Buy, or borrow from the library, a CD that contains the nursery rhyme, "The Farmer in the Dell," set to music. Play and sing it with preschoolers until the kids are familiar with the rhyme. Instead of sitting to sing it, teach the children a movement activity to go along with the song. Choose a child to be the farmer. When the song calls for him to take a wife, he chooses a classmate to hold hands and join him, walking in a slow circle and singing to the music. The wife chooses a classmate to be the nurse and the nurse chooses someone to be the child. Those in the line continue holding hands and walking in a circle as each child chooses the next character in the rhyme. At the end, when the cheese is chosen, all the other characters sit down and the cheese stands alone.
Plan an art activity about the rhyme. Cut simple people and animal shapes from construction paper to match the characters described in "The Farmer in the Dell." Give preschoolers crayons and markers to color features on the shapes. Let the children glue the shapes to red construction paper in the order the characters appear in the nursery rhyme.
Encourage language development by asking preschoolers to describe to classmates one of the characters in "Farmer in the Dell," without saying the name of the character. When a child correctly guesses the character his classmate is describing, it becomes her turn to describe a character.
Give preschoolers a chance to pretend with props, inspired by the nursery rhyme. Choose an area of the classroom to place a "Farmer in the Dell" basket for a dramatic play activity. Fill a basket with dress-up clothing that a farmer, his wife and child might wear. Include items like a nurse's cap and a white apron, to outfit a child as the nurse. Place stuffed animals, a cow, dog and cat, in the basket. Toss in a plastic mouse and a toy hunk of cheese. Designate a time in class when four preschoolers at a time may explore the contents of the basket and use the items to act out the rhyme.