There Was a Little Green House Lyrics
A riddle of houses inside houses, green, brown, yellow and white, with a little heart in the middle.
There Was a Little Green House
There was a little green house,
And in the little green house
There was a little brown house,
And in the little brown house
There was a little yellow house,
And in the little yellow house
There was a little white house,
And in the little white house
There was a little heart.
Printed from https://nurseryrhymes.co/there-was-a-little-green-house/
- Type
- Mother Goose
- Tune
- Spoken slowly, with a pause before the answer
- Best for ages
- 4 to 8 years
Hand Motions and Actions
| When you sing | Do this |
|---|---|
| There was a little green house | Cup one hand to make a small house. |
| There was a little heart | Make a tiny fist and hold it inside the cupped hand. |
What Does There Was a Little Green House Mean?
Each line puts a new house inside the one before: green, then brown, then yellow, then white, and at the very end a little heart. The answer given in the book is a walnut. A walnut grows in a green husk, inside is a hard brown shell, and in the middle is the kernel that people eat. The yellow and white houses stand for the thin skins around the kernel.
The words are a cumulative pattern, which means each line repeats the one before and adds one more. That makes it easy to guess how the next line will go.
History and Origin
The Little Mother Goose (1912) prints the riddle and gives its answer as a walnut.
Learning Activities
- Open a walnut: with an adult's help, crack a walnut in its shell and look at the layers you find.
- Guess first: say the rhyme to a friend and let them guess the answer before you tell them.
- Make a new riddle: think of another thing with layers, such as an onion, and write a riddle of houses.