We love singing "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" to bring our music session to a close each week, it’s such a calming lullaby rhyme and children love the rhyming lyrics and joining in with the actions.

 

This popular Nursery Rhyme was actually a poem published by sisters Jane and Ann Taylor in 1806 in a collection of poems called “Rhymes for the Nursery”.

Although the collection of poems was published by both sisters, it is thought that Jane was the actual author of Twinkle Twinkle which was originally titled “The Star”.  Jane was an English poet and novelist who was born in London in 1783, she died at only 40 years of age and is buried at Ongar Church in Essex.

We usually sing the first stanza, but the full poem is definitely worth a read:

The Star

Twinkle, twinkle, little star,
How I wonder what you are!
Up above the world so high,
Like a diamond in the sky.

When the blazing sun is gone,
When he nothing shines upon,
Then you show your little light,
Twinkle, twinkle, all the night.

Then the trav’ller in the dark,
Thanks you for your tiny spark,
He could not see which way to go,
If you did not twinkle so.

In the dark blue sky you keep,
And often thro’ my curtains peep,
For you never shut your eye,
Till the sun is in the sky.

‘Tis your bright and tiny spark,
Lights the trav’ller in the dark,
Tho’ I know not what you are,
Twinkle, twinkle, little star.

The tune we sing the rhyme to is the French melody "Ah! vous dirai-je, maman" which was published even further back in 1761 and was very popular at the time (apparently played at garden parties!). Later it was arranged by several composers including a young Mozart! You’ll also recognise this melody in “Baa, Baa, Black Sheep” and the alphabet song (“A-B-C-D-E-F-G”).

Extra Fun Fact!

"Like a diamond in the sky"

I love that this poem introduces our little ones to probably their very first simile (a figure of speech that compares two things by using the words ‘like’ or ‘as’ something else), which will become an essential writing technique in their literacy work at school.