The posture for the week in Tatty Bumpkin classes is mouse.
This week Tatty Bumpkin sets off to visit her friend the giant. He lives in a huge house, with a huge door on the other side of the Giggle Tree.
The giant invites Tatty Bumpkin in for tea but, as she tiptoes across one of his giant rooms, Tatty Bumpkin spies a little mouse looking lost. Mouse tells Tatty Bumpkin that he would love a little, snug house of his own – where he can snuggle up, keep warm and hide from the pesky cat.
Tatty Bumpkin has a think and suggests they have a look in each of the giant’s rooms – surely there must be a little corner which would be perfect for a little mouse house?
Mouse Pose – Older Children
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| How small is your mouse? |
Description of Mouse Pose For Older children
Note to parents – It is always best to do mouse pose with your child so they can copy you; this is especially true if your child is younger. Recent research demonstrates that doing activities and movements together helps the bonding process between parents/carers and their child.
Find a comfortable place on the floor. Then start the pose by kneeling back on your heels with your arms by your sides. Now curl forward and pretend to ‘kiss your knees’. It is often a good idea to say this to your child so they get the idea of curling forwards rather than just lying on their tummy. Take deep breaths and lie very still. Shut your eyes. Imagine you are a very tiny mouse.
Want to Make it Harder?
Lift up your head and make a few squeaking sounds then wriggle you fingers either side of your mouth to be mousy whiskers.
Stretch out each of your legs in turn behind you and wave it from side to side - as you’re a magic mouse with TWO tails.
Finally come up onto all fours and scamper round the room to run away from the pesky cat.
Games to play in Mouse Pose
Mouse in his house! Imagine you’re a little mouse curled up small in your own tiny house. See if you can keep still for at least 20 seconds. Then ‘wake up’ and peek outside your little house – lift up your head, ‘twitch your whiskers’, shake your two, magic tails. Uhoh - the cat is about! Jump up onto your hands and knees and scamper round the room. Look around for another place to hide, far away from that pesky cat and curl up once more. See if you can hear your own breathing as you rest in your new, snug mouse house!
Do mouse pose to the Tatty Bumpkin Mouse song – you can either download Tatty Bumpkin Mouse song from iTunes or ask your Tatty Bumpkin teacher about the Tatty Bumpkin CD. Mouse song encourages your child to relax and be still, whilst curling up as a tiny mouse and then to ‘let off steam’ as a mouse scampering away from the cat!
Why Mouse pose is ‘Good For Me’ - Older Children
As you child does boat pose they will have the opportunity to:
1. Calm themselves. When your child curls into mouse pose they will stimulate their sense of touch and their ‘proprioceptive sense’. Our proprioceptive sense provides us with information on how stretched our muscles are, how tense are tendons are, and the position of our joints at any one time. Stimulation of both these senses in mouse pose can often help children to calm down, particularly if they have become over-excited and are finding it hard to ‘move on’ from spinning or running round the room! It is important for your child to start to learn how to control their ‘levels of alertness’. For some activities we need to be more alert i.e. when playing in the playground or doing a sport. At other times we need to be ‘less alert’ i.e. when we need to sleep. To learn new things efficiently we need to be alert but too alert and excited.
2. Refine their fine (hand) motor skills. Encourage your child to wriggle their fingers and ‘twitch their mouse whiskers'. This will help to strengthen their fingers and wrists for skills such as writing and doing up buttons.
3. Develop their speech and confidence. Encourage your child to squeak as a little mouse, softly then loudly! As they scamper round the room your child may find it easier to make different noises.
Mouse Pose For Babies and Toddlers
Mouse Pose For Babies
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| Hickory, dickory, dock! |
Description of Pose
N.B. Remember: never to force the movements whilst doing the poses with your baby and to keep looking at them as you do the actions - to make sure they are comfortable. If your feel any resistance or your baby becomes unsettled, do stop. Once they have settled gently try the pose again, perhaps making clicking sounds or using a toy to distract them. If your baby remains unsettled do not persist with the pose and ask advice from your Baby Bumpkin teacher.
Do mouse pose and actions with your baby to the rhyme of ‘Hickory Dickory Dock’.
‘Hickory, dickory, dock’ – On a clean mat or carpet settle your baby in front of you. Start in swan pose at your baby’s feet i.e. rock back on your heels, lean forward and stretch out your upper body close to the floor with your arms over your head so that you’re touching your baby’s feet or ankles with your hands – your touch will reassure your baby.
‘The mouse ran up the clock’ – Sit up, resting back on your heels, but still leaning over your baby, so that you can catch their eye. When you have eye contact smile at your baby and/or make squeaking sounds whilst you run your fingers up your baby’s legs and body.
‘The clock struck one’ – Come onto your hands and knees over your baby. Then, if you feel confident, bend your elbows to do a little ‘press up’ and kiss your baby on their forehead. As you give your baby a kiss, smile and talk to them!
‘The mouse ran down’ – Run your fingers back down your baby’s body and legs finishing with a little tickle on their feet.
‘Hickory, dickory, dock’ – Rock back onto your heels once more and return to swan pose – gently keeping hold of your baby’s feet.
‘Tick-tock, tic-tock’ – Come back onto your hands and knees over your baby and, if you feel confident to do so, end the rhyme by doing two more mini press-ups to give your baby two more kisses!
Mouse Pose For Toddlers
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| Curl up as tiny mice! |
Description of Pose
Find a comfortable place on the floor to play ‘mouse pose’ with your toddler. Start by sitting back on your heels, encouraging your toddler to copy you. Then say “1, 2, 3 mouse!” and curl up over your knees. You may find that your toddler automatically moves onto their tummy instead of curling up – this may be due to an immature reflex action which they have not yet fully grown out of. If your toddler does go onto their tummy guide them back to the starting position (sitting back on their heels) and this time suggest they ‘kiss their knees’ to curl up like a mouse.
See if your toddler can stay in mouse position for a few seconds, as this is a very calming position. Encourage them to do a few mouse squeaks with you and then guide them to jump up with you onto their hands and knees to scurry round the room like naughty mice! After crawling round the room in various directions and stopping to ‘hide’ under furniture come back to rest in mouse pose – this will help your toddler to calm down after the excitement of crawling! Or finish the game by curling over your toddler, snuggling up to them a like a mouse in a house!
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| Mouse - snug and warm inside their house! |
Other Games to Play with your Toddler in Mouse Pose
Hiding mice – Your toddler may love repeating mouse pose over and over again, especially if you add to their anticipation by saying “1, 2, 3, hide!” or “1, 2, 3, mouse!” as you do the pose. Once you are curled up in mouse pose again add to the anticipation and excitement by saying “Ready, steady run!” or “1, 2, 3 run!” just before you both start crawling and scurrying around the room. Find some pieces of fabric and balance them on your and your toddler’s head whilst you are both curled up in mouse pose. Using the fabric will help your toddler to keep still. Then, when your both jump up to scurry round the room, see if you can either make the fabric fall off or stay on your heads!
Follow the actions to the Tatty Bumpkin Mouse song – This song tells the story about a little mouse being happy in their little house before scurrying off to hide from the pesky cat! You can either download mouse song from iTunes or buy the Tatty Bumpkin CD from your Tatty Bumpkin teacher.
‘Why Mouse Pose is Good for Your Baby or Toddler’
As you do mouse pose with your baby or toddler, you will give them a chance to:
1. Develop their close bond with you. Mouse pose is a real opportunity to be both emotionally and physically close to your baby or toddler. At around six months of age you may notice your baby gaining a series of abilities which makes it easier for them to express their needs to you i.e. Your baby will be able to:
- Do several different facial expressions to make their feelings known rather than relying on the more obvious ways like crying, fussing cooing or being quiet.
- Make more consistent eye contact with you.
- Reach up towards you in both lying and sitting.
- Maybe they will start to reach out to you
- Maybe they will make a quizzical expression or smile back at you
- Maybe you will notice them following you with their eyes as you move towards and away from them.
Doing mouse pose with your toddler will continue to develop the bond between you both. As mentioned above research is now showing that the process of bonding not only happens through touch abut also through movement. Hence as your toddler copies you, moving and curling up in mouse pose, they will be reinforcing that bond between you both.
2. Develop their reaching (arm and hand) skills and leg movements whilst lying on their backs – babies. Mouse pose is a fun way to play with your baby on the floor. Although tummy time is important – your baby also needs time to play on their back on the floor.
3. Increase their body awareness. As you do the ‘hickory, dickory, dock’ rhyme with your baby you will be drawing their attention to their hands and toes.
For toddlers - Mouse pose and game challenges them to move quickly and smoothly between two quite different positions i.e. Your toddler:
- Starts with their whole body curled up in mouse pose
- They then change position rapidly to come up onto their hands and knees to scurry as mice
- And finally they go back to hide in mouse pose.
4. Learn how to calm themselves – toddlers. When your toddler curls their body up in mouse pose they will be gently stimulating their ‘proprioceptive sense’. Our proprioceptive sense is stimulated through receptors in our muscles, tendons and joints and it tells us how our body parts are moving in relation to one another and the general position of our body at any one time. Often gentle pressure to the muscles and joints and stimulation of proprioceptive sense will help a young child to feel more secure and hence to calm down. So when your toddler folds their body up in mouse pose, gently squeezing their body against their legs, and as a result stimulating their proprioceptive sense, they may find this pose very soothing. If your toddler has become upset or overexcited, you may find that prompting them to do mouse pose for a few seconds helps them to calm themselves down.
Make it Multi-Sensory, Educational & Fun
In Tatty Bumpkin classes we use unique storylines to make the activities meaningful and to fire the imagination.
All our classes are multi-sensory comprising of:
- Adapted yoga poses and activities which both stimulate and calm the body senses
- Dedicated songs and rhythms which are relevant to the stories
- Bespoke hand-woven props to look at and feel. Tatty Bumpkin has its own range of fairly traded animal props to back up the yoga poses and bring the stories to life. Our teachers are supported to use natural props in the classes which are great to feel as opposed to smooth plastic.
So … The Adventure This Week ..
In this week’s adventure Tatty Bumpkin visits her friend the giant in his huge house!
In a corner of one of the giant’s enormous rooms Tatty Bumpkin spies a little mouse. The mouse is looking for a place he can call his own – it needs to be small and snug.
So together mouse and Tatty Bumpkin set off to explore the giant’s house – peering into the cupboards, looking inside the bath and under the beds. Where would be the perfect place for a mouse?
Where could a mouse live?
This story will give your child an opportunity to:
1. Develop their body awareness as they stretch up high as a giant and curl up small as a mouse
2. Come up with their own ideas on where would be the best place for the mouse to have his house
3. Use gestures or words to express their thoughts i.e. Feeling
- ‘A bit worried’ as they creep into the giant’s house
- ‘Sad’ as a mouse without a home
- ‘Confident’ to go exploring round the giant’s house
- ‘Excited’ at finding the perfect home for mouse
5 Calm themselves and become more aware of their breathing as they curl up in mouse pose
6. Develop their fine motor skills as they twitch their mouse whiskers and then help mouse to build his own little house
7. Have fun with their friends. Curling up and scampering round the room like little mice, stomping up and down like huge giants and then working together to make the perfect little house for mouse.
Find your local Tatty Bumpkin class at http://www.tattybumpkin.com/classes/find-class.html
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