LARRY’S BEAK
By Louise Burgess
Poor Larry the seagull, he’d had a bad week.
It all began on Monday when he couldn’t find his beak.
‘Ark!’ shouted Larry through the hole in his face,
his lovely, pointy, yellow bill was gone without a trace.
‘My looks!’ he cried ‘My handsome grin! this is really rotten,
without a beak my face looks like a little puckered bottom!
‘What will people think?’ He thought. ‘What will the neighbours say?
They’ll point and laugh and call me names’ He dribbled in dismay.
‘I can’t and won’t be seen like this!’ Larry wiped his eyes,
‘No fear, i’ll head down to the pier in search for a disguise’
So Larry sailed on the breeze to the pier, for his first stop
was ‘Mr Snoop’s Emporium’ (A novelty joke shop).
Now Mr Snoop’s was perfect if you liked to play a trick,
there was everything from plastic poo to puddles of fake sick!
Mr Snoop took one look and produced, in a flash
a pair of thick rimmed glasses with a nose and moustache
Larry was ecstatic ‘This look is quite becoming,
I’ll strut my stuff along the pier and folk will see I’m stunning!’
Alas, the specs kept slipping down with every step he took,
they ended up around his neck (not the coolest look).
‘Oh bother!’ bellowed Larry then he threw them off the pier,
he sulked beneath the moonlight and shed a single tear.
On Tuesday Larry flew about unsure where to go
but as he settled on a bench a kind voice said; ‘Hello’.
The nice old lady’s name was Pearl and to Larry’s great relief,
she took pity on his problem and gave him her false teeth.
‘You can borrow them today’ she said ‘I’ll get along just fine –
I don’t need my gnashers to lick a 99!’.
With that she plunged them in his face – which took him by surprise!
(They felt a little slimy and rather big in size).
‘Shank shu’ He said politely, spluttering a bit.
He didn’t like to tell her that they didn’t really fit.
Off went Larry on his way with a wild toothy grin.
Then, when Pearl was out of sight, he popped them in the bin.
Larry was disheartened. He wandered all night long.
Instead of flying home to roost, he paced along the prom.
On Wednesday Larry tried again, To the pier he promptly flew
and at the stall for face paints, slyly jumped the queue.
Now ‘Snazzy Jazz’ was clever, she was talented and arty
but her repertoire was suited to a children’s birthday party.
Larry wasn’t interested in hearts upon his cheek,
a wicked witch or tiger face, he just wanted a beak!
Larry almost wept with joy, he had a beak once more,
and for a while he was happy- until the rain began to pour.
Huddled in a shelter Larry caught his own reflection,
the smudge of yellow down his front was less than beak perfection.
The sun came up on Thursday and Larry hadn’t slept.
He missed his beak so very much he’d sat all night and wept.
He had become so desperate, shape and size no longer mattered.
He marched straight in to ‘Chippy’s’ shouting ‘Sausage! Jumbo! Battered!’.
Now Larry wasn’t famous for his wild fashion sense
but a sausage for a beak? this look was quite intense.
It worked for a while and no one seemed surprised
when a sausage eating seagull flew before their eyes.
Alas, there lay the problem, for he tried with all his might,
yet when Larry felt quite peckish he just had to take a bite.
So the sausage did shrink as the day grew long.
It made a tasty snack but as a beak it was wrong.
Poor Larry spent another night below the pier just bobbing,
in the shadows on the waves. His eyes grew sore from sobbing
Red eyes and missing beak Larry was a mess.
It was early Friday morning and he didn’t look his best.
Larry waddled aimlessly, he felt at such a loss
until he saw the neon sign for ‘Big Jim’s Candy floss’.
‘Aha!’ Cried Larry loudly. ‘Things are better than I feared.
If I can’t have a beak then I’ll have a candy beard!’
Big Jim was quite the stylist. His candy floss quite stiff.
Soon Larry had a goatee beard with sideburns and a quiff!
Larry perched upon the pier all puffed with pride and glee,
the wind blew through his candy hair as he gazed out to sea.
He headed for the bandstand and rocked and rolled all night
but he didn’t look so fetching in the early morning light.
“Matted feathers, sticky head, What’s become of me?
I’ve hardly slept a wink all week Or been home for tea.’
‘I’ve had enough, my beak is gone, I’ll just have to face it.
I’ve tried so many different things but nothing can replace it.’
His search had been a failure and he was unimpressed.
Larry sulked on Saturday now feeling quite depressed.
By Sunday he had given up so flew back home to rest
AND THERE IT WAS, HIS SHINY BEAK GLISTENING IN HIS NEST!
It’s springtime, it’s a tiny bit warmer but it’s still pretty darn wet! What better way to make the most of this than to go puddle jumping?
“There is no such thing as bad weather, only inappopriate clothing” – Sir Ranulph Fiennes
Many parents and nannies believe that every day, rain or shine, children can get out and about. With a good set of waterproofs, plenty of layers and some sturdy welly boots everyone can get out to play. If you do get wet then when you get home dry off, change clothes and warm up with a hot drink. Hot chocolate tastes even better when it’s going into a chilly tummy.
Jumping in puddles is just a natural childhood instinct. It’s also a way for children to see that they can have a big effect on the world around them. They can spend ages jumping in and out of puddles, watching the water fly everywhere and then return to its tranquil state or examining reflections or making water muddy and watching it settle again. This is the start of science, in a playful way.
Puddle jumping a universal game. There’s a little spark of childish glee in all of us when we see a puddle and we get to jump in it. Don’t hold back! Children thrive on experiencing fun alongside adults and are encouraged by adults participating.
“Childhood is a state of mind which ends the moment a puddle is first viewed as an obstacle rather than an opportunity” – Unknown
So what will it be? Obstacle? Or opportunity?
Last one to get their welly boots on is a banana!
Fancy some sensory play without the mess ? Help is at hand in the form of sensory bags. Just fill up a ziplock bag, shut it and for extra security tape it shut.
Try:
Paint – either one colour or two colours in opposite corners of the bag so they can be mixed
Hair gel and glitter
Cornflour and water
Shaving foam and a few drops of food colouring
Oil and coloured water
Sand and water
Miniature toys or googly eyes and hair gel or water
You can also create windows in bags by taping over part of the bag and just leaving a few gaps. Children can manipulate objects until they can see them and watch them appear and disappear from view.
Right now it’s the Jewish festival of Hannukah (or Chanukah). Tonight is the 4th night, when some people give presents. Others give presents only on the 5th night or every night. Hannukah lasts for 8 days and the symbol is a menorah, an 8 branched candle holder. The festival celebrates a miracle that happened after a small army of Jews known as the Maccabees defeated a much larger Greek army over 2000 years ago. When the Jews reached the Temple in Jerusalem they found there was only one small container of special purified oil to light the seven-branched Menorah, which needed to lit as part of the service every day. New oil would take eight days to make but the people lit the Menorah anyway and the oil miraculously burned for eight days until they had new oil.
The Hannukah menorah has eight candles, one for each day that the oil burned, and a servant candle that is used to right the others. The candle furthest to the right is lit on the first night. On the next night the candle to the left of the first candle and the first candle are lit, and it continues one new candle each night until the last night when all candles are lit. The candles are left burning for half an hour, but because today is Friday – the Jewish Sabbath – the candles will burn for half an hour. The menorah is supposed to be visible from outside and in Jerusalem there are special glass or plastic cases outside houses for it. In other countries the menorah is put in a window.
Because the feast is associated with oil it’s traditional to eat fried foods such as latkes (potato cakes) and doughnuts. It’s also traditional to play a game with a special toy called a dreidl. Long ago Jewish children weren’t allowed to study their religion in the open so they hid in caves. When soldies came by they hid what they were studying and started to play with the dreidl. It’s a game that you can play too using the printable templated from Enchanted Learning and some raisins or pieces of chocolate.
The dreidl has four sides with different characters and a pointed bottom. You spin the dreidl on the bottom and when it falls over the Hebrew character that shows tell you what to do. The characters are ש, ׁ ה , ג , נ .
The first character is ‘Nun’. You do nothing.
The second is ‘Gimel’. You can take everything in the middle of the table, and all the plays put a raisin or piece of chocolate in to make a new pot.
The third is ‘Hey’. You get to take half the goodies. If it’s an uneven number you leave the left over one in the middle.
The fourth character is ‘Shin’. You give a raisin or piece of chocolate to the pot. Better luck next time!
The return of the Great British Bake Off has got us all in a bit of a bakey mood and what better activity to fill those occasional wet summer days than a spot of baking?
Baking is great for children. It incorporates key skills such as literacy (reading a recipe and identifying ingredients) and numeracy (weighing and measuring quantities, or doubling a recipe if you’re feeling greedy), and introduces children to scientific concepts (mixing, melting, solidifying and why does it do that?), healthy eating (yes, really), and food hygiene. All that mixing and pouring, spooning and decorate works those motor skills to, so it’s not just about having a tasty cake for your afternoon snack, although that is obviously very important.
You can start baking with children from a very young age, as soon as they can hold a wooden spoon they can get involved in the process albeit mostly by banging on a saucepan but they’re seeing, and smelling, and learning, and it gives you a lot to talk about. Obviously it gets a lot more interesting, and messier, when they can start stirring for themselves, and even more interesting, and messy, when they can start weighing, pouring and spooning. But then they learn the important life skill of Clearing Up After Themselves.
If you’re a baking novice, never fear! You can learn along side the children, so here are some Really Easy Fairycakes to get you started and then you can graduate to Mary Berry GBBO standards. Happy baking!
Frances Norris is a former nanny and mother of two, whose children aged 3 and 8 months are in training for GBBO 2028.
I want to tell you all about a great game I discovered this summer. It’s great fun for adults and kids, very simple to play and you can play it almost anywhere there’s a patch of grass. My charges love the grisly origins of the game and it’s inspired us to learn about the Vikings.
The idea is simple. You throw sticks of wood at your opponents’ blocks of wood and try to knock them down so you can knock down the big block of wood – the king – in the middle. Originally the sticks of wood were leg bones and the blocks of wood were skulls, but don’t let that put you off! Each team starts with a line of 5 ‘skulls’ and 6 ‘bones’ and you have to throw your bones at your opponents skulls and try to knock them over. If you knock over a skull then next turn your opponents throw the skulls into your half and then have to knock all those skulls down before they can hit any skulls left on your line. Occasionally you knock over a skull on the line before you’ve knocked down the ones you’re supposed to have first but that’s okay because you have one more throw to get the remaining skull(s). If you don’t knock down all the skulls in the middle then on your opponents’ next go they can throw from any of the skulls left standing, which means they can be a lot closer to your line. When all the skulls on the line have been knocked down you can throw your bones at the king in the middle, which is bigger and heavier than the normal skulls, and try to knock it over. First to get all their opponents’ skulls and the king wins, but if you knock over the king before you’ve got all the other skulls you lose! There are a couple of other rules but that’s the basic idea, and games last between 15 minutes and an hour, depending on how good you are at aiming!
It’s a great game for improving throwing skills and you can adapt the size of the pitch to suit smaller players because it’s just marked out by pegs. Adults and older children can play on a full size pitch which is about 5 paces by 10 paces, but the exact size isn’t important. We’re playing with a 3 year old in tow so our pitch is about half the size. You only need 2 players but teams can be up to 6 on each side and we always attract a couple of children we’ve never met before each time we play it at the park.
The only downside to the game is that the wooden pieces are quite heavy to carry about, but don’t let that stop you trying this great game.
The weather is starting to look quite fine so it’s time to get outdoors! Treasure hunts are a brilliant activity for all ages. that can easily be adapted to the interests and abilities of each child. You can theme your hunt around nature or a colour, or include an element of imaginative play such as pirates searching for treasure, survivors stranded on an island who need to recover all the missing pieces of their vessel before they can leave or rescuers on the trail of a kidnapped teddy. Treasure hunts are also a very low cost activity – you just need paper and some ‘treasure’!
For tinies
Even toddlers can participate in a treasure hunt by following picture clues. They’ll obviously need careful supervision but you’ll be amazed how soon they get the hang of it. If you’re doing this alongside older children it’s probably best to have a 1 easy:3 harder clues ratio to prevent older children from racing through their clues too quickly.
For early readers
As soon as they can recognise letters you can start to incoporate them into clues. If the clue is ‘b’ then the next clue might be found near an object that begins with ‘b’. You can quickly progress onto simple words and it will give their confidence a boost too.
For confident readers
Confident readers can have more complicated words or whole phrases as clues, including simple rhymes and easy puzzles.
For older kids
Older children who may find words or phrases simplistic can be engaged by using word puzzles and riddles. Try creating anagrams of the next clue’s location, mirror writing or a secret code that they have to break.
You need a few moments in private to place your clues, so get your bosses in on the secret so you can hide them in the garden before work, or team up with another nanny and go to a park or some woodland – one nanny can look after the children while the other runs around to plant clues. Just make sure you have your employers’ permission before leaving your charges with someone else.
Treasure hunts can be a great competition with a race to find the clue or a way to encourage teamwork and get older ones to help by reading the clue but encouraging younger ones to answer the riddle. They encourage all-important problem solving skills and independence so don’t leap to give them the answer when they’re struggling and let them go off after clues by themselves.
Ready…..set…..seek!
Pom-poms are a great tool for promoting all kinds of development. Here are 5 activities you can do with a muffin tray, a small jar or cup, a pair of tweezers or tongs and a load of pom-poms.
Pick them up and drop them. This simple activity for younger children promotes the pincer grip, which is vital for holding a pencil later on. Picking up and dropping the pom-poms promotes hand eye coordination and provides a sensory experience too.
Sort the pom-poms acording to colour. Not only is this promoting fine motor development and hand-eye coordination but it’s also working on matching and colour recognition.
Extend the activity by using tweezers. If you put the pom-poms into a narrow necked jar they won’t be able to get their hand in their to pick the pom-poms up so they’ll need to use tongs or tweezers. The pinching motions strengthens the muscles in the hand and the added challenge will develop problem solving abilities.
Count. It sounds simple but you have a lot of pom-poms so you can at least count to twenty with all of them, count how many of different colours, work on concepts such as more and fewer, and add up by transferring pom-poms from one part of the tray to another. It’s ideal for explaining tens and units if you have different sized pom-poms. The smaller ones are units and when you put the tenth smaller one in you can exchange 10 small pom-poms for a bigger one. Top tip from a primary maths specialist – always start to count from zero. The quantity ‘one’ doesn’t make sense unless there is nothing there in the first place so make it obvious and associate zero with nothing from the start.
Blow them. Pom-poms are light and they roll so get down and blow them in a straight line or round a course you’ve drawn out on paper. As well as encouraging children to fill their lungs this also develops the muscles of the face and jaw which is great for speech development.
