Little Miss Donnet Lyrics
A girl wears a huge bonnet and a skirt hooped out as wide as the mouth of a river, all in four lines.
Little Miss Donnet
Little Miss Donnet
Wears a huge bonnet;
And hoops half as wide
As the mouth of the Clyde.
Printed from https://nurseryrhymes.co/little-miss-donnet/
- Type
- Mother Goose
- Tune
- Chanted with big, sweeping gestures
- Best for ages
- 3 to 7 years
Hand Motions and Actions
| When you sing | Do this |
|---|---|
| Wears a huge bonnet | Draw a big circle in the air around your head. |
| hoops half as wide | Spread your arms out wide on both sides. |
| the mouth of the Clyde | Open your mouth as wide as you can. |
What Does Little Miss Donnet Mean?
The rhyme pokes fun at a girl with a very big bonnet and a skirt held out by hoops, stiff rings that make a skirt stand out wide. To show how wide, the last line compares the skirt to the mouth of the Clyde, the place where that river opens out to the sea.
The joke is in the size of the comparison, and children can add their own exaggerations, such as a hat as tall as a house.
History and Origin
The rhyme is printed in The Little Mother Goose (1912), a nursery rhyme book illustrated by Jessie Willcox Smith. The Clyde in the last line is a river in Scotland.
Learning Activities
- Giant hat: make the biggest paper hat you can and wear it while saying the rhyme.
- Wide as a river: mark out a long strip with string and compare it with how far you can stretch your arms.
- Exaggerate: invent new lines that compare a bonnet or a coat to something huge.
- Find the Clyde: look at a map to see where the Clyde runs.