Submitted by Laura Mc, Indiana
Idea posted September 27, 2004
Our kindergarten teachers are doing nursery rhymes, so I am reinforcing by doing them in music too. I found 24-piece puzzles depicting various nursery rhymes and children's songs at a dollar store for $1 each.
I covered them with contact paper to make them last longer. It turned out that cutting around each puzzle piece (using a razor blade) got way too tedious. So, I cut around two pieces at a time, making each of the 24-piece puzzles into a 12-piece puzzle. Each puzzle had a group of three students working on it. If the students got their puzzle put together in the time allowed (ten minutes), they got to sing their song. (All but two of my groups finished.) It went really well.
The puzzles I used had: BINGO; Old McDonald Had A Farm; Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star; Hickory Dickory Dock; Itsy Bitsy Spider; and Ants Go Marching.