Tag Archive | footprints

Nursery Rhymes Uncovered and Continued

Just in time for us to restart this program. The kids are bugging me constantly to pull out the nursery rhyme book. We really enjoyed our look into history last year and with the twins one year older I am hoping their enthusiasm to find out the weird but true will help keep me on my toes!!!  

 

So, as I promised HERE… the further adventures (and really mostly resources) of our foray into Nursery Rhymes. I try to pick rhymes that I remember and that may be at least a fun challenge to learn for half of the kids. As I am sure those who are on my Facebook or Instagram have noticed, not all of our rhymes have gone over well with the minions.

Hush a Bye Baby/Rock a Bye Baby is another of those. While looking into cradleboards was fun and interesting and the multiple origin theories fun to explore some of the kids were put out by the “meanness” of the original rhyme. Echo espeically disliked the idea that ANY babies were harmed in the making of the story. After all for the rhyme to have been written she believed at least one baby had to fall. So of course we included the “not scary” version in our copy work. You can read about that version HERE. I didn’t make them memorize this vsersion as it is not common, but it was fun to read through the sweetened up version and wonder if it was necessary to do so.

We made sure to do some research about Cradleboards as soon as it was made clear that that is what the poem is referring to. And am I ever glad we did, they are BEAUTIFUL! And then, at the science museum, we found an actual example of one. You can read all about them HERE.

There is always Wiki for a brief write up HERE, try Song Facts for more information about various uses of this rhyme HERE, and Mom.me for a dark origin HERE.

MotherGoose.com has a cute colouring page HERE. We did a craft for this rhyme with Education.com called Baby Footprints. As you can see from the additional picture… we really didn’t stop there!IMG_20170809_133712_200

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3 Blind Mice was our next nursery rhyme. It was sadly much delayed with noise from siding construction. We could not get our video recorded and everyone was out of sorts so rather large amounts of work did NOT get done. BUT I do have links to share…

KidZone had an Itsy Bisty Book to share HERE. DLTK has a fun number sheet related to our rhyme HERE. A cute shaped colouring picture HERE was used by the kids. Check out Reading With Kids for another colouring page HERE

For research purposes check out rhymes.org.uk HERE or All Nursery Rhymes HERE. For a good joke page with animal related jokes, and most of the way down one specifically about the 3 blind mice head to THIS Activity Village link. Education.com has a list of brief information for various rhymes including this one HERE.

Hot Cross Buns came next with a lovely printable of pennies and buns that I printed in colour and laminated from Play at Home Teacher HERE. DLTK has a printable recipe HERE. Sadly we did not have time to bake buns but we saved the recipe for the holiday season to add to our cooking experience.

There is definitely religious significance to the rhyme in the subject matter, so if you are researching be aware. But the actual origins of the rhyme are as a selling tool. End of story. So not the most exciting. Though the kids loved singing it with the extended verse about having a daughter or son. You can read about it all on Powerfulwords.info HERE, Rhymes.org.uk HERE, Smithsonianmag.com HERE.

Kiddyhouse.com has both verses HERE.

Now as an additional bit of info Zander took some time and researched Mother Goose herself. Not an easy woman to pin down. But you can do your own reading with our resources. Bluebonkers.com HERE.

Back to the rhymes and Ring Around The Rosies (which does not have the origin story most people think it does). Echo really enjoyed learning the dance.

I will say straight off, I too thought it was about the plague. Wiki has a good run down HERE. Library of Congress has a helpful site HERE, Dictionary.com has information HERE. Dover Publications has a great colouring page with the lines of the rhyme in a traditional style HERE. And that is where we ended our series. Check back in the next months to see how we get on with our reboot!!

So Much to Share

October 22-24

We are onto our next big countdown – HALLOWEEN! Where has the year gone??? First Halloween, then Thanksgiving (American) and then CHRISTMAS! I am so not ready! We started our day with a gift… Gammie has already started sending the Christmas presents to hide until THE DAY and included in the boxes have been a few extras… I think we opened a couple the week before. But this one was a request item… a tiny ring-tailed lemur. Only our VERY FAVOURITE of all the animals really. This one was a dog toy so Echo is totally enamoured with it… it SQUEAKS!101_4865

101_4866With our regular morning routine accomplished Nana, myself and the girls had a special errand to accomplish. The weather has of course changed over to fall and sandals are out. Both girls have grown and honestly Echo has never had a true pair of sneakers… so off we were to find some! Kohl’s had a 30% off coupon and Nana was on a mission. Two stores later and a worn out Echo and we were MORE than successful. Not only did we find adorable LIGHT UP shoes for each but we ALSO found coats for the cousins AND long sleeved MINECRAFT themed shirts for the boys! Add to that lunch at McDonald’s and our girly time was a total success!!! Thank you Nana!!! (Oh, did I mention… matching adorable 3 piece girly outfits for the ladies themselves!)

With milk

With milk

Matching!

Matching!

101_4871Gavin actually requested a special mini project for himself – pictures, video and (my input) a short story about ring-tailed lemurs. We watched a National Geographic video.


And Globalzoo’s video simply titled The Ring-Tailed Lemur.

Our colouring page could be found on HonkingDonkey (what a name!!) HERE. I love it when they take initiative and WANT to do something a little unique and interesting to them personally.101_4870

We hit midweek with not too much drama. Special movie time though – Monsters Vs. Aliens.101_4872

And a science project with Daddy dealing with oil and water and why polar bears are not cold! Again spot the secondary parental teacher!!!

Well sort of out of screen

Well sort of out of screen

101_4875There was even time for some play time, chaotic and totally us!101_4876

BUT even more important… KEN TURNED 36!!! Since I am on a total spending freeze there was no present buying… so the kids and I wrote stories, drew pictures and yours truly wrote a letter for him which we made into a book. I do love handmade creations and the words in that book came from all of us to him with love.

Happy Birthday Ken!

Happy Birthday Ken!

After celebrating a very special birthday it was time to move onto a big completion… our Egypt unit made its way (finally) onto the poster. We worked together and did our very best to showcase our Ancient Egypt fun! Of course I have a reference blog entry that you can check out HERE.

We ended our day with making white paint footprints we will later make into ghostly images.101_4882

I am well pleased with our progress in almost everything! We have our ups and downs but if I can look  back and recount these positive moments I KNOW we are doing it right!!!!101_4878