Activity #4 - Mash-up: Nursery Rhymes and LARPS

First, I just wanted to let you all know that I added some tabs directly under the header and above the posts. There is a tab called Activities, which will provide the names of the activities as clicky links that take you right to the post in which you are interested.  Another new tab is Making Mom Friends and contains some of the advice I have received about how to make friends post-momhood.  The final new post is a bit of a joke and will contain Reviews or, in reality, less than flattering comments I have received from friends about this blog ;)

But enough about this blog, we all know why you are here. In honor of all the mash-ups on the show "Glee" (mash-up most likely to bring me back to 1992? Stop in the Name of Love / Free Your Mind), I decided to take nursery rhymes to the next level. That's right, LARPing or Live Action Role Playing (I have a lot of older brothers, ok? This seems normal to me).  (Okay, I thought of this activity, but then I realized how I could make it sound trendy and, yet, also really nerdy.)

Activity: Live Action Nursery Rhymes!  A few months ago, I read an article (which I now can't find) on the importance of nursery rhymes for children and how the average number of words our toddlers have has decreased drastically since the 1940s and some doctors attribute this drop to the shift away from nursery rhymes. It occurred to me that Q owned NO actual book of nursery rhymes, so I bought one.

(I love Richard Scarry)

She knew some of the rhymes that are also songs (Baa Baa Black Sheep is a favorite), but that was about it.  When you read the rhymes, you realize how rich the vocabulary is.  Q loves them.  I decided to not only read the nursery rhymes, but have her act some of them out.  We chose "Jack Be Nimble, Jack Be Quick," "Three Little Kittens," "Baa Baa Black Sheep" (of course), "Georgie Porgie," "Mary, Mary Quite Contrary," and "Little Miss Muffet."  For actual acting out, "Jack" and "Little Miss Muffet" were the most fun.  We didn't have a candle, so I put down a flashlight.  Q is still hopping/skipping rather than 2 feet off the floor jumping, but she loves any excuse to try (and also liked saying, "Mama turn!" a lot). For "Little Miss Muffet" we took turns making "Itsy Bitsy Spider" fingers at each other and tickling.   Q is getting pretty good at faux-crying and enjoyed making her dolls cry after "Georgie" kissed them.  "Three Little Kittens" was going really well, until Q decided she wanted pie like the kittens, even though she has never had any.  We didn't have any in the house, so we took a little break from playing until Q had moved on.

All in all, a fun morning activity.