Slowly, slowly
Slowly, slowly, very slowly
Creeps the garden snail.
Slowly, slowly, very slowly
Up the wooden rail.
Quickly, quickly, very quickly
Runs the little mouse.
Quickly, quickly, very quickly
Round about the house.
Hurry, scurry
Share the rhyme, then try some tricky moves.
Planned learned intention
To increase bodily awareness and gross motor skills
Resources
Pictures of snails and mice
Step by step
* Look at the pictures. How many legs do the mouse and snail have?
* Ask the children to suggest hand movements to illustrate how the creatures move. Try out the children's suggested movements and use them while saying the rhyme.
* Allow plenty of space and encourage the children to move like snails, sliding along on their stomachs without using their arms and legs, and then as mice, moving quickly along on hands and feet. Compare the degree of difficulty in the two movements.
Extension ideas
* Invite parents and carers to accompany you on a snail hunt.
* In the nursery, arrange soil, stones and plants in a tank to create a micro-environment in which the snails can live until they are released. Be sure to keep the soil moist.
* Encourage the children to observe, with magnifying glasses, the spiral patterns on the snails' shells and the snails' undulating feet through the transparent wall of the tank. Let them handle the creatures gently.
* Let the children experiment with making spiral patterns using pebbles and threaded beads, and drawing spirals with a variety of writing media.
Flow chart
Share the familiar rhyme 'Incy Wincy Spider' and carry out experiments in the water tray.
Planned learning intention
To understand that water always finds the lowest level
Resources
Pictures of buildings showing pipes, spouts and guttering, cylindrical tubes and pipes, small objects which will fit inside the pipes, such as small-world farm animals, wooden blocks and corks, water bath, jugs, funnels
Step by step
* Share the rhyme with the children, with hand movements to accompany it, and explain the vocabulary.
* Take the children to look at the guttering in your building or look at pictures of buildings and ask the children to identify specific parts, such as the pipes. Observe any debris that has been washed down by the rain. Explain that the guttering is used to catch and direct water into the drains underground.
* Let the children experiment with tubes and pipes in the water tray. Encourage them to hold the pipes and tubes at different angles to demonstrate that the greater the angle, the faster the water will flow through the tubing.
* Encourage the children to work in pairs, with one putting an object inside the pipe and holding it at a slight angle for the second child to pour in water to wash out the object. What is the heaviest object that the children can move with the water?
Extension ideas
* Go for a walk in search of spiders and their webs. Examine any you find under a magnifying glass. Emphasise that spiders and their webs are fragile. Draw the children's attention to the shape and structure of the web.
* Look again at the pictures of spiders and encourage the children to draw chalk webs on the sugar paper. Help the children to cut out a card body of a spider and punch nine holes in it - eight holes for the legs and one for attaching it to the web. Hook pipe cleaners through the holes for legs, add eyes and a mouth, and attach to the web with string.
'Slowly, slowly, very slowly' reprinted with permission from This Little Puffin (Puffin Books, 6.99) compiled by Elizabeth Matterson.
