Whether you are old or young, chances are that if you were asked to spout off a Mother Goose rhyme, you could do it! People from all backgrounds and all walks of life have been introduced to some form of nursery rhyme or Mother Goose story. Perhaps this is because of the endearing nature of the tales or perhaps because of the opportunities for linguistic development that rhymes seem to facilitate. Whether you are a fan of Mother Goose or not, there is a wide range of fun and creative (and in some cases educational) crafts that you can do with your children that will help them to better acquaint themselves with these engaging Mother Goose tales and hopefully learn something in the process.
One of the simplest craft ideas that can be done by virtually any age group is a coloring page. Mother Goose coloring pages are easy to find and download for free from the internet. If you do not have internet access, contact your local school and ask if they have any resources that you can take advantage of. Chances are that teachers of the younger grades will be more than happy to give you a few photocopies of pictures to get you started.
If you are looking for a craft that is a little bit more advanced than coloring pages but is still easy enough for young children, try cutting out construction paper shapes of characters or animals from your favorite Mother Goose rhymes and using other types of materials to decorate them. For example, you can use two cut-outs of your hands and weave them together at the fingers to make a spider (from Little Miss Muffet). You can use black felt to cover the hands or even pulled apart cotton balls to form the spider web. Keep those cotton balls out and you can give wool to the sheep from both “Mary had a Little Lamb” and “Little Bo-Peep” by simply gluing the cotton balls on the cutout of a sheep.
Looking for even more advanced than that? Try doing something more three dimensional. Make a pale just like the one that Jack and Jill had by using a paper cup and some pipe-cleaner. Use a hole-punch to make two holes on other side of the rim of the cup. Attach the pipe-cleaner so that it forms the handle. You can turn this craft into a fun activity by taking your kids outside and having them try to keep as much water in their “pales” as possible while running through a homemade obstacle course.
If you are looking for a more educational craft idea, the Mother Goose rhyme of Humpty Dumpty is a fun one to work with. Give the child a hard boiled egg and instruct him to create either a covering or a parachute that will protect the egg from a fall. Then take the egg to a high point and drop it. If the egg does not break, go to a higher place and drop it again. Continue this process until the egg is broken. Then encourage your child to try to put the eggs shell back together again. Let them think about the best materials that they can use and have fun putting together your egg puzzle.
Even ordinary chores can be turned into fun Mother Goose craft ideas. Involve your children in the garden by having them make flowers of their own (Just like in “Mary Mary Quite Contrary”). You can make a simple paper flower by cutting out petal shapes and using a push pins or brads to secure them to a straw. You can then “plant” these flowers out in the garden. For a more whimsical garden, simply enlarge the scale of your flowers by using full page size flower petals and a wrapping paper tube as the stem of the flower.
