Nursery rhyme

A nursery rhyme is a traditional poem or song for young children in Britain and many other countries, but usage only dates from the late 18th /early 19th century. In North America the term Mother Goose Rhymes, introduced in the mid-18th century, is still often used.

History

Lullabies

The oldest children's songs of which we have records are lullabies, intended to help a child sleep. Lullabies can be found in every human culture. The English term lullaby is thought to come from "lu, lu" or "la la" sound made by mothers or nurses to calm children, and "by by" or "bye bye", either another lulling sound, or a term for good night. Until the modern era lullabies were usually only recorded incidentally in written sources. The Roman nurses' lullaby, "Lalla, Lalla, Lalla, aut dormi, aut lacta", is recorded in a scholium on Persius and may be the oldest to survive.

Many medieval English verses associated with the birth of Jesus take the form of a lullaby, including "Lullay, my liking, my dere son, my sweting" and may be versions of contemporary lullabies. However, most of those used today date from the 17th century. For example, a well known lullaby such as "Rock-a-bye, baby on a tree top", cannot be found in records until the late-18th century when it was printed by John Newbery (c. 1765).

Wind the Bobbin Up

"Wind The Bobbin Up" is an English language children's nursery rhyme and singing game.

Lyrics

Among modern lyrics is:

Origins

Iona and Peter Opie traced this rhyme back to Yorkshire in the 1890s. When they were collecting games in the 1960s and 70s the version they encountered was:

The game

In the 1970s the game involved two players winding fists around each other. At "Pull, Pull" they pushed their fists away from each other and when "Tug, Tug" was reached they pulled their elbows back. It has now become a much more sedate action game, often with small children carrying out the actions in the lyrics.

Notes

Wind

Wind is the flow of gases on a large scale. On the surface of the Earth, wind consists of the bulk movement of air. In outer space, solar wind is the movement of gases or charged particles from the Sun through space, while planetary wind is the outgassing of light chemical elements from a planet's atmosphere into space. Winds are commonly classified by their spatial scale, their speed, the types of forces that cause them, the regions in which they occur, and their effect. The strongest observed winds on a planet in the Solar System occur on Neptune and Saturn. Winds have various aspects, an important one being its velocity; another the density of the gas involved; another is the energy content or wind energy of a wind.

In meteorology, winds are often referred to according to their strength, and the direction from which the wind is blowing. Short bursts of high speed wind are termed gusts. Strong winds of intermediate duration (around one minute) are termed squalls. Long-duration winds have various names associated with their average strength, such as breeze, gale, storm, and hurricane. Wind occurs on a range of scales, from thunderstorm flows lasting tens of minutes, to local breezes generated by heating of land surfaces and lasting a few hours, to global winds resulting from the difference in absorption of solar energy between the climate zones on Earth. The two main causes of large-scale atmospheric circulation are the differential heating between the equator and the poles, and the rotation of the planet (Coriolis effect). Within the tropics, thermal low circulations over terrain and high plateaus can drive monsoon circulations. In coastal areas the sea breeze/land breeze cycle can define local winds; in areas that have variable terrain, mountain and valley breezes can dominate local winds.

Baby Songs

Baby Songs is one of the first, and longest-running, American, independent children's home video series. Since 1985, more than 4 million copies of Baby Songs have been sold.

History

In 1985, Amy Weintraub and Brooks McEwan founded the company Backyard Productions, now Backyard Enterprises, Inc., to release Baby Songs. Inspired by the music videos on MTV, Weintraub and McEwan created the first collection of music videos for babies and toddlers.

They partnered with American children's musician Hap Palmer, a recording artist since 1969, to create Baby Songs. The videos starring Hap Palmer feature the singer performing either his original songs or adaptations of folk, nursery rhymes and popular songs to live children. The songs are separated by short animated video segments. Baby Songs also released videos without Hap Palmer, or starring other singers, such as John Lithgow's Kid Size Concert.

The company has released 12 titles on VHS and DVD, and four audio compilations.

Video Titles

Nursery

Nursery may refer to:

Childcare

Places

Music

Science

Other uses

See also