As an early education consultant, today is a momentous day. Tomorrow is my youngest daughter’s 5th birthday and so, after 11 and a half years, this is the last day I will have children under 5.
A few years ago I looked forward to the day when my children would be growing up but today I am a little sad for all the things I will miss.
Their chubby little faces and hands
2. Watching them play
3. Cute drawings
4. Messy faces
Finished!
5. Thumb suckers
6. Kisses, cuddles and holding hands
7. Having a constant companion
8. Learning to sing
9. Sleeping babies
Had enough now mum
10. Everything about this
Luckily, I have almost a year before she goes to school, so lots of time left as a pre-schooler. Happy Birthday little one and as your t shirt says ‘Never Grow Up’
When I ask the girls where they would like to go, a popular response is the zoo. In the UK we were members of Bristol Zoo and visited there regularly. Having membership made our visits more relaxed, we didn’t have to run around trying to see every animal and if the children wanted to play in the playground all day that was fine too.
Woodland Park Zoo is more spacious than the zoo back home so we are able to see larger animals. Recently, we were invited to Woodland Park to see some of the activities available in the Zoomazium – a nature inspired play space for the under 8’s. To be honest we have always avoided Zoomazium during previous visits, expecting it to be a large, noisy soft play. I was pleasantly surprised however, to see a mix of play spaces and activities. There is a designated space for toddlers, fully enclosed and safe, with a library area to the side. The children can also explore the cricket exhibit.
toddler play spacelibrary areacricket exhibit
The play area for older children has rope bridges, places to climb and lots of little caves that are perfect for hide and seek. There are also tables with toys for building, a stage area and a sensory area to explore.
Zoomazium is the perfect place to explore if you want to escape the heat (or cold) for a while but it is also a good starting point for your visit to the zoo. Creature Feature occurs every morning at 10.30 and encourages children to get close to some of the smaller animals at the zoo and learn about them from zoo staff. Our visitor was an armadillo.
My favourite Zoomazium offering was activity backpacks that the little ones can take with them around the zoo. Each one has a different theme and they are packed with activities, toys, books, magnifiers and things to look out for during your visit. After a lot of deliberation,the girls chose one each; the back yard and big cats.
I love the design of the backpacks, they look so cool and we had lots of comments as we wandered around. The backyard backpack had a number of activities to complete in the backyard of the Zoomazium or when exploring the rest of the zoo.
Can you find these things?“This feels smooth”
The big cats backpack was a good starting point for exploring the new Banyan Wilds exhibit.
I found a tiger.
Having the backpacks, encouraged us to take it slowly as the girls wanted to stop and take in the contents of their packs.
The squirrel puppet from the Backyard pack was a definite favourite and was a constant companion.
Completed activities can be traded for Nature points at Zoomazium’s Nature Exchange. The points can be exchanged for interesting, rocks, fossils and natural materials on display. Nature loving children can also create projects at home to earn additional points. Older children are not left out, there are activity sheets to suit all ages. My eldest chose a worksheet relating to the otter exhibit.
Our favourite part of the day was having the opportunity to feed animals. Bird seed on sticks can be purchased for $1 and the birds fly down to feed from your hand.
The best experience of all though was getting close to the giraffes and hand feeding them. The keeper was great at encouraging the children to ask questions and it was a truly memorable experience for all that I will definitely do again. Giraffe feeding is $5 per person and under 5’s go free with a paying adult.
A day at the zoo was perfect for my nature explorers.
Membership Offer
Zoo membership is perfect for families with young children. There are a number of membership options to suit different needs and admission is free for children under 3.
Right from the Start readers can benefit from a special offer.
Quote MOM15 at checkout to receive a 10% discount plus entry into a draw to win 2 giraffe feeding tickets and 2 tickets for a carousel ride.
Disclaimer: Complimentary tickets for 4 people were received. All opinions are my own and we were under no obligation to write about our visit.
A place where I can kick my shoes off and sink my toes in the mud.
Regular readers will remember that when I moved to the US, I struggled to find a preschool that I was entirely happy with. I became so disillusioned that I decided to home preschool for a year. I’d lost faith of ever finding a preschool that valued play, independence and individuality above academics and rigid schedules until a friend told me of a preschool situated on a farm. The preschool shared my belief that children learn best by doing things that have relevance in their lives through exploring, discovering and creating.
The school is so popular that it was a whole year before I had a chance to visit and see the school for myself. Children were busy pulling apart sunflower heads on the covered deck area whist others moved freely between the different activities indoors and outdoors. The teacher’s enthusiasm and passion for both the children and the setting was evident immediately and a bubble of excitement rose up within me. Our name was put on the waiting list for Sept 2015 but before Christmas a place became available in the co-op class so finally my youngest daughter had the chance to attend. This was perfect as I also had the chance to be involved in this wonderful experience as a parent helper.
There was little doubt in my mind that this was the perfect preschool for my outdoor loving daughter. My expectations were high. I have been fortunate to teach at a highly acclaimed nursery in the UK and to visit the best preschools in my local authority as an advisory teacher. My experience of this school has surpassed all my expectations, I couldn’t have hoped for a more perfect preschool for my daughter and I am only sad that my older daughters didn’t have a chance to go there. After she started, it just seemed to get better. Regularly she would come home covered from head to toe in mud. To some parents this would be horrific but to me it meant she had the freedom to be herself and have fun.
Being a part of the co-op class means that I get to help out once a month. This is the most exciting part for me as I get to join in. I love the covered deck area which enables the children to play outdoors all year. The children explore the whole farm for the 2nd part of the session, mud, water, animals, climbing and balancing. They are actively encouraged to take risks.
As we arrive my daughter always chooses to paint . She liked this painting activity with paintbrushes placed on extended poles.
Painting with feathers
What makes it so perfect?
1. Children are individuals
Small classes and the dedication and experience of the teacher, mean that she understands each child as an individual. My daughter who is uncomfortable speaking in a group or to unfamiliar adults is given time to think about what she wants to say, often being presented with a question at the start of a session and returning for a response later. The child who hates to get his hands dirty is offered alternative tools and all the materials are open-ended so that children can use them as they see fit.
2.Children are competent
Children are always encouraged to try things for themselves, even when they ask for help they are first encouraged to try. The children are trusted to use adult tools for woodworking and tinkering, peeling vegetables and cooking. The teacher shows them how to use the tools safely and responsibly and thereon in they are trusted with them. The children cook their own green eggs and ham on the tiny stove, they dig with metal shovels, they observe candle flames and peel carrots with a peeler. Outside they are permitted to climb trees, feed the animals, hold guinea pigs and dig in the mud. The children are trusted to handle precious materials like birds eggs, chicks and nests.
This tinker table is always available. I regularly see children sawing pieces of wood placed in the clamps, hammering nails or taking apart electronics with a screwdriver. In the nursery I taught at we had a tool bench with real tools but we weren’t confident enough to leave it out all of the time. I have never seen a child have an accident or do anything dangerous with the tools.
My daughter loves to climb trees – I’m not sure I could find anywhere else where this would actively be encouraged.
3. The Preschool fosters understanding and respect for nature.
Many of the activities involve the natural rhythms of the farm, collecting the produce, understanding the cycles of the plants and learning about the animals and creatures they find.
After the first few sessions, my daughter told me they had unicorns at preschool but that it was too small to have grown a horn yet. A preschool with unicorns? Could it get anymore magical?
When the duck’s eggs hatched the children were allowed to hold them.
A bug hunt in the woods
4. Children’s thoughts and opinions are important
Each session the children are asked a question and the answers are recorded for parents to read on the wall outside. The children listen to each others responses and discuss them with respect. The children’s choices are respected as they are presented with a number of activities to choose from at leisure. They also have opportunities to choose the songs they will sing and are confident at asking for things. The children are offered a snack, they choose when and if they would like to eat it .
5. They have fun.
On the last day of school, parents are invited to join the children as they wade in the swamp.
horse riding on the last day of term
.
Best of all, I feel that my daughter experiences something here that she would never have the chance to experience elsewhere. I feel so fortunate to have found this preschool and that my daughter has one more year there. When our time is over I will be so sad but I hope I can remember her teacher’s words of wisdom.
Young children have an immense curiosity about the natural world – the challenge is to stop them from losing it! Nurture that precious sense of wonder …….. A little empathy and enthusiasm is all you need to encourage children to appreciate wild places.
( Nature’s Playground)
There is even frost on the leaf
Natural environments offer opportunities for adventure, which build confidence and instill bravery.
Take time to stop and explore. Rushing children along to the next thing, denies children the opportunity to make their own discoveries.
Using natural materials creatively helps us to appreciate them in new ways.
Wild places provide opportunities for quiet reflection.
musing over a blade of grass
Finding creatures in their natural environment encourages respect and reduces fear.
Explore all types of weather. Rain, snow, wind and sunshine offer many different experiences.
I just want to lie in it
Allow children time to be immersed in their experiences and they will adapt natural materials, weaving them into their own imaginative worlds.
Sometimes nature is cruel but when children come across these things in the wild, it promotes discussion and allows them to navigate difficult concepts in a meaningful way.
We found a dead bird in the garden. How did it get there? What should we do with it? We buried it under a tree.
Being in a natural environment offers children opportunities to develop physical skills, through climbing , negotiating space, moving on different surfaces, reaching, touching and many more.
It makes a big splash. Plop!
Explore with all of your senses.
I’m going to have a shower. I’m getting very wet, now the rain is staying on me.
If I need a little encouragement to go outside I only need to look at the joy, concentration and contemplation on my children’s faces.
I knew my youngest children would learn to read and write in the US and as a result I would have to accept that they would spell differently and use American phrases and grammar. There are some unexpected differences however that I hadn’t considered.
A few days ago my 4-year-old remarked,
“Mummy, all the other children at preschool don’t write t’s properly”
“Really! Can you show me”
It is a bit like an x, like this……
My youngest is 4, I taught her to write her name but it never crossed my mind that letter formation might be different here.
I asked my kindergartener
” Do you write a curly bit on the bottom of the letter t at school?”
“No we do it like a cross”
I checked with the teacher and she explained that they use the ball and stick method where letters such as t, w and y use straight lines rather than curves as they feel it is easier for the young children to master. It is one of many differences that I hadn’t anticipated.
I always believed the transition would be most difficult for my eldest, who went to school in England until she was 8, so learned to read, spell and write ‘the English way’. The first thing she noticed, was that punctuation had different names; full stops were periods and brackets became parentheses. We were really keen that she wouldn’t lose her knowledge of British spelling, so school agreed that she could learn both. As an avid reader and proficient speller this wasn’t really difficult.
Choosing books wasn’t simple either. Most books by British authors are rewritten for an American audience. When we borrow books by British authors from the library or buy books here, they are American versions. My daughter is really eager to maintain her ‘Britishness’, so we often order books from the UK. This way she can still read books with British spelling and vocabulary and is able to read literature from both cultures. Tonight we read an American translation of Pippi Longstocking. This was my daughter’s favourite book for many years, so she knew much of the text by heart. Every time she spotted a difference, she would quote the British text. In the end we got her old battered copy down to compare. I was surprised that though the meaning remained the same, the texts were very different. The monkeys name was different and the language in the British version was more detailed and poetic (although I am sure that the original Swedish is even more rich).
“A remarkable child” said one of the sailors, wiping a tear from his eye when Pippi disappeared from view. (British translation)
” A remarkable child” said one of the sailors as Pippi disappeared in the distance (American translation)
My daughter’s desire to maintain her British identity isn’t without its pitfalls. Once she was marked down in a piece of writing because she referred to a ladybird rather than a ladybug (which I felt was a little harsh).
I thought things would be simpler for the younger ones because they started school here but they have been faced with different challenges:
1. The alphabet ends with zee (my daughter has decided that it makes more sense the American way because the song rhymes).
2. What sound does a short ‘o’ make? To us it is o as in fox, box and top but American pronunciation is different, instead it makes the sound a as in fax, bax or tap. Confusing but also a little amusing to the girls who still have perfect English accents. I think I was fortunate that my daughter was beginning to read when she went to school and had already learned basic phonics so this wasn’t too much of an issue.
3. School reading books have American phrases which to a Brit’s ears sound totally wrong and often make me shudder. An examples from today’s reading book is :
Let’s go find Leo.
The omission of “ly’ at the end of adverbs is common as in ‘We need to be real quick’. I suppose one positive is that the girls generally notice and remark that it sounds different. When my daughter reads a word that we don’t use, she substitutes it for the British word “I’m just going to say mum not mom”.
4. Sometimes they complete worksheets where they have to circle pictures that begin with particular letters. This can be confusing if the British word is different from the American or if it is something traditionally American like baseball equipment.
On the whole I think the girls awareness of the differences gives them a far richer experience of the written word. It certainly gives us a lot to talk about.
My youngest daughter (age 4) has recently started to draw detailed pictures. Mostly they are people. She always starts with the eyes, adds a nose and mouth and then draws the circle for a head. After adding hair, she draws a torso, arms, legs, hands and feet. The finishing touch is always a belly button. I found this fascinating. I don’t remember my older children doing this for any sustained period of time, if at all.
In the earliest stages of children’s drawings of people, there is no torso. At this stage they often draw a navel (or circle) between the legs to depict that there is a torso there. I’m not so familiar with children drawing belly buttons onto a torso however.
Clearly, children under the age of 5 do not generally draw clothes on their people. Seeing a navel on her sister’s drawing, immediately led my 6-year old to the assumption that it was naked. As they talked through the drawing together, the picture became one of a daddy and his little girl in the shower and anatomically correct details were added. These didn’t survive into later drawings when her sister was not present but the placement of the belly button continued.
There is a boy and a girl holding hands, the boy is a man and the girl is his child. They are naked because they were in the shower. ( The lines above are water from the shower)
My intrigue grew, when a friend with a child of a similar age shared her daughter’s drawing of the family. There was the belly button again.
I decided to ask an expert and consulted Ursula Kolbe author of Rapunzel’s Supermarket:All about Young Children and Their Art for help. She suggested that children are fascinated by belly buttons and the drawing of a simple round shape is often intensely satisfying. Perhaps then, it is the circles that she finds fascinating. The drawing sequence always begins with eyes made up of a circle within a circle. Kolbe also suggested that children often copy the ideas of other children but since my little one is yet to attend preschool and only has her sisters to influence her this is unlikely in her case.
Often what children include or don’t include in their drawings is determined by the sequence in which they draw. “If a child draws a torso and then legs they sometimes won’t go back up to include a navel even if they intended to do so” says Kolbe. I watched my daughter’s sequence with interest; she always drew the whole person and then went back to draw the navel as a finishing touch.
Sorting through boxes, I came across some old photographs of me as a child. In amongst them was this.
I must have been 4 or 5 years old when I drew this man, complete with belly button. What a magnificent and timely discovery to help solve my conundrum.
‘ Let’s just go camping for our Summer holiday this year’
Hold on a moment, did those words really come from my mouth? Until my mid twenties I recoiled in horror at the thought of camping. After I left girl guide camp half way through the week because I hated it so much, I convinced myself that camping wasn’t for me. In truth, I didn’t hate it at all. A rumour that newcomers would be pushed in the cesspit if they didn’t pass initiation had worried me so much that I begged to go home. My views changed after a few great camping trips as an adult but I’d never have considered a camping trip for my main holiday.
A yearning to explore the beauty of the Pacific Northwest, good weather and the children’s eagerness to go camping, convinced me it was a good idea. An eight hour car journey with a canoe on top of the car, three young children, a dog and a heatwave; perhaps I had lost my mind?
Amazingly, the car journey was fine. The first couple of hours were spent playing ‘would you rather….’ and guessing the names of characters from books or screen. The rest of the journey we listened to cd’s of musicals and admired the view.
Our destination Curlew Lake State Park, chosen for its beauty, a place for the children to swim and for my husband and the girls to go fishing. “Fishing!” I hear my 20- year-old self, with an irrational fear of fish exclaim, ” are you intent on sending me on the holiday from hell?” Strangely none of those sentiments cross my mind as we set up the tent in a quiet corner of the campsite on the shore of the Lake.
Without a shop or a playground in sight, would the children be happy? For now the excitement of sleeping in a sleeping bag, cooking outside and trying to catch their first fish fuelled their enthusiasm.
They were eager to go to the beach to swim. I was amazed that we were the only people on the beach. The ground wasn’t soft like the lake at home but filled with slippery algae. It didn’t put them off. They used the algae and stones to create patterns on the ground and then set up their own foot spa, spreading the algae over their feet and washing it off.
The Foot SpaI sat and watched from a distance, joining in when they asked me to. At that moment I knew why this holiday was no longer my biggest nightmare. The children were immersed in the moment, playing, discovering and sharing. In the distance, my husband was on the lake in the canoe and I was here in a rare moment of quiet. This wasn’t one of those family holidays where we rushed to cram in every little experience. I’m sure that these unhurried moments are the ones they will remember most.
There was a child went forth everyday,
And the first object he look’d upon, that object he became.
And that object became part of him for the day or a certain part of the day, Or for many years or stretching cycles of years.
WaltWhitman
They found magic in the simple things.
Look I think Eeyore has been here
Maybe it’s his barbecue?
Really! Do you think so?
musing over a blade of grass building sculpturesMy eldest had big girl time with dad, paddling the canoe at sunrise. Nights weren’t the most restful we had ever had, with five people and a dog in the same tent but there are few things more peaceful than the middle of a lake in the early morning.
It didn’t take us long to understand the rhythms of nature; the time of day that the deer would wander down the hill to visit, geese would fly across the lake, fish would start to bite or that darkness would fall.
Sometimes though, nature takes you by surprise. One night, as we were snuggled in the porch of the tent telling stories, the poles holding the porch open, fell down. As if from nowhere, the winds whipped up and tugged at the tent. Before we knew it dad and big sister had us zipped up inside while they battled against the wind and dust to secure the tent. I tried to drown out the rangers talk of trees blowing down, by telling the story of ‘My Favourite Things’ from the ‘Sound of Music’ and singing. Enraptured, the little ones soon forgot about the storm. They implored me to tell the story of ‘The Sound of Music’- the whole story, all 3 hours of it complete with every song. Thankfully the storm was short, the tent and trees survived and unlike my 11-year old self, I didn’t get the urge to run home.
One of the reasons for choosing Curlew Lake was the fishing, so in the early evenings we took the canoe out to explore the lake and try to catch fish. The girls had only ever caught small fish and were eager to catch one they could eat. Our family trips in the canoe lacked the quiet and patience needed to catch anything of note. However, on the last day their wish came true. Our neighbouring campers, who visit every year to fish, offered to take us out in their boat and help the girls to catch trout. The fish came one after the other.
Here we go My first fishThen the fish got bigger
They were so proud of their catch.
After the holiday, fishing has become a regular pastime. When dad goes out on his own, the girls greet him eagerly to see if he has caught anything we can eat. Other times, we all go to the lake together and mix up fishing with swimming and playing. On a recent trip, we explored the river bank , a place we probably would never have visited if it weren’t for fishing . Watching the girls excitement at their discoveries and creating with sticks and stones was magical. We returned home with a pile of sticks and ideas for making things with them. Moments like this are important for all of us. Resting our minds through daydreaming and play increases productivity and creativity says Daniel Levitin author of ‘The Organized Mind’. Without time for spontaneity, children lack the mental space to come up with new ideas and ways of doing things.
It makes a big splash. Plop! Drawing with sticks on rocks building a xylophone Let’s see how many ‘Y’ sticks we can find. Look what it can do.As I looked out across the river at the jumping fish, the blue skies and the green trees, I could picture an old couple; man fishing, wife painting the landscape or writing in a notebook. I suppose fishing isn’t so bad after all. I’m happy to spend many more years waiting for the fish.
I don’t make assumptions about what my children will learn from an activity. I don’t presume that they will learn anything, I’m happy if they are absorbed and having fun.
Sometimes a simple activity can unexpectedly become a rich learning experience full of questions and discoveries. These for me are precious moments. I have recently become aware that the simplest craft activities lead us unexpectedly into an exploration of scientific concepts. For example,we recently acquired a movie reel canister, perfect for paint rolling . I gave the girls a small box of marbles and small balls (a ping-pong eyeball and a golf ball) and a few pots of paint. The discussion that ensued was interesting.
Child 1 : 5-years-old Child 2 : 3-years-old.
Child 1: The eyeballs go much slower. I think because the eyeball is bigger it goes much slower but the marble is smaller so it goes faster.
Child 2: It’s too sticky
Why do you think it is sticky?
Child 2: Maybe there’s too much paint.
Child 1: This one is not as sticky as the other one but it is much bigger. Maybe it’s because I didn’t put as much paint on.
What makes the 2 balls different?
Child 1: One is bumpy and one is smooth…………..but that would make it slower.
It gets stuck and the other one goes really fast. Maybe the material it is made from is sticky but now that we don’t have as much paint on, it goes fast. Perhaps the paint sticks to the material and stops it slipping and sliding.
Maybe because the golf ball is hard it doesn’t stick to the paper, maybe the paint doesn’t like it and slips off.
When we went to wash the balls we checked to see which would float.
Child 1: The golf ball and the marble sink and the eyeball floats. This one floats because it is all filled up with air.
Child 2: This one sinks because it is bigger…………………….. but what about the marble, that sinks?
Child 1: It is because it is heavier.
The connection between the mass of the ball and how fast it travelled did not register but there are many other projects we can explore to help them work it out.
These incidental science experiments happen a lot. There was the time I left an empty milk carton outside and they turned it into a tap by inserting a straw. The girls decided they needed to find a way to turn it on and off. Further experimentation helped them work out how to get the tap to drain all of the water. My role as teacher was not to give them the answers but to ask questions like ‘How could you make it better?’ What could you use to…? or what would happen if…?
Having open-ended materials readily available makes it easy for them to instigate projects . This week, I put pieces of foam in the water table soaked in bubble mixture and showed them how to squeeze the foam to make bubbles. I knew my eldest would love this. She had another idea, taking a piece of plastic tubing she blew into it creating lots of foam. The children’s ideas are always the best! She asked me for test tubes and filled them with bubble mixture and opened her own beauty parlour with potions that made your hair soft or skin younger.
In the TED talk, Science is Play , Beau Lotto views Science as a way of being. He explains,
“We normally walk through life responding. If we ever want to do something different, we have to step into uncertainty…. Science lets us step into uncertainty through the process of play.”
Our youngest children are full of uncertainty so they are naturally questioning things all of the time. Isn’t that the foundation of science? Our skill as teachers is not to feed them the answers but to give them the tools to make their own discoveries. Do we need to plan specific science lessons? Isn’t science and discovery the very essence of childhood?Children don’t call it science, they call it play and in play they work things out for themselves.
I love this quote from the American Scientist article entitled ‘Science as Play
‘When I grew up, every kid put in some serious sandbox time, and it often involved building (what seemed like) complex sand structures around which fantasies were composed and competitions took place with neighborhood kids. The organic chemistry labs (at Yale during the junior year) were fun in the same way. We constructed molecules and competed with each other in the class on speed and yield. We mixed things up, and chemical transformations took place. We separated, we isolated, we analyzed. The odors were pleasant, and the physical process of working with our hands, as with sand, was satisfying. The biweekly organic labs became the high points of my week. By the end of the year, I knew that I wanted to be an organic chemist, as I realized one could play in the sandbox for a living. (Joseph B Lambert)
Playing in the sandbox for a living? ‘Isn’t that what I do?
As a finalist in America’s Most Playful Family contest our task was to create a 90 second video showing tips that will help families become more playful. With so much to say about what we do and why play is important to us, this was a real challenge but here is the finished product.
For further detail about the activities and ideas featured in the video, follow the links below:- Play Don’t Throw Away
It always feels good to get a little something from CBeebies drop into my inbox. We miss CBeebies quality programming featuring British accents and no adverts. American children’s television isn’t all bad though. Through childhood, student years and as a mother I have always been a huge Sesame Street fan. The wonderful documentary Being Elmo made me an even bigger fan. The latest news from CBeebies was the most exciting I’ve received in a long while. CBeebies and Sesame Street are working together to create a new series, The Furchester Hotel.
Filming started on Monday 24 February, and will continue for just over three months. The enormous Furchester Hotel set fills all 700 square metres of the HQ2 studio at dock10, MediaCityUK, and was transported in 10 lorries from the three construction companies employed to build it over two and half months. It shows the interior and the garden of The Furchester Hotel and is raised 1.1 metres off the floor in order for the puppeteers to perform standing in the main areas. The set is double height with a sweeping staircase that guests take to the bedrooms when the lift isn’t working – which is almost always.
How amazing does that set sound and how disappointed am I that I can’t accept an invite to visit the set for myself? It makes me want to jump on a plane right away.
What is The Furchester Hotel?
The Furchester Hotel, is about a close-knit family of cheerfully incompetent Muppet monsters who own and operate an ‘almost’ world-class hotel. The proprietors are Funella Furchester, the welcoming monster owner, her loving husband, Furgus Fuzz, and their daughter, the unflappable Phoebe Furchester-Fuzz. The Furchester family is joined at the hotel by Elmo, Phoebe’s cousin who is on an extended visit, and Cookie Monster, who has landed his dream job as room service and dining-room waiter.
The Furchester Hotel aims to promote and build creative problem-solving skills for its young viewers. As the Furchester family scrambles to meet the needs of its guests, the monsters use their exceptional thinking skills to brainstorm possible solutions to problems that arise. And even when they think they have exhausted all the possibilities, their perseverance prevails because their family motto is, “A Furchester never gives up!” The daily mishaps and mix-ups at The Furchester Hotel will provide many opportunities for our young Muppet friends to model ways in which pre-schoolers’ natural curiosity and creativity can be harnessed to collaborate and solve problems.
Cookie Monster and Elmo are in Town
It takes approximately 70 cast and crew to make the series, including nine puppeteers and four assistant puppeteers. Experienced puppeteer Louise Gold plays Funella; Mak Wilson, who has been designated Puppet Captain, performs many of the guest Muppets, including resident guest Harvey P Dull; Andrew Spooner performs Furgus; and Sarah Burgess plays Phoebe. Elmo and Cookie Monster are played by Sesame Street puppeteers Ryan Dillon and David Rudman respectively and the head writer for the series is Belinda Ward.
“We’re so excited to be starting work on The Furchester Hotel. The studio set is truly amazing, and to see the puppets arriving on site really brings the project to life,” says Alison Stewart, Head of CBeebies Production. “We’re delighted to welcome The Furchester family, Elmo, Cookie Monster and their friends to Salford.”
“The excitement in MediaCityUK is palpable as we begin production on The Furchester Hotel,” says Carol-Lynn Parente, Executive Producer, Sesame Workshop. “We know this series will engage children with humorous problems and quirky solutions in ways that only the beloved Muppets can. We look forward to seeing The Furchester Family, along with their friends Cookie Monster and Elmo, delighting children and families on CBeebies for years to come.”
“Me cannot wait to ‘work’ as dining-room waiter at The Furchester Hotel,” says Cookie Monster. “Me hear their cookies are delicious. Om nom nom.”
The Furchester Hotel is co-produced by Sesame Workshop, the nonprofit educational organisation behind Sesame Street, and the In House Production team at CBeebies, the BBC’s pre-school children’s channel. The 52×11-minute series is set to debut on CBeebies in Autumn 2014 in the UK.
Completed activities can be traded for Nature points at
Explore all types of weather. Rain, snow, wind and sunshine offer many different experiences.
Right from the Start 