Nursery Rhyme Raps!

March 7, 2007 | Students will brainstorm a social skill or other

 issue they want to address, infuse the events of a typical 

nursery story with their issue and retell their nursery story  

using new words and lyrical rap.

Grade Level:  3-6

By Jeff Sapp | Curriculum Specialist/Writer, 

Teachingtolerance.org

OBJECTIVES:

• • Students will brainstorm social skill or other issues that they want to address
• • Students will infuse the events of a typical nursery story with their issue
• • Students will retell their nursery story using new words and lyrical rap
• • Students can perform their nursery rhyme rap

TIME AND MATERIALS:

• • One or two class periods
• • A copy of Yo, Hungry Wolf! or any other nursery rhyme rap
• • Other common nursery rhymes

PERSPECTIVE:

Teachers can help even the youngest of children fall in love with rap music by using David Vozar’s Yo, Hungry Wolf!  A Nursery Rap (Bantam Doubleday Dell Books for Young Readers, $24.95.)  This book is a retelling of three wonderful childhood tales:  Little Red Riding Hood, The Three Little Pigs, and The Boy Who Cried Wolf.  Expressed in a wonderfully fun and fast rap style, Yo, Hungry Wolf! tells the story of a hapless wolf who tries desperately to find something to eat.  In the course of the story, the wolf meets a Red Riding Hood “with attitude,” three little pigs with guts and a boy whose misguided attempts to draw customers into his bakery backfire.  Students will love this fun rap version of a favorite old tale.  And then they’ll have a model to write and perform their own rap versions of other favorite stories in their classroom.

STEP ONE:

Why not begin with the reading of a traditional version of The Three Little Pigs?  After reading that version, then introduce students to Yo, Hungry Wolf!  As you read the rap version, be as playful as possible and perform the rap for the students.  Dance and play because this is your time to have fun!

STEP TWO:

Tell students that they are going to write their own rap versions of traditional tales or stories that they are already familiar with from previous classroom readings.  Any stories whatsoever will do, but the shorter ones work best.  Do a think-aloud with students first by taking a common story and sequencing it out.  Have fun and play with rhyme.

Mary had a little lamb, little lamb, little lamb

Its fleece was white as snow

And everywhere that Mary went

The lamb was sure to go

Then, thinking aloud, go about how you might turn this simple rhyme into a rap version.  For example:

Zee was a pumped up kid,

With locks spiky and gold

And everywhere that shorty went

He had to be fresh, ya’ know!

Mad kids hated on Zee

Clowned him around the school,

He got dissed and totally played

Bullying’s just not cool!

In small groups, have students take a nursery rhyme or tale and sequence out the events of the story like you just modeled with the original version of Mary had a Little Lamb.  Then have students begin to retell the story in lyrical rap.  Circulate and help them brainstorm words that rhyme.

STEP THREE:

Time to perform!