How to Teach Nursery Rhymes to Children

Nursery Rhymes are a great way to teach phonemic awareness. The rhyming, alliteration, and obvious tempo they provide really help children understand the process of reading. Nursery rhymes are also great tools for teaching word parts like syllables and blends.They are very helpful and there are plenty of ways to use them in a preschool. Here are 6 great strategies to teach nursery rhymes in preschool.

Use Funny Voices
Say the rhyme one time or several times, but use a different voice each time. Say it in a robot voice, British accent, Texas twang, Opera voice, scary witch voice, baby voice, monster voice, tiny mouse voice, or pirate voice. You can also have students do actions while they are reading. Have them pretend to throw a ball, do jumping jacks, do a hula dance, act like an animal, or clap the syllables as they say the words. It is best if the children already have the nursery rhyme memorized when they do this, but you can also use this strategy to teach the rhyme.

Tap the Rhythm
Tap the rhythm as students chant it the rhyme. You can tap the rhythm using rhythm sticks or students can clap the rhythm, pat their legs to the rhythm, or march to the rhythm. This process will help with fluency as students learn that reading has a natural rhythm to it. Feeling a steady beat while repeating the words will also help students with memorization.

Find Rhyming Words
Have students look for rhyming words. Point out if the rhyming words are spelled in a similar way or not. Have students think of other words that rhyme with those words. If the students are older, you can have them make up another line or two that end with a new word that rhymes.

Find Words that Start with the Same Letter
Have students look for words that start with a certain letter. If alliteration is used, point out how the same letter sound over and over helps to make a point. If students are older, have them look for words that start with a specific blend. Have them think of other words that start with that letter or blend.

Substitute New Words
Substitute new words into nursery rhymes and change other words if necessary to make it rhyme. For example: In Hey Diddle Diddle, ask students to think of another instrument that they like. If a drum is suggested, the new rhyme with the word "drum" could go "Hey diddle dum the cat and the drum." You can also substitute students' names in rhymes that have a name. For example: Kayla be nimble, Kayla be quick, Kayla jump over the candlestick. This will make the rhymes more personal to students.

The Many Positive Effects of Fairy Tales For Your Children

Keep Your Child Happily Occupied And Stimulate Their Imagination.

Kids LOVE fairy tales. There is nothing more pleasing to children of all ages, than listening to a great story. And when kids fall in love with a story they'll want to hear it over and over again.

Listening to these stories will enhance your child's vocabulary, while increasing their attention span and ability to focus.

Fairy tales are just about everywhere, and you'll soon to begin to realize that your children love them. Whether it's the traditional Beauty and the Beast or a new Disney story that's come into the world, your children will be going absolutely crazy for them. What some people don't understand though, is that fairy tales do have a positive effect on your child's personality and development in later life. While you may not think that princess warriors and talking frogs can't help your children, the true reality is that they can!

Fairy tales are naturally written because of their creative values. However, the majority of them possess an underlining meaning. Whether it's showing happiness, trustworthiness or the benefits of being obedient to your elders, the majority of fairy tales do have a positive aspect to them. In addition to educating your child's mind from an early age, you'll also be helping them to develop a healthy personality. For example, Beauty and the Beast, speaks of a relationship between a beautiful princess and a beast. While the story is completely fictional, it will teach your child some important meanings of life. The ending of the story shows that children should learn to respect and love everybody in the world - regardless of their looks, race, culture or personality. If a princess can fall in love with a beast, then your child can make friends with somebody who looks different, right?

Apart from teaching your children morally correct principles in life, you'll also be helping them to develop a natural passion for reading and writing. Once they hear their first fairy tale, you can rest assured they will want to hear more and more. As time goes by, you'll begin to notice that your child begins to develop great reading and writing skills as a result. It's often hard to get your child started in life with the English language - but by teaching them fairy tales, you'll be giving them the boost in life they really need.

The Benefits of Teaching Your Children Nursery Rhymes

Nursery Rhymes are used not only to entertain and stimulate the imagination, but also to help educate children by promoting literacy and language skills, using easy to remember musical rhymes.

If you're considering teaching your children nursery rhymes, you'll be glad to know that there are several benefits. Whether you're planning on teaching them old rhymes, or newer ones, all of them will provide a unique experience for your child.

In recent years, studies have shown that teaching your children nursery rhymes can have a positive impact on their future. These rhymes are considered highly beneficial in the development of your children. Additionally, research has shown that nursery rhymes help to optimize your child's spatial reasoning - which is never a bad thing. What you can ultimately expect is for your child to perform better, and excel in their studies later on in life. Research has shown that children who learn and memorize these rhymes at an early age have greater levels of academic success in subjects such as Math, Science and English. The following points will help you to identify the additional benefits of teaching your children nursery rhymes during their young lives.

1. Children who are taught nursery rhymes at an early age begin to develop a passion for reading poems, short stories and other types of English literature. In addition, children also show more willingness to write, and as such, develop better writing habits in later life.

2. Research has shown that children who are taught and educated on old nursery rhymes generally grow up to have better comprehension skills and higher levels of cognitive functioning.

3. Nursery rhymes also help your children to develop an understanding of the English language from an early age. By learning these songs, your children will develop an understanding of the language. This can often lead to your children being able to read and write better than their peers.

Dreams & Lullabies have taken a unique new approach - Using all the standard rhymes they created new arrangements, new sounds and combined them with rhythms from around the world.

Whether it's Itsy Bitsy Spider combined with rhythms from Africa, or Jack and Jill with the pulsating beat of Brazil.

Not only will you and your child have fun joining in and singing along, you'll also find yourselves both dancing along to the infectious rhythms.

There's no doubt that teaching your children nursery rhymes at an early age can have a positive effect on both their childhood, and in later life as they progress through educational development.

Benefits of Playing With Educational Games

Various educational games for children can be found in the market nowadays. Nearly all youngsters relish the challenge of engaging in these kinds of games, and the process of participating in some of the activities may actually make them wiser and much more capable.

Especially for small children, board games and different types of educational games that invite physical interaction play an essential part in enhancing and improving motor skills. Games which often promote manual dexterity and improve sense of balance help little ones coordinate the body with the brain and try out how the two entities cooperate. State-of-the-art video and electronic-game systems also have the advantage of developing hand-eye coordination and visual focus.

According to a medical doctor in Boston, interactive games have the major benefit of developing social skills through stimulating diplomatic and structured interaction among children. If parents aren't playing, kids have to decide ground rules, adhere to a set system of guidelines and take turns to keep the game running. Learning games promote cooperation and may possibly even play a role in the development of children.

Numerous educational games, especially board games, have the ability to enhance children's focus and increase their attention spans. Kids who quickly get discouraged and might quit other activities without seeing quick results might tend to continue with games for extended time frames because of the probability of advancement and rewards. Finally, sticking with a game through its course can help kids develop patience and maturity.

Several educational video games seem to increase children's self-esteem and impart a positive feeling of achievement. Educational games whether they comprise of solving a problem or completing a virtual level, offer rewards for tasks that kids have independently completed and may encourage them to take productive risks in other areas of their lives as well.

Board games, concentration games and mathematics activities call for memorization and repetition for success, and kids who play them often learn the merits of exercising those skills. Since many tests and quizzes in elementary school, middle school and beyond are set in identical formats to those found in board games and quiz games, kids can better their chances of scoring well by mastering those systems and formats in a playful setting.

Educational games that inspire imaginative expression force kids to think outside the norm. Exploring and expanding creative imagination through such games can also help with nurturing self-esteem and self-acceptance.

3 Tips for Choosing an After School Club

The term 'latchkey kid' - used to describe children who must let themselves into an empty house after school and are unsupervised for some or all of the time between 3pm and 7pm - has been around, perhaps surprisingly, since WWII. However, in recent years it has increased in both notoriety as a socio-economic phenomenon and in frequency, all over the world. In America, it's been termed an 'epidemic,' with an estimated 10 million children fitting the description of "latchkey kids".

Here at home, the problem has grown substantially in recent years, especially among single-parent families, where the parent must work during the day and cannot be home when their children come home from school.

One solution - and one that is growing rapidly in popularity and utility - is the establishment of dedicated 'after school clubs,' providing after school care for children of various ages until a parent can collect them and bring them home.

An after school club is a great way to ensure that your children are safe until you return home from work. However, they vary greatly in availability, quality and cost, so here are some tips for choosing an after school club programme for your child.

1 - Homework

For most children, the best time to do homework is as soon as possible after school, before the distractions of electronic entertainment, friends, etc, take hold, so a good after school club will provide the three things children need to focus on to get their homework done:

a - Time. Children usually work best when a specific period of time is allotted to homework, perhaps an hour after a brief snack and settling in period.
b - Space. A cluttered table or noisy play area is no place for homework. Children should be provided with suitable, well-lit, clean and quiet space in which to work.
c - Support. While children should be allowed to work without unnecessary interference, an adult supervisor who can provide gentle help, control excessive talking and manage time is a great help to children's productivity.

2 - Activities

An after school club should not be seen as a holding pen for children to kill time in before being collected. Check that specific, scheduled activities are on offer, giving a balance of individual and team participation as well as a mix of creative and physical activities, and opportunities for socialisation.

3 - Nutrition

Most children could use an afternoon snack as a pick-me-up to revitalise them. But be sure the club isn't appeasing children with crisps, sweets and fizzy drinks. Instead, healthy (but tasty) treats should be on offer, not only to improve nutrition but also to help build a healthy attitude toward food.