Toys Week 7

What a lovely time we had in class today! After building our imaginary boats we set sail in a big blue boat and thought about all the different things we could do on board. Making up new verses to songs is a wonderful way to stimulate the children's imagination and there was much hilarity in the process. The funniest thing was when I jumbled the words accidently and instead of singing "big blue boat" out came "blig boo boat". Children of this age love the silliness in word play and this play encourages and strengthens their vocal and literacy development in many ways. Not only that, but I noticed that soon everyone was singing trying to copy the silly words. Singing and giggling, what a perfect way to spend an afternoon.

Our voyage took us to a little island where we found a place to camp and watch the stars. I wanted to record the singing and after we had all sang Twinkle Twinkle together some of the children wanted to sing solos. It always amazes me that so many of them are happy to sing out on their own. They all have such delicious little voices and I hope to have captured them on my less than adequate recording equipment.

So this week at home!!! If you look at the relevant pages in your book you will see that the task is to make some binoculars. In class we sing "Out here on the sea" and then sing about the things we see in the sea. There are many ideas and all of them are welcome. The children seem to think the idea of an elephant or crocodile in the sea as perfectly normal and who am I to dissuade their wonderful imaginations. Why not see where the binoculars take your imagination at home this week.

Also for next week - please being a torch with you to class. We are going to do a very special torchlight dance.

Thanks to everyone for sharing today.