Here, Annette shares the very popular rhyme time activity of 'what's in the bag?'
I use objects and toys to represent songs and nursery rhymes and keep them in a cloth bag. During Singing Time we sing “What’s in the bag?, What’s in the bag?, E I E I O, What's in the bag?” and a child is chosen to pick 1 item and encouraged to say what they have chosen and the song we are all going to sing. Each child in the group gets a turn choosing an item.
The children often ask for ‘What’s in the Bag’ more frequently than at singing time and I now have different bags for each day of the week to introduce and expand the variety of songs we know. Children become so familiar with the songs, they can be heard singing them independently in their play.
The songs in the photo are;
Bus = A Big Red Bus, Bucket / Pail = Jack and Jill, Scarecrow = Dingle Dangle Scarecrow, Rabbit = Sleeping Bunnies, Turtle = I had a little turtle and Boat = Row Row Row your Boat.
We also have ‘What’s in the Bag?’ with items for just 1 song, a spider web print bag is now called “Elephants” for the rhyme ‘5 elephants went out to play upon a spiders web one day’ and the children also take turns being an ‘elephant’ sitting on the spider web and asking another child to join.