thanks for sharing your experience. Well done, explorers!

Por: Beatriz Sandoval

Beatriz Sandoval — Sat, 04 Oct 2014 18:20:14 +0000

Hi Eva!
You are right when saying that they are not going to understand every word, and as you say it is not a problem because here appears the role of the teacher to give children some scaffolding, or reviewing vocabulary before singing, etc…
I’ve just heard the two songs, and I love them
Thanks for commenting on my post!

Por: Beatriz Sandoval

Beatriz Sandoval — Sat, 04 Oct 2014 18:10:19 +0000

Hi Carla!

From my point of view, Nursery rhymes are more appropiated for pre-school and Infant education, but of course teachers can use them in Primary Education anyway (especially in the first cycle) . I’m going to leave you some Nursery rhymes to work with in class:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1BZVg8FFjy8&index=11&list=PLqq__EyhXuc5i1NiXXCXeeI-jBRI2Fgfr
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c21bK7ALGHk&list=PLqq__EyhXuc5i1NiXXCXeeI-jBRI2Fgfr&index=8

We can use the first for teaching contents about feelings connected with expressions, included in the curriculum (Happy -> A happy face, Sad -> A sad face…). As well, they learn verbs related with the body (‘stomp your feet, clap your hands’). And the second nursery rhyme is called ‘ Yankee doodle’ which is quite famous in USA and all children know it.

Thanks for commenting on my post, hope you like it!

Por: eva.aviles

eva.aviles — Thu, 02 Oct 2014 18:31:50 +0000

Hello Bea! I completely agree with you. Nursery rhymes are beneficial for children if we want to make them develop skills such as language, listening, memory or imaginative skills. When they are listening or singing them, they are enjoying their time whereas acquiring new structures, vocabulary, practicing listening and developing their memory and imagination. They are learning at the same time they are having a fun time.
I can only see one drawback about nursery rhymes; maybe they have to learn and repeat some words that they do not understand, but this is not a real problem if we try to find a solution. For instance, we can give them language scaffolding or make gestures while we are singing.
Based on my experience, children love nursery rhymes. Some months ago, I taught English to children in infant education (they only had 3 years old) and I used nursery rhymes to teach them the numbers up to five and they seemed to go mad when I put the songs; they started to dance and jump all over the room. For this reason, I strongly feel you are right, and it could be a great idea to take advantage of it and start or end the class by singing or also to use them to establish routines.
Here you have two of the nursery rhymes I used with my pupils:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhCzYK5JCBM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0NHrFNZWh0

Bye!

Por: carla calleja

carla calleja — Wed, 01 Oct 2014 17:31:27 +0000

you and YOUR readers*… sorry for the mistake

Por: carla calleja

carla calleja — Wed, 01 Oct 2014 17:28:08 +0000

Hello Beatriz, I like your post. Your reflection makes me think a lot about the different competence that we could work while we are playing nursery rhymes. Also I love the idea of realize that I can work with multiple intelligences in a very easy way.
On the other hand, I think it is very interesting to take into account the historical background of these songs, but I can avoid thinking that it is really inappropriate make our primary students sing nursery rhymes about a sex´s scandals for example. In any case, I love this idea of use the songs to work on the contents, but as much as I know, all the contents are more related with high school contents. Did you ever hear any nursery rhyme to use with primary education contents?
Finally and in addition of your post, I will like to say that I think that nursery rhymes are perfect to create classroom routines. I my last practicum, my teacher did it, and it works really well. It was good because while we were working on foreign language, also we were changing the rhythm of the class (to maintain the motivation in the students), and preparing the students to change the subject. I encourage you and readers to try it.
I wait your next post.