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.