I Saw A Ship A-sailing - A Poem for Young Kids

It's not really a nursery rhyme. My seven year old son learnt 'I Saw A Ship A-Sailing' just now, in his second standard. It goes like this:

I saw a ship a-sailing, a-sailing in the sea

And it was deeply laden with pretty things for me

There were comfits in the cabin

And apples in the hold

The sails were made of satin

And masts were made of gold.

The four and twenty sailors

That stood above the decks

Were four and twenty white mice

With chains about their necks

The captain was a duck

With a packet on his back

And when the ship began to move

The captain said, "quack quack."

The version of the poem that his school text-book has is a little different from the version that I found on the net. It's author is anonymous and it's part of the Mother Goose rhymes.

Mother Goose? Who was that? Let's keep it for another day :)

Red Light - A Nursery Rhyme... And Amber - A colour

If you are a parent you must be familiar with 'Red Light Red Light What Do You Say'.

Here's another one that Anant (that's my seven year old son) learnt when he was in Senior KG.  It goes like this:

 Red, amber and green

The traffic lights are seen.

Red light on the top

Says, "you may stop."

Green light below

Says, "you may go."

Amber light in-between

Says, "Wait! For red or green."

 With this rhyme came a new word, which was a new colour name - Amber!Which, in turn led us to learn some thing more. About amber itself! 

 

We learnt that some trees have a kind of coloured juice in their trunks. And years and years ago, i.e. millions of years ago, it so happened that this gooey juice would come out of the trees and would lie there as drops or puddles and dry up and become hard and would dry up more and would get buried under the earth and would turn into stone! 

 Things like this that turn into stone after being buried for years and years, well, millions and millions of years actually, are called fossils.

So Amber is also a kind of fossil, which is so shiny and beautiful that people dig it out and make jewellery of it! 

And you know what! Sometimes a small insect would get trapped in such amber and even after million and millions of years, it remained intact, just as it was! Poor thing!

(All images taken from Wikipedia)

All The Rhymes - From Pre-Primary to Post-Nursey

Welcome to the wonderful world of rhymes! We all discovered this world when we were kids and then forgot quite a lot of it as we grew up.

It was when my little son started his school that I rediscovered some of the nursery rhymes I had learnt and discovered others that I hadn't.

Four years down, and I suddenly realized that I am losing them again! But I don't want to! In fact, I want to share them with all of you.

So here is this blog, where I'll try to punch in poems and rhymes for school kids and toddlers.

But it won't be just a collection of rhymes and poems. You'll find a whole lot more here. What would that be? Well, even I don't know as of now :)

But one thing is for sure - this is going to be a journey of fun and learning for your kids and that of rediscovery for all of us!