Counting RhymesResearch suggests that early learning of traditional rhymes and rhythmic poems, songs, and chants significantly enhances early reading skills and phonemic awareness. In addition to these benefits counting rhymes also provide opportunities for children to practice a range of math skills including counting, numeral recognition, addition and subtraction. The counting rhymes below are provided in 3 formats: 1. Rhyme page: Enlarge and use as a Shared Reading text by using the settings on your printer to make a poster (see below) or save the .pdf to your computer and use as is on your interactive whiteboard. You can also provide children with their own copy of each rhyme you introduce to paste into a ‘Counting Rhymes’ Book. Add a rhyme each week and have the books available to children during free reading time.
2. Cloze Activity: These can be laminated and used as a Center activity with dry erase markers for children to fill in the missing numerals or used as a pencil and paper activity once children are familiar with the rhyme.
3. Sentence Blocks: Laminate the rhyme and cut up into the marked sentence blocks for use as a Center activity. Children can put the sentences back in order to make up the whole rhyme. These can also be used to make a class book, with each child illustrating one sentence/page of the book or as a blackline master for children to cut and paste back together.
All pages can be enlarged or reduced using the settings on your printer. Select Properties/Finishing/Pages per sheet. Normally you would have this set as 1 page per sheet. To reduce the poem in size to 4 copies per page use ‘4 pages per sheet.’ To enlarge the poem for Shared Reading use Poster 2x2 (4 sheets). You will need to tape the 4 pages together after printing. Counting/Numeral Recognition 1-1010 Little PeasOne Two Chocolate Goo Sing a Song of Numbers Moo! 1, 2, 3, 4 Mary's knocking at the door One Potato One Two Tie My Shoe Show me 5 Fingers Ten Little Fingers Three Little Witches 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 Template for innovating on text Counting Up5 Little BeesCounting Back5 Fat SausagesFive Little Turkeys Four Little Fish Five Little Snowmen Five Little Blue Birds Five Enormous Dinosaurs , Ordinal Numbers5 Little Pumpkins5 Little Fish 5 Little Squirrels 5 Little Tadpoles Complements of 55 Little PuppiesFruit Salad 5 Chocolate Cookies Complements of 10Fly AwayOtherEven Odd SongA Counting Rhyme a Week One possible way to use counting rhymes in your classroom is to choose one per week as a Shared Reading text: On Mondays, revisit favorite counting rhymes from previous weeks, then introduce the new rhyme. Chant the rhyme and work on its rhythm. On Tuesdays, have students take turns to act out the rhyme as it is read . On Wednesdays, read the rhyme in different ways: slow, fast, loud, soft voices etc. Focus in on rhyming or sight words. On Thursdays, revisit the rhyme and complete either the cloze or sentence block activities. On Fridays, revisit the rhyme and have students paste a copy into their Counting Rhymes Book to take home and share with their family. Place laminated copies of the rhyme activities in the Counting Rhymes Math Center for students to revisit throughout the year.
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