Fairytales, Nursery Rhymes, and STEM!

 As part of our Friday, Kindergarten has been learning different fairytales and nursery rhymes and completing STEM activities that go along with them. The students listen to the nursery rhyme or fairytale, discuss different questions about them, and then take part in an exploration of different materials. 

One of our most recent was the nursery rhyme “Rain, rain, go away!”. Most of the students knew the song already and were able to sing along when first hearing it. Then, the students talked about activities they liked to do when it was raining outside using a Rally Robin structure. Finally, the students made their own rain clouds using shaving cream on top of a cup full of water. Each pair was given a dropper and some “rain” so they could drop it onto the cloud. The students made a hypothesis about how many raindrops it would take for the cloud to let the rain start falling down. It was so fun to see whose guesses were close to the answer! 

Another nursery rhyme that the students enjoyed was “Hickory Dickory Dock”. This nursery rhyme was interesting because some of the students already knew the words, but it was brand new to others. The students enjoyed singing along and we played it more than once so that everyone could learn the words. After listening to the nursery rhyme, the students build their own pendulum. The students were given clay, 2 popsicle sticks, 2 clothespins, a straw, some string, and a small wheel. This STEM activity was a little challenging for some, but the students persevered and were proud of their end products. When all pendulums were built, the students gave them a big swing and counted how many times the pendulum swung before it came to a stop. 

We also recently used the song “5 Little Monkeys Swinging in a Tree”. After listening to the song, the students were paired together and given 5 pipe cleaners. The students were to use those 5 pipe cleaners to make a tree and tape it to the desk. The goal was for the students to be able to hang at least 5 monkeys (if not more) on their tree. Each tree was built differently and it was interesting to see which ones held up and which ones needed some adjustments in order to hold more monkeys! The students learned how the tree needed a strong foundation in order to hold up more monkeys. 

Our fairytale and nursery rhyme STEM activities have become a nice treat at the end of a week full of hard work! The students love showing their curiosity and creativity when it comes to these activities.