TRADITIONAL NURSERY RHYMES

Traditional Nursery Rhymes
 

Some of the most well known, famous poems were written anonymously. Traditional nursery rhymes are always popular, and are some of the first poems that we ever hear, together with lullabies such as “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star”, which are simply poetic words to music.

Not only do nursery rhymes appeal to young children, but many were quite probably written by children in the playground, along with skipping chants and ‘pat-a-cake’ rhymes.  These poems, which have stood the test of time and are ridiculously simple, and often completely nonsensical, were probably written by children as a playground entertainment!  This is why I believe children are great at poetry; they have an imagination and simplicity of ideas that endures through generations even more than many classics have done!

For this reason, I love to encourage the use of nursery rhymes as ‘models’ to be adapted as alternative nursery rhymes, as they provide an excellent basis for recognising rhyme and rhythm patterns, and a great, fun way to start writing poetry.  In fact, writing alternative nursery rhymes is a form of ‘shadowing’ which is a technique whereby a poem is used as an outline for a new version, but the original poem can still be recognised and identified when reading the new poem.

If you would like to see examples of my alternative nursery rhymes, you will find them under the category POEM FORMS and the sub heading ALTERNATIVE NURSERY RHYMES, and if you would like to have a go at writing some yourself, see the sub heading TRADITIONAL NURSERY RHYMES for the words to a whole selection to get you started. The TEACHERS’ PAGE, DIFFERENT POETRY FORMS, ALTERNATIVE NURSERY RHYMES will provide lots of tips to help you start writing them.