Old Mother Goose visits Flannel Friday

Nursery Rhymes - books & flannel

 

 

Light years ago I sat on the floor in the Hartford Convention Center with a group of librarians singing and laughing and learning Mother Goose on the Loose with Betsy Diamont Cohen. Shorty thereafter I brought this program to our town libraries and the rest, they say, is history.  The foundation of rhyming, singing and playing with flannels combined with confidence-building-repetition create a magical mix.  Kids love to know what's going to happen and they figure this pattern out in a few weeks.  Everyone puts the instruments away as we chant "bells away, bells away, put your bells away today".  Everyone cuddles when we sing Twinkle Twinkle and everyone stops when the "drum says STOP"  Magic!  Because it sure as heck isn't my singing voice!  

I am a giant fan of this program and enjoy training new staff members.  Mother Goose on the Loose is jam-packed in our town.  Our families love it.  And Piper doesn't even attend!  She is always sure that she is the "Big Attraction" so we won't burst the Piper bubble!  

Here is my Humpty Dumpty - he's been on the floor more than the flannel board - but heck...that's what he was made for!  

 

The fact that he's sideways is totally bizarre and I can't fix him.

Neither can all the king's soldiers nor all the king's men.

This would normally drive me nuts but I am going to move on. Yep, I am...moving on.

Moving on - each child has the opportunity to come up to the flannel board and knock Humpty right off of his wall.  Oh My Goodness - they adore it.

Here are the Dickey Birds and this rhyme is almost creepy - they love it and follow along cult like!  The little ones, the non-talkers, move their pointer fingers around when they see me.  This is how they identify me - the lady with the two birds!  Oh the sacrifices I make!!

And now, there's Old Mother Goose.  I always thought I would remake her, flannel purest that I am, but no-sirree.  It never happened.  She's on the Flannel Board to welcome everyone as they come in. We all ready-our-wings and chant "Old Mother Goose when she wanted to wander would fly through the air on her very fine gander"  We do that 2x.  We do everything 2x!  And then we move right into Goosey Goosey Gander...

And here's how I store these precious gems that keep on giving - recycled Realia bags.  Love me a good free-cycle!

All of the bags go into storage tubs - waterproofing is big in old New England buildings.  My program room along with flannels, puppets, crafts, instruments and multiple copy books are all in the basement.  Here's one of the four tubs!

Thanks for visiting Piper Loves the Library.  She's snoozin' so we'll just keep this post to ourselves!  If you'd like to learn about this tremendously supportive and talented group - check out the blog!  Flannel Friday is here to inspire and help.