"Once Upon A Rhyme"

Title: “Once Upon a Rhyme”

Genre: Poetry 

Author: Carol Hosking 

Major Awards: N/A

Age Group: 4- 6 years old

Summary: 

This book is a series of traditional nursery rhymes and tells readers the reasoning behind where they came
from. The nursery rhymes range from things such as, “Mary Had a Little Lamb”, “Jack and Jill”, and a
few other popular nursery rhymes in our society. After each rhyme there is a reasoning as to where it came
from and how it became a nursery rhyme to begin with. The book ends with a poem called “Geese” about
geese who used to serve as china's “watch dogs” to protect them and their stuff. 

I would use this book in my lower grade, elementary classroom for sure. It has a few of the best known
nursery rhymes and also gives the reasoning behind them which I feel would be very intriguing for
students to learn about. It also has fun pictures to go along with the rhymes which i also believe would
catch the attention of a younger child. 

I think a good age group for this book would be from about Pre-Kindergarten to Kindergarten due to the
rhyming words and silly stories. Younger children would thoroughly enjoy these traditional nursery rhymes
and hopefully start to say them along with me as I read them. I feel as if they would also enjoy the pictures
that the book has to go along with the poems as well. 

I would do a unit on nursery rhymes in my classroom and use this book as a guide or starting point. I would
start by reading them and asking the kids if they recognize any of them and what other nursery rhymes they
may know. After I have read it I would also have a class discussion about the nursery rhymes and ask
my students what they think is going on in each one and analyze them. After that I would have them each
choose their favorite nursery rhyme and draw me their best picture about the rhyme they chose.