An interview with NWE Kindergarten teacher, Ms. Dower.
Describe the Kindergarten Nursery Rhyme Olympics.
The Olympics consist of 6 events based on 6 different classic nursery rhymes! We do half of the events in our individual classrooms and the other are done in various locations as a grade level. This year, we also added an “opening ceremony” parade through the pre-k hallway. This was a great addition to our day!
What is its purpose?
The purpose of the Nursery Rhyme Olympics is to create foundational memories that help teach kids to love to learn and love to come to school! We are able to help create spatial awareness, meet math and literacy learning standards, and let students feel joy in just moving their bodies. Nursery Rhymes are an important part of our heggerty curriculum and help students build their phonemic awareness skills. In addition, rhythm, music, and rhyme are so important for a child’s development.
How did the event begin?
I saw a teacher online who did nursery rhyme olympic activities with her kindergarten class! I loved the idea and decided we should do it grade level wide at our site. I came up with some activities and looked online for others. It has come together to be such a fun, play based learning experience for our students, and I can’t wait to continue to have it each year!
How do students prepare for the games?
Our students busily prepare for the games by learning and practicing their nursery rhymes at home and at school. We want this to be not only an exciting learning experience at school, but for them to learn and spend time together as a family at home! We send home all of the nursery rhymes that our students are practicing and encourage them to work together as a family to “train” for our events! They also create artwork based on the rhymes to transform our hallway and make a class flag to represent their team as a group.
A word from our students....
“My favorite part was the jack and jill race because we got to run in the hallway!”
“My favorite part was waving and smiling at my prek teacher during the parade"
“My favorite part was getting medals at the end like a winner”
