Once Upon a Time

We’ve been singing this story for a while at Mary’s. (One day I’ll post an audio clip of my version!) The children, especially Gwynn, love it. The rhythm! The rhyme! The chanted bits! The sung bits! The overblown hammy-ness of Mary’s presentation!! So much fun!!

However, it had become increasingly clear to me that while she loved all that good stuff, and can even chime in for short bits, little Gwynn had not one single speck of a clue as to the story line. I’m not even sure she knows it’s supposed to be a story.

Right
Over
Her
Head.

So! Visual aids were clearly called for. I thought about it for a while. Finger puppets? Stick puppets? And then, while reorganizing the craft shelf, I found a giant box of felt squares that I’d forgotten I’d ever owned.  Oooo, felt! And I already have a felt board!

Ta-dah! All the elements of the story:

“Once upon a time in a nursery rhyme there were three bears, one, two, three!”

“And one was the papa bear, and one was the mama bear, and one was the wee bear — one, two, three!”

“One day they went a-walkin’ and a-talkin’ in the wild woods. Along came a little girl, and her name was Goldilocks.”

Fun, huh?

Yeah, I know. You can see the lines of the pen where I sketched the outline. I did it on the back, but it bled right through. Lessons learned. but you know? The tots, they don’t care!

Gwynn hasn’t seen this yet, but I tried it on the wee ones while they were having their lunch. They were rivetted… though I’ll admit that it could have been the biscuits which really held their attention. I doubt, though, that it was the biscuits that had Daisy laughing so hard she spewed them out all over the table! That was entirely my doing.

I am so proud.