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Do you wonder how you can help our toddlers to keep their distance? Will your child will cope with not mingling as they did before? In Covid-secure sessions we won’t be using the parachute and licking each other’s faces will no longer be acceptable*.

I know that some will find this challenging, but the environment will help. There will be a small heart-shaped mat for each family to sit on and around, providing you with your little patch of the hall. This will be your base. We’ll all be sitting in a new formation so it will feel familiar, but definitely different to the way it was back in March 2020. Do you remember those days? It feels like a very long time ago.

The smaller size of the group will mean it’s quieter and calmer. I have a few new songs (teaser: they are about toast, a man named Joe and involve silly movements) and I will work my socks off to entertain and engage the children so their focus is on me, rather than each other.

We won’t just be sitting either — toddlers will get up and march on the spot, jump and wriggle. They will use their active bodies, and the space of the hall will help our toddlers to keep their distance. Remember, there’s a huge garden behind the church that you can go and run in at any time if your child needs to express their energy!

Sign up here.

*If this is your first session with me, rest assured that this is just a joke in rather poor taste. No faces are licked at my Rhymetime.

Unless you’re exempt, everyone over 11 will have to wear a face covering at Rhymetime. I haven’t met anyone who relishes the wearing of a mask, but we all know that by covering our mouths and noses we protect others around us. My mum pointed to me the real up-side to face coverings: they will keep our noses warm in winter.

Cold weather aside, I have noticed how face coverings change our communication. No longer can I broadly grin at people, or pull a silly face to apologise for a minor misdemeanour. When we’ve got our masks on we are constantly developing our ability to express ourselves through our eyes, hands and calm voices. Imagine: we need to actually state what we want or mean! This is not easy for all of us. This new reality is pushing us to rethink the way we do things and I really believe we’ll emerge from the experience as better communicators. We’ll be waving, giving thumbs-up, wiggling our eyebrows and verbally expressing the things that we used to just show instinctively on our faces.

Apparently some people on the internet think that masks scare children. That hasn’t been my experience. The little ones will watch and learn from seeing your resilience and adaptability over the half an hour you are at Rhymetime, and will communicate with you as much as ever.

For real silliness, have a listen to a song I made up about covering our faces.

Have you signed up for the in-person sessions yet?

Or perhaps you’d like to join my online livestreams.

Tomorrow: the unusual combination of toddlers and social distancing.

In the seventeen years that I have been running Rhymetime, I have had a very informal payment system. You turn up on the day and put your money in the pot (though I’ve moved to contactless in recent years). Simple. No commitment necessary.

Book your place

This has had to change, and I am asking everyone to prebook. This limits the number of families in the room and I can be sure that I can cover the cost of hiring the hall. I’ve been wondering whether making that commitment up front will actually change your experience of the group. Well, there may be days when everything feels tricky and you don’t think that you’ll be able to get out of the house. If you’ve paid up front, perhaps it will give you that little push you need to make it to the session. We all know that singing can transform your mood and brighten your day when it starts badly.

What if I’m ill? Or my baby is unwell?

Of course, you might feel ill and have to self-isolate. You will still be able to get your Rhymetime fix. Give me a shout and I will provide you with a code to access the live stream at any time.

But isn’t Rhymetime known for huge groups?

True! In the past it wasn’t unusual to have over twenty families attend a session and I think 41 is my record. We’d have to meet in a stadium to accommodate that number with social distancing rules but a group that size can be brilliant fun and have a great energy to it.

What now?

This term there will only ever be a maximum of ten families in the room. With a small number of families who come regularly we can create a calm and responsive environment. There will be lots of space, which will encourage us to focus on our children and on listening to live music. I know that the number of people in the large sessions can feel overwhelming to some, and there are children who will thrive on knowing that the group is small. All in all, this will be a huge bonus for the introverts in our families!

No more squash and a squeeze

You know, there are advantages for those of us who struggle to make it out of the door in the morning as we tackle nappy crises and deal with the constant search for snacks and socks. Now you won’t need to worry about finding a space in the circle and squeezing into the group if you are running late. We’ll be expecting you and our masked faces will soon become familiar to each other. I will be able to include every suggestion for Bubblegum or Slice, Slice and no-one will have to push and shout for attention. I expect that the smaller Rhymetimes will feel much more intimate and calm.

Want to find out if I’m right? If you would like your name to be added to the waiting list for the toddler sessions, or to sign-up for the baby sessions, hop on over and sign up.

Tomorrow, I’ll be thinking about how wearing face-coverings might actually help us communicate.

Or….. from limitations to strengths in the age of social distancing.

Next week, I will be back in Bedminster Methodist Church Hall, singing with you again, in-person. After six months of online sessions, this will feel momentous. Of course, I will not just be flinging open the doors of the hall and letting everyone flood in, run around and interact in a way we used to call normal. There will be definite changes. These are to keep people safe and we’re becoming used to restrictions on our behaviour to protect ourselves and others around us.

We often see rules as negatives, things that stop us from doing what we want to do. But I’ve been thinking about the Orson Welles quote “The enemy of art is the absence of limitations”. Now let me make it clear that I am NOT suggesting that Rhymetime is “art”! However, perhaps these new COVID19 limitations could actually make the experience of Rhymetime better. I’ve been thinking carefully about keeping everyone safe, and how these new conditions could enhance your experience. Over the next couple of days, I want to look at how these vital safety measures could bring real benefits to you and your experience of Rhymetime.

Tomorrow: small groups and committing yourself.

Sign-up if you’d like to join me.

In years gone by, when my children were small and regularly woke before dawn, I would get up very early on May Day.

Taking a flask of hot chocolate and a bag of marmite sandwiches, I’d bundle their little sleepy bodies into the car and take them to Brandon Hill.

We would walk up the hill in the first light of dawn and look at each other excitedly as we heard the bells of the Morris dancers up by Cabot’s Tower.

Every year, the violins and accordions play and groups of Morris Dancers congregate there to dance in the dawn of the 1st May. It was magical to be there. Now my children sleep soundly and would be very annoyed if I woke them . So I sing to myself, and remember those days.

Here’s a video I took of it in 2016.

https://rhymetimebristol.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/img_8689.mov

When you’re a mum of three teens, you can’t be picky about where to record these clips! This is a sweet rhyme for the spring time.

I woke up in a foul mood this morning. I’d been worrying in the night about the future of everything, and was not ready when the alarm went. I spilt coffee on the stairs. We didn’t have enough milk. An important piece of homework had been torn and crumpled and school jumpers were still damp from the wash. I felt like the worst mother in the world, and it was only Wednesday! We made it to school on time. Just.

To be honest, at that point I would have loved to creep home and curl up under the duvet for a couple of hours. A cup of tea and a bar of chocolate would have been perfect. But I had a Rhymetime session to run. The hall needed sweeping and the room to be prepared.

Then all of you arrived. “Hello, everybody,” we sang. Your lovely children’s faces beamed at me and our voices joined in song. As we wriggled and bounced, and stretched and clapped, everything was alright again. I’ve been doing this for years, and I am still amazed at how singing with a group of people can lift me out of one state of mind and propel me into focusing on the songs and the people.

I didn’t need the tea or the chocolate. Rhymetime was enough to get me into a happy place. Thank you everyone.