During the run up to Mothers' Day we, like all those good EY practitioners out there, themed our classroom and sessions and ruthlessly exploited the occasion to ‘develop good learning experiences for all of our children’. Alongside the card making, salt-dough creations and portraits of their mothers with massive eye lashes and no bodies was the speaking and listening exercise, which we developed from our usual practice of passing a microphone around the circle and taking it in turns to speak (this was intended to be along a theme, but I resorted to making this optional - Lula was much more interested in announcing to her peers that ‘Abdi won’t share bike’ than talking about what she enjoyed doing in nursery).
So to mark the upcoming special day we sat the children in a circle, switched the microphone for an old mobile and encouraged the children to pass the phone around and ‘call’ their mummies and tell them why they loved them.
The first few to speak in their angelic little voices actually brought tears to the TA’s eyes - ‘Hello Mummy, I love you because you give me cuddles when I fall over,’ ‘Hello Mummy, I love you because you let me get in your bed in the morning’, ‘I love you mummy because you love me lots and lots’. Ah, bless them. But then came the turn of John, who wasn’t in luck with his phone call. Holding the speaker to his ear he waited for a minute before putting the phone into his lap and turning his massive blue eyes on the Nursery Nurse.
‘No answer.’ He shrugged, fingering the phone. ‘I think she’s gone shopping. But don’t worry!’ His face lit up as the light bulb went on. ‘I’ll just send a text!’ And he tapped away on the buttons before handing the phone over to the next child, smiling with pride at solving his problem. Well, at least we could tick off something on his profile!
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