Nursery Rhyme Play - Guest Blog By Amy Phillips

Nursery Rhyme Play - Guest Blog By Amy Phillips

For a while now I’ve been trying to figure out a way to bring Ellie’s love of nursery rhymes in to her play. She sings all day long and knows so many nursery rhymes, more than I know and verses I’ve never even heard of. I’ve always been envious of those parents who have the time to pre-plan activities for their babies and toddlers because it’s something I’ve always wanted to do with Ellie. Being a teaching assistant and working in a school based nursery during my pregnancy with Jason makes me even more aware of all the things that will give Ellie an advantage when she starts nursery and I am always surprised by the amount of children who grow up not knowing their basic nursery rhymes! I asked a child in my class the other day (year 2) about one of Ellie’s favourites and they didn’t know it. I find it really sad that children aren’t given the opportunities to learn them (I’m not judging or criticising…just makes me a bit sad).

I got in touch with Dee who runs The Little Sensory Box about one of her subscription boxes that will be released soon; I loved one of the items (I loved them all but one in particular) and wanted to know where she got it from and whether I could purchase one from her for Ellie. She very kindly offered to send us one to test out for her and I jumped at the chance to work with such a wonderful small business again that I definitely said yes please!

This is where I finally let my creative juices flow. I wanted to build a themed activity around one product and I am so pleased with the outcome that I wanted to share it with you all. Please be nice as this is the first themed activity I’ve ever really done but I would love more ideas if people want to share! 

I based the activities around the nursery rhyme 5 Currant Buns and focused on the different activities Ellie would enjoy doing. I tried to make it fun and create something we could revisit too. I had planned so many different things that I decided to run with this over the weekend as Ellie’s attention span isn’t very long and I didn’t want to force her to take part for too long as I knew she’d never come back to it otherwise.

Again, working in a school has encouraged me to fit in some type of learning and 5 Currant Buns is a great rhyme for counting forwards and backwards and we have even looked at matching numbers and missing numbers while messing around too. The first thing we did was explore the glove we were gifted from The Little Sensory Box Ellie already knew the song so she was keen to sing it as soon as I introduced the glove to her. She counted the numbers, pretended to eat the buns off my fingers and joined in with singing. We used the puppet alongside some pictures I printed off Twinkl and laminated so that I could write the numbers on to help with Ellie’s number recognition.

Ellie is confident in recognising numbers to 10 so I knew she would find this easy however I know that constant repetition in mathematics is a good thing so I decided to do this anyway. Eventually my aim is to use the cards but have Ellie write the numbers.

We also used the puppet and the laminated bun cards to role play the rhyme. I laminated a penny coin that I also printed off the internet and everytime someone pays with a penny Ellie would role play it and take her bun away. We later developed this again and used playdough to make the currant buns for her to take away too. She loved adding the playdough and cupcake cases as it gave her something else and encouraged her play to last longer.

Another activity I printed off was some colouring sheets that linked to the rhyme; Ellie loves colouring so I knew this would be a hit for her. She recognised the currant buns and the penny and started singing it again, asking for me to sit with the glove while she coloured. It was a lovely, calm activity before her bedtime that really helped settle her (and wasn’t messy which was a win for me too!)

We came back to the rhyme the next day and did some baking. I had planned on making actual currant buns but as I don’t like them I decided on biscuits instead. It would have been a waste and I found a Paw Patrol Biscuit kit for 85p in our local Home Bargains which persuaded me and we all love chocolate biscuits in this house. Ellie really enjoys baking but it feels really stressful while she is still so little so it’s something I tend to try and do as little as possible which I hate as I love baking too. I hope that it will be one of our mummy-daughter things when she gets a bit older that we enjoy doing together as I’ve dreamt of baking with my children for so long. I found the biscuit kit was probably aimed at just the right timing for Ellie as she was engaged right up until the end where she almost launched herself off the worktop giving me a heart attack and never wanting to bake again! LOL! All was fine and Ellie helped mix, pour and squish the biscuits. Double bonus points for the fact that they have Paw Patrol on them and she couldn’t wait to put the edible stickers on the top and eat them.

We’ve had such a lovely weekend and I know it is something I definitely want to do again. Having a plan has helped us all this weekend and I’ve felt that Ellie has enjoyed playing more. We have also dodged our Saturday meltdown sessions YAY!!

The Nursery Rhyme Glove will be available in The Birthday Box (available soon!!) and can be added to the Subscription Boxes which are already available to purchase. The baby’s first year subscription boxes focuses on key development stages and will arrive in four boxes throughout the first year and the Birthday Box can be added to finish the years subscription off perfectly!

To find out more about the subscription boxes and The Birthday Box, subscribe to The Little Sensory Box.

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