"Little Boy Blue": A Read-Aloud-Rhyme

Click to see Vol. I, Issue 4 of the newsletter in which this article first appeared.

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Parents and teachers can read these rhymes aloud, and encourage little ones to repeat and even memorize them (I did when I was a kid!)

Little Boy Blue, come blow on your horn,
The sheep's in the meadow, the cow's in the corn.
Where is the boy who looks after the sheep?
He's under a haystack, fast asleep.
Will you wake him? Oh no, not I,
For if I do, he'll surely cry.

Little Boy Blue, come blow on your horn,
The sheep's in the meadow, the cow's in the corn.
Where is the boy who looks after the sheep?
He's under a haystack, fast asleep.

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Some words to talk about:

• fast: soundly; deeply
• haystack: a large pile of hay (straw to feed horses and cows)
• meadow: here it probably means a place where hay is grown for later use
• surely: certainly; for sure
• under: here it means "at the base of," not actually under

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ACTIVITIES

Kids growing up in rural places might be more familiar with the images and ideas in this rhyme. Have your kid: pretend to blow on a horn; act like a sheep or cow; "sleep" while you try to wake her or him (being "fast asleep"); and use a pile of clothes or other soft items for your kid to lie "under" (at the base of).

Discussion: Ask your kid if she or he knows what's wrong: What mistake did "Little Boy Blue" make? What happened because of that? In line 5 there's a change of speaker: someone seems to ask the first speaker a question, and the first speaker answers "no." Why does the speaker want to save the boy from crying?