Growing up, pretty much everyone has heard the Oh MacDonald had a Farm Song. As a matter of fact, you can find it being taught in preschool classes in most parts of the United States today. Yes, even in the modern times we live in, this song has benefits for young children.
Preschool Interaction
So what do preschool children take away from Old McDonald Had a Farm? Several things. First, they are introduced to the characters, and the sounds that they make. In the process of learning what goes on a farm, children get to have fun making the wacky noises to the animals. For example, one of the lyrics says that “Old McDonald had a pig, and an oink here and an oink, oink there”. This is also good for motor skills. Rhyming and rhythm helps preschoolers keep up to the beats. By doing a sing along, kids from 0-5 can explore new words, and how to pronounce them. This song makes for excellent speech therapy, for the little ones having issues grasping words. It can be used as a communication tool. By talking about the words, you can get kids to sing about it after, they say what animal should come next. Nursery rhymes like this also introduce exploration into what farms are about, and where our food source comes from.
Fostering Educational Experiences
Parents and teachers can implement educational experiences by actually taking children on a field trip to a real farm. Teaching the history of how we cultivated our food is an excellent way to get them to appreciate the technology we use today to feed ourselves. Learning how chickens are fed and taken care of is very important. Kids understanding that the eggs we eat for breakfast comes from a chicken, and that chicks are also hatched from these same eggs, gives them a concept about life. If the parents are vegan, then they have a responsibility to show their children that the animals on Old McDonald’s farm have a right to life. For those who eat meat, their children can learn that this is a food source that provides protein. Teachers can use this rhyme to teach children to read and spell. Because this is a fun song to enjoy, reciting the lyrics will be a blast. A teacher could stop and have the children spell out the names of all the characters in segments to help them prepare for the next grade. By writing the words themselves to the song, preschool students will get the benefit of being able to put words on paper to express themselves. Old McDonald will always be one of those nursery rhymes to help children learn.