Which do (or would) you read to/with your own children and/or students and why? What would you want them to learn from these, and how would you help them learn it? (For teachers, again, objectives and activities.)
I remember “Shortenin’ bread” but my version is different. The last verse they have I know, but not the rest and I can’t get it flowing as I know it from these words. I feel like this has also changed greatly over time. Playground verse as it’s given here I feel has turned into more like jump rope rhymes and clapping games.
“Cinderella, dressed in yellow
Went upstairs to kiss her fellow
But goodness sake, it was a snake!
How many kisses did he take?”
And then counting out the jumps. Even that’s a little dated in my opinion, but that’s what I associate these with. I was terrible at jumping rope, but I loved watching. I think exposing kids to different versions of these sort of things is fun and could be interesting to them. It shows different cultures and what’s going on in some time periods. One of the clapping songs I still can’t find a good version of has different versions that involved Michael Jackson and King Kong.
If you can find that Michael Jackson/King Kong clapping song, post it.
Brian posted a longer version of the Cinderella song.
Actually, all of these were always jump rope, clapping or other activity-based rhymes, and, as Carrie notes, the activities, tied to the rhymes, get the brain as well as the body moving.
They ARE interesting from a cultural perspective, too--good material for ethnographic research.
I saw that! After googling around, I'm wondering if I'm recalling wrong or if my group of kids was just strange or mixing stuff up themselves. As soon as I posted this, I kicked myself for not bringing up my favorite clapping song, Miss Mary Mack!
I think the version I played was this one:
"Ooooh,
Down by the banks
Of the Hane-key Pan-ky
Where the bull-frogs jump
From bank to bank-key
With a hip, hop, soda pop
East side, west side
KER-PLOP!"
And we sat in this big circle with lots of kids. Everyone would sit cross legged with their hands on their knees touching the other kids hands, all palm up, everyone with a hand over lapping the kid next to them. On each syllable, one kid would clap their hand against the next kid, who would then do the same. When you were the last kid you had to move your hand out of the way, or you would be out. If you succeeded, then the kid that should have slapped your hand would be out. It was fun and got us all laughing and interacting.
The other version I found definitely shows more of the time period this came around. Or at least this version.
"Down by the banks of the hanky panky
Where the bull frogs jump from bank to bank
singin' Eeeps ipes opes oops
silly will ding dong
I pleage aligence to the flag
Michal Jackson makes me gag
Pepsi cola burt my butt
Now were talkin' 7 up
7 up has no caffine
now were talkin billy jean
Billy Jean is out of sight
now were talkin dynomite
dynomite blew up the school
Now were talkin' really cool
10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1"
COOL clapping songs! Any thoughts on how they helped you--or might help other kids--develop language skills? See/hear any connections to rap here?
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