Nursery Rhyme Cube Game for Pre-K and Kindergarten

Nursery Rhymes have been important parts of school since the late 18th century. The repeating verses and rhyming words are a fun way to teach memory skills and form a cultural point of reference. Some teach lessons or spark the imagination, while others are just silly.

When I taught at a local preschool, daily repeating nursery rhymes and songs way to teach the kids these songs. Can you imagine growing up and somehow not really knowing how Ring Around the Rosie went or the Humpty Dumpty Rhyme? As a homeschooling parent, your kids aren’t going to hear these unless you include them in the curriculum.

Kids love to be involved, so making this an interactive time in your school day will make it really fun. This is an opportunity to get up from the table or desk and play a very simple kind of game.

The Nursey Rhyme Cube

I made my own cube because I love illustration. This is a pretty complicated project, but if you are up for it, you can look up instructions on how to make a paper cube (or wrap paper around a wooden block) and illustrate each side. For my first song cube I chose:

• The Muffin Man
• Six Little Ducks
• The Itsy Bitsy Spider
• Old Mac Donald
• Twinkle Twinkle
• Three Blind Mice

These are all old nursery rhyme songs I felt were important for the kids to know. I also have a learning song cube and a nursery rhyme poem cube. I think the pictures help get the kids thinking about the songs they are singing, but they aren’t necessary.

If you don’t want to make a visual cube, you can just write down your list of 6 songs on a paper (maybe add some clipart from online or marker doodles to illustrate the different songs or poems) and use a dice.

Pre-K or Kindergarten Nursery Rhyme Game

The game is very simple. Each kid rolls the block or die and the whole group sings or recites the rhyme landed on. If it is a newer rhyme and the kids don’t know the words, repeat it a second time. This works with just one student or several. In a full classroom, it can be considered a daily task that kids rotate turns doing.

Adding on to the Game

You can take this another step further by acting out or drawing the nursery rhymes. Kids can dress up and pretend to be the cow jumping over the moon or the three blind mice running around. We rolled for a nursery rhyme to illustrate and got Old Mac Donald. The kids then created their own versions of the farm, Old Mac Donald and some of his animals.

For this project, I encouraged them not to look at the picture from the cube, but to make their own farm, farmer and animals. There is no right or wrong way for kids to draw, as long as they are trying. We focus on doing our best and then not feeling like it needs to be perfect. I am always impressed with what they can do for their ages.