Help your preschool students learn number awareness by using number disks to count up to 10. Let your students come up to the front and add disks to a box as they say the rhyme, "One, Two, Buckle My Shoe." Afterward, empty the box and count the disks to make sure they see they have 10 disks. For an abstract number activity, plot the numbers on a number line on the board. Draw arrows on each side of the line to show how numbers always continue. Start the line at zero and add lines to show how number proceed up the number line. Label parts of the rhyme under the appropriate numbers so your preschool students can see the numbers mentioned in the poem.
Write the words to the nursery rhyme, "One, Two, Buckle My Shoe," on a large chart. Let each child come up to the chart and use their finger to point to each word as the whole class recites the poem to reinforce word tracking for emergent readers. Ask your preschoolers to come up with more rhyming words for each two lines of the poem to expand your preschooler's concept of rhymes. Write the words "two, shoe" on the board to show your students that words do not have to look the same to sound the same. Continue writing down all rhyming words they know that match the rhymes in the poem.
Teach your preschoolers the song that accompanies the nursery rhyme, "One, Two, Buckle My Show." Use the appropriate motions to each rhyme to create interest in the song. Use the song to introduce the concept of rhythm to poetry and songs by clapping a steady rhythm to the song. Increase the speed of the song each time you sing it while keeping a steady beat. Contrast the fast beat of the song with a extremely slow rendition of the song while still clapping. Teach your students that songs have high pitches and low pitches by starting the song crouched down and rising up high when singing the high pitches.