As part of our nursery rhymes project we looked at the nursery rhyme: Polly put the kettle on. We looked at pictures depicting this and talked about “putting the kettle on” meant putting it on the cooker. Some children from the class acted out putting on the kettled now and putting on the kettle in the past. We talked about the differences: clothes, electrical appliances etc. We also looked at how they would have made tea using loose tea leaves, we had great fun trying this with cold water and using the tea strainers.

We found out that some nursery rhymes are very old and that they can tell us what life was like in the past. We focused on the nursery rhyme: “Wee Willy Winky” and explored how the preparations we make for bed time now are different to the preparations that children made in the past.