10 Favourite Nursery Rhymes to Study English

Maria 3y. 7m.

 

For our English “lessons” we organized a special so called “English Zone”, where we have UK’s map, English books, an envelope with cards for articulatory gymnastics, different animals’ masks and other requisite.  This all is needed for our fun lessons, where the majority of exercises are done by performing some actions like running, jumping, drawing, modeling etc. But the most adorable part of the English studies (except for catch-up game, of course) is singing and finger-playing. Maria learns the nursery rhymes one by one and does it with pleasure remembering the words and repeating them all through the day. here is the list of her most favourite songs:

 

1. Row row row your boat

2. The Wheels on the bus  

These two songs we sing and move the respective transport mean on our UK map and then make particular exercise such as drawing or gluing or making articulatory gymnastics.

 

3. Incy Wincy Spider

4. Hockey Pockey

Excellent finger/body play!

 

5. Finger Family

6. Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes
Very good when one needs to study parts of the body

7. Sing a Rainbow

Absolutely top hit when studying colours

 

And of course the lovely classics such as:

8. Old Macdonald Had a Farm

9. Twinkle Twinkle Little Star

10. London Bridge is Falling Down

The most favourite songs are definitely those, which are sung by the children.

Second Language

I, myself, am fond of languages and love to study them. And I would be really happy if Maria would also have a wish to study languages. Besides, we live in bilingual country so knowing at least two (I would even say three!) languages is a must for us. So, gradually I begin to introduce Maria to her second language.

It is well-known theory that for children it is much easier to learn smth new (e.g. to speak foreign languages, to ski, to swim) compared to an adult. Knowing this advantage we started quite early (1 y. 1 m. o.) to learn second language. In the beginning I was worrying that Maria will get a mixture of native and foreign language in her head. These worries were reinforced by the fact that at the moment she just starts speaking her native language, although she understands everything what one says. So, I surfed the Internet to find the experience of parents, whose children grew in bilingual families, read articles of teachers, scientists, psychologists. The results of my findings pointed to the main principle of a successful language studying, which is a clear border between two languages: a) mum speaks one/dad speaks another; b) at home one language is spoken/in the countryside another is spoken; c) foreign language can be spoken at a particular part of the day or day of week.

We chose the time before going to bed (~15 min), when we communicate in foreign language. During this time I read poems and speak in a different language. In the beginning, Maria looked really puzzled, and thought maybe her Mum is crazy =). But now I see she starts to understand separate words and is quite interested in the process.

We will see how it goes further. Anyway, I believe, these efforts will not be in vain and everything what we do now will help Maria to develop in her future life.