I was involved in fantastic project - World Nursery Rhyme Week (16.-20.11). Me and my friends from @storytimefriends_ officially registered this year to be Nursery Rhyme Ambassadors. Nursery Rhyme week is a free, world-wide initiative celebrating the importance of nursery rhymes in early childhood development. Nursery rhymes boost vocabulary, language development , early numeracy skills and more.
We decided to support this initiative and post a new nursery rhyme video every day. Can we do it in such a short time? We had about 3 weeks to do it. Let's just have a go and do it!
Timetable for this year's World Nursery Rhyme Week
Monday - Wheels on the Bus
Tuesday - Five Little Speckled frogs
Wednesday - Hickory Dickory dock
Thursday - Old Mc Donald Had a Farm
Friday- Miss Polly Had a Dolly
Monday - Wheels on the Bus
I had lots of fun drawing and designing my bus and animals on it. I miss going to London so it had to be number 26! :-) I was not sure what kind of animals to use, at the end I went for wildlife animals. What do you think of our bus driver? Are we going to be safe? :-) I used clothes pegs for wipers and made short stop motion animation video. To make it more alive and 3D I used toy elephant (blocking the road), old yoghurt lids for wheels (to go round and round) and some old magazine cut outs. I put the video together in iMovie - now we just need the nursery rhyme. I sang it together with my children and the result is here.. :-) Hope you will enjoy watching it as much as we enjoyed making it.
Check out our video here:
Tuesday - Five Little Speckled Frogs
My friend Maggie - and one of @storytimefriends_ created stop motion animation of five frogs eating delicious bugs and jumping in the water. Maggie did amazing job - all video was made in her living room - no professional equipment- just her phone. Maggie did all drawings and backgrounds by herself. You can download Stop Motion Animation app for free on your phone and you can have a go too! You can create something spectacular! It does take long time and requires tons of patience as each image has to be taken individually. Maggie sent all clips to me and I put it together in iMovie. My daughter Anna loves this nursery rhyme so she was happy to get involved in recording audio.
She didn't forget to glub, glub! :-)
Check out Maggie's video here: https://youtu.be/AsHByW-U6CE
Wednesday - Hickory Dickory Dock
I was panicking...how are we going to do this? We need some kind of clock or clock tower...Should we have a go and try to draw Big Ben? Oh my goodness, it was difficult but totally worth it. We used our little mouse from The Enormous Pumpkin story (to run up and down the clock). I also mixed up the images with old blue bedsheet -fabric (sky) and magazine cut outs (clouds, pigeon). I thought it would be interesting to change the weather every hour. It started with just few clouds, then it was getting cloudier and cloudier and at the end it rained but our mouse was prepared. :-). Check out her little umbrella :-)
When we finished editing it was time to do the music. My son Jack (8) helped me to sing it. Check the final result here:
Thursday - Old McDonald Had a Farm
When I was a child, I had a dog. His name was Alik, cheeky little thing. I really miss him. He was my best friend, always used to greet me by the door when I was coming back from school. I really wanted to incorporate him somewhere in the song. Wouldn't it be funny if we just started to roll his eyes? I found an old photo of him (on the left) and drew him. I glued couple of googly eyes on him and made a short stop motion animation of rolling eyes. It felt like Alik was alive again!!
I drew cows, ducks and sheep and used our farmer from previous story (The Enormous Pumpkin).
Our boss duck is aware of health and safety while quacking, always follows the right procedures...:-) I couldn't help myself...working in public building for more than 13years I had to sign so many H&S Risk Assessments! :-) Luckily, children were enthusiastic about singing so after editing the video, we recorded it ourselves. Again, this makes me feel so happy...creating something I put my heart into and singing with my children...I am having the best time! Check out our video here:
Friday - Miss Polly Had a Dolly
My friend Suleika from @storytimefriends_ made beautiful puppets - Miss Polly, dolly and a doctor! Puppets looked beautiful on white background! I had some fun making little details - doctor's bill - £80!! :-), a cheque addressed to "The Grumpy Doctor" , "waste my time" clock and more.
I also had some old dolls house furniture which I used in the video to look more authentic. Dolly wasn't really ill - she kept hiding in the wardrobe !! :-) I used short stop motion animation clip for this part. This song is very difficult to sing so after few attempts my children lost interest. I decided to go for it myself. I sang it on my own with ukulele, I tried to change the voices to make it a bit more fun :-). Check the final result here:
It was fantastic week. It was hard work to put all our videos together in such a short time but it was definitely worth it. It was lovely to sing with my children and also create something what will be here forever. My "babicka" (grandma) used to sing all the time.. Her voice filled the house with happiness and laughter. Singing really makes us happy and we should sing more often, on our own or with our family. If you feel like creating - why not make your own stop motion animation video and do your own voiceover or song? Make something what lasts forever and connects you with your family you can't see at the moment - maybe they live far way, maybe they live abroad . Send them your creation and bond with them this way. I haven't seen my family for a whole year but this project really helped me. I lost the job I loved but I feel like I can communicate with people again this way. Is there someone you haven't seen for a while and can't see them this Christmas? Have a go and make a little video. And sing. Good luck ! :-) Love M xxx
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