Bread and Milk for Breakfast Lyrics
Four lines about what makes a cold day bearable: bread and milk for breakfast, woollen frocks to wear, and a crumb for the robin redbreast. It is one of the shortest poems in Rossetti's Sing-Song and quick to learn by heart.
Bread and Milk for Breakfast
Bread and milk for breakfast,
And woollen frocks to wear,
And a crumb for robin redbreast
On the cold days of the year.
Printed from https://nurseryrhymes.co/bread-and-milk-for-breakfast/
- Type
- Poems for Children
- Written by
- Christina Rossetti
- Tune
- Said in an even, cosy voice, with a small lift on 'robin redbreast'
- Best for ages
- 2 to 6 years
What Does Bread and Milk for Breakfast Mean?
The poem is only four lines, and each of the first three lines names one thing for a cold day. Bread and milk is a plain breakfast of bread in milk, usually warm. Woollen frocks are dresses or tunics made of wool, which keep the wearer warm. The third thing is a gift to a bird: a crumb for robin redbreast. The last line says when all three are needed, "on the cold days of the year".
The poem names things that are kind and ordinary. Two of them are for the child (breakfast and clothes) and one is for someone else, the robin, who has no breakfast ready unless someone drops a crumb. The sharing makes the point: even on a cold morning, someone smaller can be thought of.
It makes a good first poem to memorise. Every line is a different picture, and the third line, with the robin, is the one children remember.
History and Origin
Rossetti wrote many four-line poems in Sing-Song, and some are no more than a single thought. This one is a small list set to a rhyme: wear and year close the second and fourth lines.
Rossetti was an English poet who died in 1894, and her nursery verses are still printed and read aloud today. The poem's robin is the same small brown-and-red bird familiar in British gardens in winter.
Learning Activities
- Crumb for the robin: put out a few crumbs of plain bread on a windowsill or bird table on a cold day and watch who comes. Use only plain, unsalted bread.
- Warm things list: ask each child to name one thing that keeps them warm, and add it as a new line.
- Wool and cotton: feel a woollen sock and a thin cotton cloth, and say which would be better for 'the cold days of the year'.
- Say it again: read it three times, each time a little faster, and clap on the rhyming words.