Nursery-Rhymes-Fun News, Issue #002 -- <<FIRST_NAME_OF

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"The imaginative child will become the imaginative man or woman most apt to invent, and therefore to foster, civilization."
L. Frank Baum

This Month's Theme is Gardening.

Flowers, Vegetables, Greens and Dirt
Good for the Soul and Good for the Heart.

A Big, Fat Potato

A big, fat potato lay down on a clod
In the shade of burdock and tall goldenrod,
He dreamed he were king of the whole garden plot,
With a palace and throne, and a crown with a lot
Of jewels and diamonds and gold till it shone
Like the front of a show when the lights are turned on.

He had to be minded by all of the plants;
When he whistled the radishes knew they must dance;
When he tooted his horn the cucumbers must sing
To a vegetable crowd gathered round in a ring.

He made all the cabbages stand in a row
While a sunflower instructed them just how to grow;
The bright yellow pumpkins he painted light blue;
Took the clothes off the scarecrow and made him buy new.

He strutted and sputtered and thought it was grand
To be king and commander over all the wide land.
But at last he woke up with an awful surprise
And found a mole looking straight in his eyes.

Let’s Play A Game

GUESSING GROCERIES

Supplies:

12” Squares of muslin fabric. Miscellaneous ribbons.

Into the squares of muslin place samples of groceries—tea, coffee, rice, beans, spices, carrots, corn, chocolate candy, vegetables, etc. Gather each square around the sample and tie with a ribbon. The players alternatively try to feel and smell to guess what is in the packet. Each being allowed one guess for each sample. The one guessing the largest number correctly wins a prize. The hostess should have the samples numbered in order to keep count of the guesses.

Mistress Mary

Mistress Mary, quite contrary,
How does your garden grow?
With cockle shells and silver bells
And cowslips all in a row.

Mistress Mary, quite contrary,
How does your garden grow?
With cockle shells and silver bells,
And pretty pansies all in a row.

Let’s Play A Game

"Oats and Beans and Barley," a simple but fun game, played in earlier times in England and Scotland, with varying rhymes.

Oats and beans and barley grows,
Oats and beans and barley grows;
But you nor I nor nobody knows
How oats and beans and barley grows.

First the farmer sows his seeds,
Then he stands and takes his ease;
Stamps his feet, and claps his hands,
Then turns around to view his lands.

Waiting for a partner, Waiting for a partner;
Open the ring and take one in,
And kiss her in the centre.

The players form a ring by joining hands. One child (usually a boy) stands in the middle. The ring moving round, sing the first four lines.

These completed, the ring stands, and still singing, each player gives suitable action to the succeeding words; showing how the "farmer sows his seeds," and how he "stands and takes his ease," etc.

At the tenth line all wheel round. They then rejoin hands, still singing, and at the words, "Open the ring and take one in," the child in the middle chooses from the ring a partner (a girl, of course), whom he leads to the centre and kisses as requested.

The two stand there together, while the ring, moving again, sing the marriage formula:

Now you're married, you must obey,
Must be true to all you say;
You must be kind, you must be good,
And help your wife to chop the wood.

Gettin’ Crafty

Let’s plant a garden.

What you’ll need:

Seed Packets. Try a flower seed and a vegetable seed. Sunflowers are great for kids, the seeds are large and the flower is so pretty outdoors late in the summer. Leaf lettuce is a good vegetable to start with - it is very prolific and maybe they‘ll eat their salad if they‘ve grown it?? Herbs are fun too.
Potting Soil
Paper cups, peat pots, or empty yogurt or butter containers.
Be sure to poke holes in bottom. Don’t use clay pots for starting seeds.

Add soil to each cup or container and tamp with your fingers. Fill each about 2/3 full and plant the seed according to directions on packet. Tamp lightly. Don’t limit each pot to one seed, just in case one refuses to germinate. Save the seeds for another starter batch when these are germinated.

Sprinkle a little seed starter mixture and some sphagnum moss on top.

Top the containers with plastic wrap, secured tightly on top. Rubber bands do the job nicely.

Place in a plastic container. This allows for watering from the bottom of the pots, as seedlings are very sensitive to watering and should never be watered from the top. Warm water can be added to the plastic container as needed and the plants will drink it up from the bottom of their containers.

Place in a sunny, south facing window.

When the seeds are germinated, you may remove the plastic wrap.

Turn them every day, to avoid stretching toward the sun.

Once a week, apply a liquid fertilizer at half strength. Don’t overdo.

Acclimate before planting outdoors. Do this over a 5 day period. Starting in the morning for a few hours. Increasing the amount of time each day and the degree of sun. By the 5th day. They should be in full afternoon sun for the entire afternoon.

Let’s Pretend

“WHAT THE CHILD IMITATES, HE BEGINS TO UNDERSTAND.”—Froebel - 1889.

Role Playing is Fun - Let’s pretend we’re a farmer

If you were a farmer, what crop would you like to grow?
Why?
What would you do with your crop when it matures?
What does mature mean?
Would you like getting your hands dirty?
Do you think it would be fun to work with the big machines?
Keep them thinking

Study the difference between farmers in history and farming today.

Out Of The Mouths Of Babes

In the lesson of a class of country boys quite long ago, the words "above the average" occurred, and the lady teacher asked if any one could tell what the word "average" meant. There was no response for a time, and she passed the question from one to another until a more than average specimen eagerly responded, "It's a thing that hens lay on." The teacher was dumb-founded, and asked for an explanation. "Well," replied the young man, "my mother says that our hens lay each four eggs a week—on an average."

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Have fun
See you next month.

Hope you’ll visit our site often and enjoy the many poems, stories and fun things to do.

Nursery Rhymes and Poems
Encourage your kids to fall in love with reading.
Have fun while growing their imaginations.

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