Nursery Rhyme - Little Miss Muffet - Some Resource Links


Some of the  for the slightly different things I found for Little Miss Muffet 

 

An alternative verse for a 1940s ad to 

encourage reading   source




the graphics fairy has vintage paper doll
with miss muffet costume



written in ASL here



science sparks show how to make curds



make learning fun has some directional art

(scissor practise)

 DLTK has some links including colouring, food and toilet paper craft

(tiny) tot school - Nursery Rhymes - The big ship sails

Luath is 16 months

Learning Basket 

This week's books were sea based rather than just boats. Luath's favourite was Jack and the Flum Flum tree.

We had some sea based soft toys.  I had made a mermaids tail for Luath when she was a few months old (a cousin had a mermaid party) so I adjusted it to go on her dress up doll.

We had a few sea based toy.  A soft Noah's ark.  A boat with blocks.  A whale shape sorter.

Activity File
We did a lot of singing of The Big Ship.

Luath already loves pointing out the boats that we see and shouting "bata" (Gaelic for boat).  This week I tried to add in some adjectives to go along with bata - big, small, blue.

We played with the shape sorter.  She still has some difficulty with the fine control and knowing where to put them, but she actually enjoys playing with it.

We did some dragging of her boat with bricks.

We used her bath, a sheet, some towels and toys to go for a sail.

We used a golf club to catch some fish puppets.

Craft and Art
We did some art work Matisse style.  Luath tried to use some scissors.  Had fun with some gluey cardboard and made a picture for daddy.



Music
We listened to some songs about boats.

I got out the keyboard and we watched and played along to Tchaikovsky's Piano concerto no.1 - I can't play much other than very simple pieces, so it was a copy the actions and just hit any notes.  Luath had fun pressing the keys and getting Minnie the mouse to walk on the keys. (photos to follow)

Toy Basket
Before we put away the Lego from last week I built Luath a boat, complete with  a figurehead and used milk bottle tops as the sea.

Luath played a lot with her golf clubs this week - this girl loves her golf.

She fell in love with a Minnie Mouse that she was given by a lovely lady in the supermarket (they had been from a promotion a while back).  She carried Minnie around a lot.

Other things this week
We went to the local primary school fete and Luath discovered the joy of scones with strawberry jam (we don't usually have jam on our scones)

Used a book to make up a fun game with a basket (helping mummy and Luath with their Gaelic)

 

We saw a buzzard, lay in the leaves to look at the trees and splashed in puddles.

Find out what others were up to this week at 1+1+1=1

This week's 7days7ways

 This week's 7days7ways to add a little more to our outdoor time:

Day 1 - keep daddy on his toes by repeatedly running for the loch

Day 2- We hide indoors today, some days it really is too wild to go out, even to our usually sheltered back door spot.  Daddy and the dog bravely got very wet and blown about.

Day 3- Leave early for bookbugs so have time to splash in puddles.


Day 4 -  Lie in the leaves and gaze up at the tree canopy


Day 5 - Spy a buzzard in the trees (not great photo!)


Day 6 - While waiting for the bus, have a wander over to the train station, check out the train, the automatic doors and the slopes

Day 7 - Get cold and blown about!  When is summer?

Background:

I read about famiglia&seoul's 365days outdoor challenge she set herself after reading Rebecca P. Cohen's Fifteen Minutes Outside: 365 Ways to Get Out of the House and Connect with Your Kids (you can get 50 ideas via Rebecca's blog if you sign up) and I also have read Greening Sam and Avery's everyday outdoor play resolution and I decided to do the same.  Simple things to get more out of our outdoor time (we already are out most days dog walking) and to try and be outdoors everyday (some days it is so wild daddy walks the dog, but we will try and go outside for a little while).

(Luath is16 months)

Book of the Week - Jack and the Flum Flum tree and this week's 5-a-day books

Book of the week

Jack and the Flum Flum tree

The front cover caught by eye among the library books.  It is a Julia Donaldson book from last year but I hadn't heard of it.  I didn't flick through it I just thought it is bound to be good.  We read it first while waiting in the car, Luath was a bit unsettled and it calmed her.  Like most Julia books it has a lovely rhyming cadence.  Jack's granny has the moozles and the only cure is the fruit of the flum flum tree on the Isle of Blowyernose.  He builds a boat, gets a crew and before he sets off granny gives him a patchwork sack with various items - balloons, spoons, hankies...  On their boat trip they have a few mishaps, each time Jack says "don't get your knickers in a twist, let's have a look in the patchwork sack"  We have read this often and enjoyed the David Robert's illustrations too.  Luath loves spotting the two cats featured at the start and the end.

5-a-day books
(I started doing this after reading this post from almost a year ago on the Imagination Tree blog about selecting five books to read everyday for a week and why it is important).

Tickly Octopus

Picture book with brightly coloured illustrations.It was a quick library grab to fit in with these week's theme.  An octopus who loves to tickle, but only the giggly fish really like to be tickled.  He tickles an oyster, who looses her pearl.  The octopus goes after the pearl to retrieve it.  Along the way he learns a few other things he is good at.  Luath liked when we added in some tickling either us tickling her, her tickling us or using her octopus to tickle.

Commotion in the ocean


A picture book of short fun poems about different sea creatures.  We have read one of his books before, daddy loved it Luath wasn't quite so keen.  Again Luath wasn't a big fan, I am very sure she will like it when she is a little older.

Kate Morag and the new pier

A picture story book, aimed at older children that Luath.  We are Katie Morag fans.  The stories are quite long for Luath but she will listen to them.  We enjoy pointing things out in the pictures.  A new pier is being built on Katie Morag's island.  It talks about the ups and downs of a new bigger pier.  A big storm comes through and the islanders need to help out the workmen from the mainland.
The Big Boat ride

A lift the flap picture book about Noah's ark.  Luath likes the flaps.

Art Matisse style

One thing we don't do much of is art/craft.  I have no issues with mess, enjoying the process not the outcome or ideas, it just doesn't seem to fit into the flow of our day/week at the moment.  We have done some craft and done some art related activities but I would like to aim to find a place in our week for some more.

Inspired by Red Ted Art's Kids Get Arty idea I thought it would be fun to look at an artist and then do a craft inspired by their work, thereby covering both parts in one go.  Luath is still very much a put everything in her mouth girl.  Just last week she was trying to eat a crayon (and I mean eat) so I still need to choose activities carefully. 

I had a think about what I liked when I was younger and remembered how I loved to do collages and cutouts to decorate my folders.  I then remembered how I had a few Matisse pictures on one of my folders and bingo, Matisse and his cut outs would be our first experience.

I selected three works to look at - The Snail.  La Gerbe  Polenesia, The Sky.  ( all above).  I printed them out onto 4x6 size so we could look at them together.  One afternoon during some reading time we looked and pointed at things in the pictures and I told Luath a little about Matisse, mainly that he liked doves and cats, she is in a phase of pointing out cats in every book we read. 

The next day for our inspired work I cut out some shapes similar to La Gerbe, but as I was doing this I realised it would be more fun to use Luath handprint cutouts and give it to daddy. Tracing round Luath's hand was a high speed not too successful job but I got a sort of handprint template.

Luath was anxious to help me cut out so I found some child safety scissors lurking in the craft box.  I showed her them opening and closing.  Let her help me cut  a piece of paper.  Luath being Miss Independent wanted to try herself.  She held the scissors at the paper

 but then discovered the fun of opening and closing them.

 

Later that day I covered a piece of paper with homemade glue (I made this a while ago) and then placed the handprints next to the sheet.  Luath was more interested in the cardboard I had used to spread the glue so she checked that out first.  I then told her she could put the hands on the paper.  She had a go, but it was still the gluey cardboard she was more impressed with. 


We finished the picture just as daddy got home to give it to him.

 

Spreading the activity over more than one day worked well for us.  Each part worked on its own and it kept Luath interested.  It also meant we could fit it all in without it feeling rushed.

When I was looking for Matisse images and some facts I discovered that his cutouts are quite a popular thing to do with kids, some links I found
art for small hands   has lesson plan working in the style of Matisse – cut outs
making art fun  has some links, including Matisse cookies
storyboardtoys has a lesson plan, again on cut outs, including some scissor skill worksheets
incredile art department has more lesson plans and links

Linked up with  Kids Get Arty. see what other Artsits have been explored

(Luath is 16 months)

Indoor Play - Simple (bilingual) game - What is in the basket?

This a simple game that I have taken from a story book that we borrowed from the library.  We are raising Luath with English and Scottish Gaelic.  Daddy is fluent in both, I am very much a Gaelic beginner.  I want to try and learn along with Luath and also as I am with Luath the most, I feel it is important that I use both languages.  This game helped both Luath and I.

The book is from a series initially in Welsh of simple stories for parents to read to young children.  It has pronunciation at the back to help.   This book is  "In the basket".  It starts with the teacher holding a basket and you learn that there is a teddy hiding there.   The teacher then sits with her class, she selects an object from her basket and asks what it is.  Banana, car and dog.  For each object she has an additional question.  What colour is the banana?  How many cars?   What noise does a dog make?   Each time the teddy says an answer, but is is wrong, so teacher corrects him.  Finally there is one thing left in the basket - teddy.

I gathered all the objects, placed them in a basket.  As I read the story I used the objects.  I put on a different voice for the teddy.  Once we had read the story a few times, we did the game without the book.

We then went on to use different objects in the basket. I didn't always add in the extra questions as Luath can't answer them, but it is fun to have the teddy answer them. Luath adds new words to her vocab every day, mostly English, so I tried to make this a Gaelic only word game.  If she said the English I  would say in Gaelic "yes, a dog".  (dog is a bit confusing as it is Cu, which sounds the same as coo, which is Scots for cow.  We read and use some Scots words too, she has books that have coos in them).

This game could be done with various ages and not necessarily as a second language game.

shared with Tuesday tots see what else tots have been doing

(Luath is 16 months)

Indoor play - milk bottle fun



My mum and I have been collecting milk bottle tops for a while as I thought they would be useful for different activities.  Luath is slowly coming out of her mouthing stage so I thought it was time to take them out and see what we could do with them.  Some of the things we did I wasn't expecting Luath to be able to do, I was just interested to see what she could do and what she understood.  We mainly have red, blue and green tops so I used these three colours for most activities. NB I didn't leave Luath alone with the bottle tops, they are large enough that it is highly unlikely she could swallow them but she did a couple of times hold them between her teeth.

Sorting

I placed the tops in a basket.  I then took three jars and showed Luath me putting one of a colour in a jar.  I then repeat the same thing again so each jar had two of a particular colour.  Luath copied my putting a top in a jar, sometimes she would do a few right and I would think she understood, but then she would just mix the colours up.

Selecting a twin

I placed three of each colour on a tray.  It took a little time until Luath let me place all nine tops down and not then pick them up.  I was in no rush so I just waited until I got them down.  I then picked up a top from the spare tops in the basket and asked Luath to find me one that was the same.  The first three times she selected the twin, but after that she just picked up anyone. 

Stacking

I tried stacking the tops, they don't stack well if they are all facing the same direction, but if you alternate direction, they stack great.  This was too difficult for Luath, I didn't ask her to try, but she enjoyed me stacking and her knocking the pile down.

          

Making patterns

I like the pattern blocks and cards that I have seen so I tried out making some shapes and objects with the tops.  I can see this being a good activity in the future.  It would be quite easy to make up some cards for Luath to copy.

Musical shaker

 Using the jars from the sorting game, we put some tops into the jar and then screwed the lid on.  They made some fun shakers.  They were also fun to roll.  The dog joined in with this, she thought they were a great new toy.

Just in case you think all this ran smoothly and textbook style here is Luath sitting on the tray (she is still putting tops into a jar).    

The main thing we did was have lots of fun.  We played with these over a few days and Luath liked to select the closed jars to initiate play. We did a lot of pouring them out of the jars and onto the floor.  Rolling them around.  Throwing them into the basket.  Throwing them into the air to watch them fall. I am looking forward to using these free tops again.  I told my mum that we will need to look out for different coloured tops for various milks and shops to add to our collection!

shared with Tuesday tots see what else tots have been doing

(Luath is 15 months)