Mary had a little lamb,
Its fleece was white as
And everywhere that Mary went,
The lamb was sure to .
He followed her to school one day,
That was against the .
It made the children laugh and play
To see a lamb at .
And so the teacher turned him out,
But still he lingered ,
And waited patiently about
Till Mary did
And then he ran to her, and laid
His head upon her ,
As if he said 'I'm not afraid,
You'll keep me from all .'
'What makes the lamb love Mary so?'
The eager children .
'Oh, Mary loves the lamb, you know,'
The teacher did .
'And you each gentle animal
In confidence may ,
And make them follow at your call,
If you are always .'
Nursery rhymes have been around for hundreds of years; parents would tell them to their children and they would pass them onto theirs. When children's books first became popular people started to write them down.
One of the most famous was called "Tales of My Mother Goose" where the author pretended that this goose was real and had written the rhymes so sometimes they are still called Mother Goose rhymes instead.
These rhymes are often very silly but they are actually good at teaching kids some important lessons. They are written in a very simple language but often have lots of rhyming words, a catchy rhythm and lots of repetition.
Many rhymes are designed to teach the alphabet, counting, animals, colours and shapes and they are often about things that happened in their culture and history.
"Mary Had a Little Lamb" is actually based on a true story. It was called "Mary's Lamb" when it was first published in 1830 by Sarah Hale. She was a teacher at a small school in America and Mary was one of her students who did actually bring a lamb to school. Like the lamb in the rhyme, it was put outside where it waited for her.
Sarah actually wrote the last verse first as a lesson for the kids to be kind to animals and then added the rest later. Like many other longer nursery rhymes only the first verse is usually remembered and used now.
This quiz was reviewed by FunTrivia editor looney_tunes before going online.
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