Polly Put the Kettle On
Listen here www.youtube.com/watch?v=4VlGNo25XIA
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his traditional rhyme can be used as a stimulus for child initiated
role-play and sensory classroom activities to develop creative and
critical thinking.
Turn the role-play area into a café and explore food and drink
from different cultures; perhaps the café could be in America or
Trinidad?
Children will enjoy baking small cakes and biscuits to sell in the shop and will
enjoy exploring the feel and smell of loose tea. Create menu cards or add
a blackboard featuring the menu for the day. This fun activity will develop
numeracy and critical thinking skills as children use play money to pay for
their purchases and count and sort cups, plates and food. Café role-play can
also be used to encourage discussions about healthy food choices.
Tea pots and cups are the perfect vessels for water play activities.
Pouring, floating and sinking activities will encourage physical
development and help children to explore and make sense of their
physical world.
Sing ‘I’m a little tea pot’
I’m a little teapot short and stout,
Here’s my handle, here’s my spout,
When I get all steamed up hear me shout,
“Tip me up and pour me out”
Here is a recipe for Shrewsbury Biscuits from the Ordinary Cook,
perfect with a cup of tea.
You will need:
150g plain flour
150g caster sugar
150g cold butter
¼ tsp caraway seed
pinch of grated nutmeg
1 egg
1 tsp rosewater
Rub the butter into the flour using your fingertips.
Add the rest of the ingredients and mix together
with your hands until it gathers into a ball.
Dust the work surface with flour as this is quite a
sticky dough and roll the dough until about 5mm
thick. Stamp out rounds or any shape you like
and place onto lightly greased baking sheets.
Place in the centre of a preheated
oven at 160°c, gas mark 3 for 8-10
minutes until lightly golden. Leave on
the tray to cool for five minutes and then
remove carefully onto wire racks. These
biscuits are delicate so take care.
Now where’s Polly with that tea?
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his gentle rhyme will inspire a calm session on the theme of bedtime.
Understanding the need for sleep is an essential part of children’s
understanding of their own physical needs in order to maintain good
health. Creative activities linked to the rhyme provide an opportunity for
sharing their thoughts, ideas and feelings.
Sing some quiet bed-time songs like twinkle, twinkle little star and
rock-a-bye baby.
Talk about bedtime routines and ask the children to order a
sequence from their first sleepy yawn, to bath time and teeth cleaning,
pyjamas, finding a special toy and being tucked up safe in bed. Make a bed
time list for teddy to help him get a good night’s sleep.
Create a ‘wish tree’ using hand print cut outs. Ask the children to draw
around their hands, then ask them to make a wish, write the wish on the hand
print and add it to a class tree trunk and branches cut from craft paper. You
could also make wishing stars in a night sky and write the children’s wishes on
star shaped cut outs.
Look at the paint techniques and colours used by Vincent Van Gogh
in The Starry Night and create paintings in class using fingers or lolly sticks
to create the swirly patterns.
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Image by Nicola Bayley
Star Light, Star Bright
© 1889, Starry Night, Vincent Van Gogh
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There Was, Was, Was
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his repetition in this Latino rhyme make it fun to recite out loud.
Encourage children to listen and then recount the story of the little
boat. Think about the expression of past and present forms and make
up some new words to the rhyme.
Think about other modes of transport, try to finish these verses
and make up some of your own.
There was, was, was
A little car, car, car
Who always, always, always
Travelled far, far, far
There is, is, is
A little train, train, train
Who doesn’t, doesn’t, doesn’t
Like the rain, rain, rain
The beautiful, bold image by Lucy Cousins also features two other boat
themed rhymes:
Rub-a-dub-dub
Three men in a tub,
And how do you think they got there?
The butcher, the baker,
The candle-stick maker,
They all jumped out of a rotten potato,
Twas enough to make a man stare.
English
Three wise men of Gotham,
Went to sea in a bowl;
And if the bowl had been stronger.
My tale had been longer.
English
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Sing a Song of Sixpence
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silver sixpence in her shoe”. Customarily it is the father of the bride who
places the sixpence in the shoe to show that he wishes her prosperity, love and
happiness in her marriage.
What’s it the rhyme about?
Rye is a wheat like cereal crop used for flour, rye bread, rye beer, crisp bread
and some whiskeys.
During Tudor times cooks in rich homes would try every possible way to
make meat dishes as different, colourful and exciting as possible, especially at
banquets. Legend has it that one such dish was a pie filled with live blackbirds
and presented at such a banquet for Henry VII. When the pie was opened the
birds flew out singing!
The first sixpences were minted in 1551 during the reign of King Edward VI.
After decimalisation the sixpence was worth 2 ½ new pence and continued to
be legal tender until 1980.
A sixpence is also traditionally hidden in a plum (or Christmas) pudding.
Finding the sixpence in your slice of pudding brings good luck and prosperity.
Use play money and a range of containers and purses to sort and
count money like the king in the rhyme.
Children will enjoy handling fabrics of different colours and
textures and pegging them on a washing line. Washing dolls or
baby clothes and hanging them on the line provides opportunities
for children to be active and interactive and to handle equipment
and tools effectively.
Sixpences are often found in rhymes and are thought to bring good luck.
There is a well-known tradition of the bride wearing “Something old,
something new, something borrowed, something blue, and a
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Image by Matt Sewell
his traditional rhyme may be familiar to even the youngest children.
Many of the words are no longer in common usage and so will provide
a linguistic challenge and vocabulary development. Handling play
money is great for counting numbers and practicing simple addition and
subtraction problems. Pegging washing on a line allows children to develop
their co-ordination and control in large and small movements. Pussy Cat, Pussy Cat
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his rhyme offers opportunities for creating imaginative role-play
scenarios about a trip to London to visit the Queen. Play at being the
frightened mouse under the chair with this interactive rhyme from
Sally Tonge.
Ask the children to curl up small and quietly and pretend to
be mice. Now the game begins….
Pack an imaginary suitcase for
a trip to London
What would you need to take?
How would you get there?
What would you see when you got there?
Have you seen the mice a
sleeping under a chair?
Whisper
What gift would you take for the Queen?
They’re curled up sooo tiny,
nobody can see ‘em
Speak slowly, hold a moment
of stillness
Read Katie in London by James Mayhew and follow Katie on her
adventures as a friendly lion shows her the Tower of London,
Buckingham Palace and the London Eye.
But in the morning after the night Begin to crescendo the voice and
along comes the sunshine shining spread your arms wide as the sun
so bright
or shine a torch around
Find some images of London’s famous landmarks and make
a photo guide to the city.
And we say
Wake up mice, shoo shoo shoo!
Bright and energetic
Wake up mice shoo shoo shoo!
Creep creeping and suddenly...
boo!
Suddenly go quiet and end up
with a BOO!
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Image by Jane Ray
Wake up mice shoo shoo shoo!
London Themed Rhymes:
London Bridge is falling down,
Falling down, falling down.
London Bridge is falling down,
My fair lady
Build it up with wood and clay,
Wood and clay, wood and clay.
Build it up with wood and clay,
My fair lady
Wood and clay will wash away,
Wash away, wash away.
Wood and clay will wash away,
My fair lady.
Oranges and Lemons,
Say the bells of St. Clement’s
You owe my five farthings say
the bells of St. Martin’s
When will you pay me say the
bells of Old Bailey?
When I grow rich,
Say the bells of Shoreditch.
When will that be?
Say the bells of Stepney.
I do not know.
Says the great bell of Bow.
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With thanks to:
The Walker Trust, Sarah McGlynn & Claire Teasdale (Seven Stories), Sophie Peach,
Joanna Hughes, Alison McGowan (Shrewsbury Bookfest), Alison Rae (School’s
Improvement Commissioner Adviser Early Years Foundation Stage), Sally Tonge
(musician and storyteller), Justine Ranson (Creative & Cultural Development Officer,
Telford & Wrekin Council), Amy Jones (Senior Librarian – Health and Reading, Telford
& Wrekin Council) Matt Sewell, Nicola Dawson, Julie Duncan & Fiona Purslow. Louise
Chadwick, Button & Bear Bookshop, Tony Brindley (Graphic Designer, Yarrington Ltd),
theordinarycook.co.uk.
Pack developed by Fay Bailey, Learning Manager, Shropshire Museums & Archives.
The Rhyme Around the World exhibition features the rhymes and illustrations from two
best-selling books – the classic Lavender’s Blue complied by Kathleen Lines and pictured by
Harold Jones, Oxford University Press, 1954 (reissued 2004) and the contemporary Over the
Hills and Far Away collected by Elizabeth Hammill, Frances Lincoln Children’s Books, 2014.
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