Today Veronika and I played around with the classic nursery rhyme of Jack and Jill, not just as rhythmic and musical play, but by also acting it out. This was great both for her gross motor skills and for developing imaginative play. You might even consider it her first theater performance!

First, I simply refreshed her memory about the rhyme, since it’s not one we sing that often:

Jack and Jill went up the hill,

To fetch a pail of water.

Jack fell down and broke his crown,

and Jill came tumbling after.

We also watched a cute cartoon version of the song, and then it was time to act out her first role! On the first two lines, I helped her climb up onto a step stool.

On the last two lines, she climbed down and then filled a bucket with “water” (actually scraps of blue fabric). Torn blue construction paper or blue tissue paper would also work as pretend water.

Well she absolutely loved this whole process. She wanted to climb up onto the stool over and over, and graduated to doing it without my hand for support.

Then it was time to work on climbing down “all by self”, too.

Plus the bucket and fabric scraps were great fun to play with, nursery rhyme or no.

She enjoyed the game so much that we’ll have to think of which nursery rhyme to use next for Veronika’s second “play”.