Rain, Rain, Go Away Nursery Rhyme: Lesson Plan and Activities (Kindergarten - 1st Grade)
Monday: Start by introducing the rhyme. Notice the text, font and title. Talk about comprehension. What is this nursery rhyme about? Ask the students if they like to play in the rain, and if so what can you do in the rain? Ask students what they can do inside on a rainy day. Chart responses.
Show students the different forms of the nursery rhyme that you have collected and discuss likes and differences. You may be able to find the versions shown below in your local or school library. Create a Venn Diagram about the different forms of the nursery rhyme.
Tuesday: Notice the new vocabulary, Spain. Ask if anyone knows what “Spain” is. Provide a world map and globe. Discuss countries. Show Spain and place a star on Europe. Chart and write a description of Spain. Note the rhyming words and where they are in the sentence. Have students circle the rhyming words, highlight with highlighting tape or outline them with Wikki sticks.
Wednesday: Reread the nursery rhyme. Chart the words, away, day, and play on one chart, and Spain and again on another chart. Discuss the reasons that they belong on different charts (they have different endings).
Thursday: Reread the nursery rhyme. Discuss word families. Brainstorm and chart all of the words in the -ay family (day, play, say, tray, May, way, away, ray and so on). Brainstorm and chart all of the words in the -ain family (rain, Spain, train, again, drain and so on).
Friday: Given the nursery rhyme (image below), illustrate the nursery rhyme. Rewrite the nursery rhyme on sentence strips. Place in pocket chart. Given the nursery rhyme below, students follow it to put the rhyme in the correct order on the pocket chart. Give a sentence starter, Little ______ wants to play, and allow students to play some name games. (You can view my lesson about name games here.)
Send a copy of the nursery rhyme home for students to share with families. Give parents an idea of what you would like to do with this nursery rhyme. Students can read it for enjoyment, rewrite it with their own name in it for writing practice (Little ________ wants to play), write or draw about what they like to do on rainy days.
More in the Series
You can find an overview of using nursery rhymes here.
Images: Made by the Author, and Courtesy of Amazon.com
This post is part of the series: Nursery Rhymes
This is a series that covers several nursery rhymes. Each lesson in the series is a little different, covering history, vocabulary, and word families.
- An Overview for a Week Long Unit Teaching Nursery Rhymes
- Teaching with Nursery Rhymes: Mary Had a Little Lamb
- Teaching with Nursery Rhymes: Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star
- 5 Days of Humpty Dumpty: Teaching With Nursery Rhymes
- Younger Students Will Enjoy These Fun Rain, Rain Go Away Activities
- Teaching with Nursery Rhymes: Hickory, Dickory, Dock Activities
- Teaching with Nursery Rhymes: Hey, Diddle Diddle
