Humpty Dumpty

You know the rhyme:

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall

Humpty Dumpty had a great fall

All the kings horses and all the kings men

Couldn't put Humpty together again.

What you may not know is that I spent the better part of my free time this summer putting together a "nursery rhyme curriculum" for my fellow Junior League volunteers with Success by 6 to follow. This curriculum includes 9 different nursery rhymes with a circle time, craft, snack, and various other activities for our volunteers to complete with the children in their daycare center. It has more information than anyone could every complete in the few hours we visit our day care center in a month. I had fun putting it together and feel like it allowed me to use my brain and all of the components my schooling prepared me to do. I just hope that it makes the year easier on my volunteers and that the children enjoy it.

Well yesterday, I concluded my month of Humpty Dumpty activities at Greater Shiloh, and I wanted to share some images from my time with these precious children. Before you get bored, and leave me let me tell you there are two fun book picks and a "cooking" activity you can do with your own children.

Where were my children? At school...Tuesday is the one day all three of mine go to school so I have from 8:45ish until 1:45ish to myself. I would love to tell you that this time is spent accomplishing all of the tasks around my house that I need to attend to but instead thus far this time has been spent at Greater Shiloh providing enrichment activities to a 4K classroom, meeting with builders or doing other building related homework, or at the doctor.

Yesterday was no different... After taking Stephen and Walker to school, I began my day at Greater Shiloh and then went to pick out stone/tile for the house.

We had circle time where we recited and acted out Humpty Dumpty and then I read the extremely clever book What Really Happened to Humpty? which I will tell you about later.

From circle time, the class was split into groups. One group colored their own Humpty Dumpty puppets to take home and the other group made Egg Heads.


First, I hard-boiled some eggs and cut them in slices for the body. Then, I truly went through my refrigerator and pantry and put together an assortment of various vegetables that could be used to decorate the "eggs."

The activity was well received and the children had a ball decorating and eating their "egg heads." They were great about being willing to try new foods. Some liked them...some did not!

Now for the books... Each of the nursery rhyme units is accompanied by a book list. The list contains books that can be read with the selected nursery rhyme. While at the library with my own chickadees a few weeks ago, I came across this clever little book.

This author had real vision... Go check it out and see how many other nursery rhyme or classic storybook characters you can count. There are lots of allusions! My goal is to read each of the alluded to books to my students at Greater Shiloh!

Kerplunk

Do you know the book Blueberries for Sal by Robert McCloskey? We love books in our house and I particularly love reading my children the books that I heard over and over as a child. I guess those could be considered classics. Books by Robert McCloskey fall into that category. Blueberries for Sal and Make Way for Ducklings are probably our favorites.

Yesterday, I felt a little like Sal's mother. Fortunately, there were no bears ~ just my children dropping berries into their buckets to hear the kerplunk and then gobbling them up equally as quickly.

My mother and I took the children to my Uncle Tres' house to pick blueberries. This is just another example of how blessed I am ~ my uncle has what might be considered an orchard of blueberry bushes. They are enormous {more like trees than bushes} and organic, and they yield amazing quantities of blueberries. Each summer I try to make one trip to his home to stock my freezer for the year. With each trip I am secretly dreaming of picking enough to make blueberry preserves ~ something my grandmother did each year when I was a child. Most homemade preserves are delicious ~ how can they not be with so much sugar ~ but I am a complete sucker for homemade blueberry and fig preserves! They taste of my childhood and the hours those that went before me spent over a hot stove canning.

Picking blueberries is not difficult. In fact, many of these were the perfect degree of ripeness to allow them to just pop off of the bush. But as anyone who has three young children can tell you, having children adds a different element to life, and as you can imagine picking blueberries was quite interesting.

This is basically how it went... Mary Frances was quite helpful {maybe 5 is the magic age}! She picked and Walker ate while Stephen played with the piles of recently cut grass and attempted to climb the ladder.

Actually this was the most successful attempt I have had with picking berries with my children. Maybe it is because they had each other. Maybe it is because they are older. Undoubtedly it is because the weather was perfect ~ overcast and threatening making it cool and breezy. After several hours and a picnic lunch we made it back to Sagwah with two large buckets of berries.

I'm dreaming of blueberry preserves, blueberry cobbler, blueberry fruit leather, and maybe even a blueberry pound cake to take to the lake for the 4th of July. I hope this will leave us with just enough to freeze for pancakes throughout the year.

I hope to be back soon with some of the fun things we do with these berries.

For now I will leave you with this thought...

Patterson would say we had a good day!

B is for Betsy

First, I want to thank my friend, Sally, for reminding me of this sweet series of books. I not only remember reading these Carolyn Haywood stories as a child, but I remember exactly where they were on the shelf at the downtown branch of the Mobile Public Library. I vividly remember running through the stacks {Ms. Merriweather in the Library Lion would not approve} and crouching down to see if there were any adventures of Betsy that I had not yet read. What I did not realize was that this book has a copyright of 1939.

They are timeless, sweet, innocent stories of Betsy and her friends. They books were written in a simplier time and it shows. I love it! Mary Frances loved it! Stephen endured it which is not too shabby for a 2 1/2 year old. Actually I think he enjoys them too. Mary Frances couldn't wait to see what Betsy was going to do in the next chapter. Besty expressed fears, joys, remorse, sadness, and excitement ~ all emotions Mary Frances can identify with and is trying to make sense of in her own little life. When we finished the book Mary Frances couldn't wait for me to go back to the library and find a new book about Betsy. On Friday, we Started Betsy and Billy. Carolyn Haywood wrote many books. There is also a series about Eddie - it might be more engaging for the boys. I am loving reading these books to Mary Frances and Stephen and it won't be long before Mary Frances can read them to herself.