Not only are Mother Goose rhymes a part of our western cultural heritage, but Mother Goose has her own special holiday. May 1 is Mother Goose Day! Of course, these classic rhymes can be celebrated any day of the year!
How well do you know your nursery rhymes? Can you distinguish Old King Cole from Old Mother Hubbard? Does Little Boy Blue get confused with Little Jack Horner in your memory? Take an online quiz and see how familiar you are with these timeless poems!
Then keep reading for more Mother Goose fun.
Hey diddle, diddle, The cat and the fiddle, The cow jumped over the moon;
The little dog laughed To see such sport, And the dish ran away with the spoon
(Mother Goose Day is May 1, 2010)
Your Mother Goose Book

What did your childhood Mother Goose volume look like? Was it a traditional one or a more modern one? For a bit of nostalgia, look through the books below and find your childhood version.
Mother Goose rhymes have been published in multiple formats over the years. They first appeared in England in 1780 in America in 1786. By nineteenth century America, Mother Goose had become a symbol of both children's literature and of childhood in general. Even today, nursery rhyme games are the staple of baby showers and Mother Goose rhyme art is still used to decorate a new baby's nursery.
Over time, the various images of Mother Goose and her nursery rhyme characters were used in advertising campaigns, such as the Jack and Jill Peppers seen here.
Eclipse offers a fascinating series of images of Mother Goose through the years. She is sometimes portrayed as a woman with a goose and other times as a goose herself.
A cultured, educated person generally is thought to be familiar with the canon of western literature -- including the Bible, Shakespeare, Greek myths, and Mother Goose rhymes! For example, A Treasury of Mother Goose is recommended by E. D. Hirsch's Core Knowledge Preschool Curriculum. The Poetry Foundation features Mother Goose on 3 lists of its Essential Children's Collection -- Anthologies, Contemporary, and Out of Print.
Make sure your children can recite some Mother Goose rhymes. They will love the silly images and musical language.
Mother Goose Titles
Your Favorite Mother Goose Rhyme
Georgie Porgie, pudding and pie, Kissed the girls and made them cry;
When the boys came out to play, Georgie Porgie ran away.

We all have a favorite one. Which is yours?
Mother Goose Books
Mother Goose Pictures
from Flickr
These images are from the delightful Flickr pool Mother Goose Illustration.
Mother Goose Online
Because Mother Goose has been around for so long, many editions of the rhymes have passed into the public domain. These links are some of the most beautiful digital versions.
- Mother Goose Gems
- Beautiful color scanned images from Mother Goose Gems published by McLoughlin Bros. in 1904. Pages with text have accompanying MP3 files that read it aloud to you!
- Mother Goose Melodies
- by Willis P. Hazard. Full color scanned pages from yet another version of the classic rhymes.
- The True Mother Goose
- Scanned black and white images from the book The True Mother Goose - Songs for the Nursery. Notes and Pictures by Blanche McManus. Published by Lamson, Wolffe and Co., Boston. 1895.
- Mother Goose
- Illustrated by Kate Greenway. The work is no longer under copyright and therefore is in the public domain.
- Denver Public Library Podcast
- MP3 files of many Mother Goose rhymes for free download!
Why Read Nursery Rhymes?

Omitting nursery rhymes from your child's library not only leaves a gap in the cultural literacy foundation, but also robs them of some delightfully frivolous fun.
Most parents want their children to achieve in every way possible. But they may also wrongly expect everything the child does, sees, and hears to have an academic purpose. Even if they do see the value of rhymes for learning the patterns of language, Mother Goose may seem to them simply outdated poems that can be effectively replaced with Dr. Seuss, Jack Prelutsky, or Shel Sliverstein.
The Uses of Enchantment by Bruno Bettelheim is an academic explanation of the psychological value of fairy tales and nursery rhymes for a child's development. Bettelheim holds that these childhood stories have great value in teaching children that "a struggle against severe difficulties in life is unavoidable, is an intrinisc part of human existance--but that if one does not shy away, but steadfastly meets unexpected and often unjust hardships, one masters all obstacles and at the end emerges victorious."
Others have tried to dissect the historical backgrounds and hidden meanings of the nursery rhymes in an effort to give them a "value."
But the reality is that although Mother Goose has value as poetry and may give children a structure by which to playact their deepest fears, and may also have interesting historical connections, many of them are simply nonsense. But children need time to play, laugh, and speak the nonsense of these rhymes. If childhood is totally devoid of nonsense, where is the wonder and joy of those years? The magic of the rhymes is their simple ability to please the child who hears and recites them. And to please a child is really reason enough to read Mother Goose rhymes.
Mother Goose Board Books
for toddlers and babies
Early education professionals all recommend reading or singing nursery rhymes to your children. These board books are a great place to start.
Mother Goose Tools

- Searchable Mother Goose
- Can't remember the exact rhyme? Look it up in this searchable database of Mother Goose rhymes.
- Mother Goose E Card
- Send a Mother Goose themed e-card to someone you love!
- Mother Goose Day E-card
- This card wishes your friend a happy Mother Goose Day (May 1).
- Nursery Rhyme Index
- This list categorizes the rhymes into groups such as rhymes that deal with time or rhymes that mention a color. These lists are great for choosing rhymes for a unit study or a single lesson.
Mother Goose Themed Gifts
Mother Goose Audio
free and retail
You can listen to Mother Goose while riding in the car or while playing quietly.
Want some free audio?
Visit Librivox's MP3 The Real Mother Goose files.
Or try Children's Records for free MP3 files of Mother Goose Songs with Alec Templeton.
Nursery Rhyme Costumes
Making Your Own Mother Goose Costumes
You can inexpensively create your own costumes of Mother Goose or other characters from the nursery rhymes. You might want to dress up for a Mother Goose Day celebration or just for fun!
Try these links for suggestions.
- Mother Goose Costume
- Suggestions for creating your own Mother Goose costume. Also ideas for dressing as some of the boy and girl characters in the rhymes.
- Prop Box
- More ideas for a Mother Goose costume.
- Humpty Dumpty Costume
- No pictures unfortunately, but this site does offer some detailed directions for dressing up as a huge egg. There are even suggestions for making the wall to sit on.
Mother Goose on the Web

- Mother Goose Society
- The Official website. You can find Mother Goose performers in your area through this website.
- Karen Whimsey's Mother Goose Clip Art
- Royalty free images in the public domain of Mother Goose Rhymes. Many of them are decorating this very page.
- Celebrating Mother Goose Day
- Several ideas for how to celebrate this holiday on May 1 or any day!
- Annual Mother Goose Parade
- The official homepage of the Mother Goose Parade in San Diego County, CA.
- Kids Craft Weekly - Nursery rhymes
- Directions and pictures for a Humpty Dumpty craft and for a Little Miss Muffet craft.
Also an idea for playing along with the Pat-a-cake rhyme.
Mother Goose for Learning

- Nursery Rhymes Notebooking Pages
- This is an online download, not free, but very inexpensive, created by a homeschooling mother of many children.
- On Reading Nursery Rhymes With Children
- Nursery Rhymes are not just for preschoolers. This article gives suggestions for how to use them with children of all ages.
- Growing Readers and Writers with Help from Mother Goose
- This is a more scholarly article along the same lines -- how older children can also benefit from studying Mother Goose rhymes.
- Rimes and Rhymes
- A whole curriculum plan for teaching phonics skills to children through a new nursery rhyme each week. Includes PDF printables! A great resource!
- Mother Goose
- Teaching ideas for many Mother Goose rhymes -- coloring sheets, mazes, crafts, activities, recipes, and more.
- Little Books -- free prinables
- This is a fun resource with printable minibooks! Mother Goose rhymes include Hey Diddle Diddle, Little Miss Muffet, and One Two Buckle my Shoe.
- Mother Goose Nursery Rhyme Theme
- A few nice teaching ideas for preschool-2nd grade. This site includes lovely images from an old book which you can print out to make your own Mother Goose rhyme booklet.
- Nursery Rhymes Preschool Activities
- Activities and crafts for preschool and kindergarten for many of the most popular rhymes-- Baa Baa Black Sheep, Peter Peter Pumpkin Eater, Jack and Jill, etc.
- Family Math and Literacy Night
- Plans and printables for creating a family math and literacy night for a school. This could be adapted for a homeschool coop group as well!
- Mother Goose Numbers on the Loose
- Harcourt Publishers offers some freebies to accompany the picture book by Leo and Diane Dillonmain.
Mother Goose Free Coloring Pages

- Mother Goose Coloring Book
- This is a PDF coloring book with beautiful images and the rhymes below!
- Kiz Club Nursery Rhymes
- These PDFs are fantastic resources for creating puppets, paperdolls, or just coloring sheets for many of the most popular nursery rhymes. Each rhyme has several pages of images to accompany the text.
- Nursery Rhyme Coloring Pages
- Humpty Dumpty, Jack be Nimble, Rock a Bye Baby, and more!
- DLTK's Nursery Rhyme Page
- Baa Baa Black Sheep, Hey Diddle Diddle, Little Miss Muffet, and more.
- Mary Engelbreit's Coloring Pages
- Select from the Full Illustration Archive dropdown menu one of these adorable black and white line drawings in PDF format: Mother Goose Baker Man, Hey Diddle Diddle, Little Miss Muffet, and Old Woman in a Shoe.
- Friends Across America
- Look for the POEMS/NURSERY RHYMES coloring pages. Pages include: Hey, Diddle, Diddle!, Humpty Dumpty, Jack and Jill, Mary Had a Little Lamb, Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary, Rub-A-Dub-Dub, The Old Woman Who Lived In A Shoe.
- Nursery Rhymes from Story It
- Storybook nursery rhymes to print and color.
- Mother Goose Storyboard Printables
- A nice assortment of Mother Goose black and white images for making your own storyboards, puppets, or coloring pages.
Enjoyed This Lens?
Your Comments
Feel free to sign the guestbook.
Share your favorite Mother Goose rhyme if you like!
Margo_Arrowsmith wrote...
What a wonderful lens! ***** Yes, these are a base for our culture. Thanks! This is going to be lensrolled to my parenting lenses!
LizzyJean wrote...
Mother Goose rhymes are classics. I loved them as a child, my children loved them, and I look forward to sharing them with grandchildren one day.
Great lens
LizzyJean
amandaquerque wrote...
Excellent and fun lens! I am proud to add it to the BIG LENSES group!
Evelyn_Saenz wrote...
Great lens on Mother Goose. Lensrolled to Beginning Readers.
Victoria_Neely wrote...
I remember being skeptical of nursery rhymes when I was little. "Why does the itsy bitsy spider keep going up the water spout? Dumb spider." But I liked them anyway. ;)
gods_grace_notes wrote...
Hi Jimmie! I love Mother Goose too...how awesome to have all of these great resources in one terrific lens! Thanks so much for all your effort, and for being an active member at Lori
DogWhisperWoman wrote...
5* for you! I LOVE mother goose! Dog Whisper Woman
LilliputStation wrote...
Hey, Jimmie! I read this entire lens before looking to see who wrote it. I should have known! Great lens! We're going to have fun exploring some of these links. Melissa
by Jimmie
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