After reading or reciting this nursery rhyme to your children, use a stencil to cut mittens from construction paper. Give each child one pair of paper mittens. Use markers, crayons and other craft materials to make designs on the mittens. Be sure each mitten pair is decorated exactly the same. Use the paper mittens to play a matching game with your children.
After reading this nursery rhyme with your children, have them take turns being Jack by pretending to jump over a candlestick. Once all children have had a chance to jump over the candlestick, make the activity slightly more challenging. Place two pieces of tape on the floor about three inches apart. Have the children pretend this is the length of the candlestick. Tell them they must jump over it. Increase the space between the pieces of tape after each child has had a chance to jump.
Recite and read this nursery rhyme with your children and explain that four-and-twenty blackbirds means that there were 24 blackbirds baked into the pie. Cut a very large pie shape from a piece of butcher paper. Trim an old sponge into a rough bird shape. Use the sponges and black paint to print 24 blackbirds on your pie-shaped paper. Be sure the children help count the 24 blackbirds. Stop often to count and discuss how many more blackbirds are needed to make 24.
Read or recite this nursery rhyme with your children. Discuss other nursery rhymes, and note the rhyming words in each poem. Cut several oval shapes from white construction paper to represent eggs. Cut each egg in half, creating two-piece puzzles. Be sure to cut each egg in a unique way in order to create self-correcting puzzles. On each egg, write different rhyming words on either half. For example, write "wall" and "fall" on either half of one puzzle egg, "cat" and "hat" on another and "kitten" and "mitten" on a third. Allow your children to explore the puzzles on their own, matching the rhyming pairs.