Humpty Dumpty is a classic Mother Goose Nursery Rhyme. Watch our version of the Humpty Dumpty ASL song as we have combined American Sign Language with this kid’s song.
Our goal is always to empower parents, teachers, and early childhood professionals and caregivers with great interactive songs for children of all ages. You can follow this link and our instructor will take you clearly through all the American Sign Language, ASL, signs before you sing and sign the rhyme.
Signing ASL signs is not only a wonderful way to learn and remember language but they are fun and often look like what they are. For example, in this song Humpty Dumpty the word SAT is iconic or it is a sign that looks like the word. You can use at as a command for sit or sit down and it is a great silent behavior control once your children gain this sign’s meaning. Here is the sign for SAT:
Make the letter U with both hands, hook the fingers of your right hand and place them on top of the fingers of your left hand at chest level.
Find more rhymes and ASL songs in our Music Book called Play Along Songs – Children’s Songs to Sign Volume 3.
Remember that you can always sign as few or as many words as you want to or are comfortable in signing. Pick the ones you want and grow from there – adding additional signs as you become proficient. The goal is fun and playful music activities that foster early learning and in this case exposure to a great Mother Goose Nursery Rhyme.
I still perform over 100 music and storytelling programs every year and have for over 20 years and it never ceases to amaze me how often preschool children do not know more nursery rhymes other than Mary Had a Little Lamb or Twinkle, Twinkle Little star or The Itsy Bitsy Spider.
Nursery rhymes are a foundational early educational tool for rhyming and reading readiness that are fun and easy to learn. Many of them even have long histories and historical context.
For example, Humpty Dumpty may have come from a story about a cannon named Humpty Dumpty, that was up on a wall and used in a war. When the wall fell down the cannon came down and broke into lots of pieces.
Learn more on the origins of Humpty Dumpty at:
http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2013/04/the-origin-of-humpty-dumpty/
Mother Goose Nursery Rhymes have been a strong part of early learning for generations because they are simple, easy to learn, easy to sing, easy to memorize and repeat, and are often silly. Some adults may think that repeating these rhymes over and over is boring, but children love the familiarity of these rhymes and love to repeatedly engage in them.
This repetition of Mother Goose Nursery Rhymes like Humpty Dumpty allows your children to become familiar with rhyming, learn lots of words and how to say them, and learn lots of phonemes or the sound that make up words. All will help their reading readiness.
Read about additional benefits kids receive from nursery rhymes. http://activebabiessmartkids.com.au/articles/six-benefits-nursery-rhymes/
When I’m performing Humpty Dumpty I expect that most of the children will know the words:
Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall
All the King’s horses and all the King’s men
Couldn’t put Humpty Dumpty together again.
This benefits me because when I present the rhyme I make mistakes that will lead the kids to correcting me on the nursery rhyme. For example:
I’ll say: Kids response: My Reply:
Humpty Dumpty sat on a fence No! on a wall That’s right on a wall
Humpty Dumpty grew very tall He had a great fall He had a great fall – That’s right
All the King’s cows and all the King’s duck’s horses and men not cows and ducks?
Couldn’t put Humpty Dumpty together again.
By doing this a few things happen:
- It really engages all the children as they look for and correct my mistake
- Adds to the playfulness of the activity
- Reinforces their knowledge of the rhyme
We added ASL to Humpty Dumpty because by doing so we now can have kids recite the nursey rhyme, sing the nursery rhyme song, and add body movements to the nursery rhyme song with American Sign Language.
Learn more about the benefits of using ASL with kids.