It's the start of term for most children this week, so it's a good time to watch what Mr Tumble and his friends do at school. When my little boy was settling in at nursery recently I tried to show him other children enjoying playgroups and school to help convince him that these were generally considered to be a good thing. (In fact, searching for the references to school was one of the main inspirations for this blog.)
School
Series 1 (2006) On the
Busy Places DVD
When Tyra arrives at SCHOOL the other children are doing puzzles and art projects while waiting for school to start. Fiona, the TEACHER, starts the day by SINGING the Good Morning song. As part of the song Tyra has to find her name label to put on the board so that everybody she knows she is at school today.
The children do more singing:
Ragdoll's arms have got no bones,
when you lift them up they go flop.
Ragdoll's legs have got no bones,
when you lift them up they go flop.
Ragdoll's head just wigs and wags,
what a funny doll made of rags.
(You can replace “ragdoll” with someone's name, and “doll” in the last line with Boy or Girl.)
Later we see Tyra and her classmates in the school hall doing PE. After all that climbing and jumping they are tired and thirsty so are looking forward to their drink of JUICE and EATING a piece of APPLE or BANANA when they get back to their CLASSROOM.
Mr Tumble is also at school today, wearing a very smart “Tumble High School” uniform. He has to be reminded to sit the right way round on his chair, but his schoolboy's cap stays the wrong way round. He finds some PAPER and tries to DRAW A PICTURE with an enormous PENCIL but eventually finds a smaller pencil which makes it easier for him to draw a self-portrait.
You sign...
SCHOOL
TEACHER
CLASSROOM
FRIENDS
BOY
GIRL
TOILET
SITTING DOWN
DRINKING
EATING
Signing tips
The movement used in the sign for TEACHER reminds me of the sign for SPEAK or SAY, except you move your hand forward twice and you use both hands therefore a teacher is someone who talks four times as much!
There are two parts to the sign for CLASSROOM: TEACHER and ROOM. Lots of different types of rooms and places are defined by making a square shape in front of you. The sign for PICTURE is also a square shape drawn in front of you.
NAMES: There are lots of conventions about names in deaf culture, but often using the initial of a person's name is enough. My little boy's name begins with a J, so he learned that letter quickly as he saw Justin sign his name that way in every episode of Something Special. Sometimes in a group where several names begin with the same letter you need to sign more than just the initial letter. Instead of signing the whole name, you could sign the initial plus BOY or GIRL, as Justin does in today's episode: he signs T GIRL for Tyra, R BOY for Ryan, J GIRL for Julie etc. In another episode we see Justin sign J SMALL for one of his friends called Jack. Sometimes you add a person's characteristic to their initial, such as using the sign for glasses for a spectacles wearer.
It's time to sign some more:
Best bit
We meet Tyra, Julie and Libby-May again in later episodes of
Something Special, looking quite grown-up.
Play
Series 5, (2010) on the
Out and About DVD
Mr Tumble is playing Giant Jenga outside in the sunshine before he sends his spotty bag to Justin. Justin is at a playgroup in East London with his friends Leo and Connor. The children are having great FUN playing under a sprinkler and POURING water over a WATER WHEEL. Then Justin plays with Calipha and Katab in the SANDPIT where they have buried some interesting things.
Back at Tumble Towers Mr Tumble wants to play some games, so firstly he plays TENNIS with Lord Tumble. Mr Tumble gets a bit overwhelmed by Lord Tumble's superior tennis skills, so he plays Tiddlywinks with Grandad Tumble instead. Grandad Tumble has to go and retrieve all of the lost “winks” so Mr Tumble would like to play another game now and says: I NEED SOMEONE to play HIDE AND SEEK with. Lord Tumble comes along again and wants to know: WHY are you COUNTING? He asks: Can I PLAY? and reveals: I KNOW all of Mr TUMBLE'S HIDING places. He spots Mr Tumble's BOW-TIE behind the chair, but Mr Tumble isn't there. Lord Tumble spots a pair of red BOOTS behind the curtain, but Mr Tumble isn't there either. Everyone decides that Mr Tumble has finally found a game he's good at.
At the playgroup Justin and Zack have two new things to play with: a yellow ball and a PARACHUTE. Justin sends a smaller parachute back to Mr Tumble in the SPOTTY BAG.
You sign...
WATER PLAY
SANDPIT
PARACHUTE
PLAY
Signing tips
- It is a bit hard to see, but to sign SAND, Justin rubs his thumbs against the pads of his fingers, as though he's rubbing butter into flour to make a cake.
It's time to sign some more
It's OK.
I'M PLAYING LOTS of GAMES
JUSTIN is PLAYING LOTS of GAMES with his FRIENDS
LET'S GO and MEET MY FRIENDS.
WHAT shall we PLAY TODAY?
SORRY
NO PEEPING
GOOD IDEA
CLEVER
YES I KNOW
YOU DON'T have to TELL ME
SEE YOU SOON
This PARACHUTE GAME looks like GREAT fun
RUNNING UNDERNEATH the PARACHUTE
Best bits
Justin buries Calipha's foot in some sand and she tells him off. Then Calipha spontaneously signs RED BALL - clever girl.
Lord Tumble's laid-back tennis style is amazing – why haven't we seen him at Wimbledon yet? This scene contains lots of wonderful slapstick such as Lord Tumble managing to hit the tennis ball from inside his top hat.
The lovely shot of a little boy peeping out from the centre of the parachute is used in the opening credits for this series.
My little boy almost explodes with excitement every time he watches this episode as Justin has a yellow football the same as his.
More Educative Tumbling
Music (Series 1)
Series 1 Justin meets the school band and joins in a music lesson.
Garden (Series 1)
The children from Oakleigh School organise a visit to their beautiful sensory garden.
Colours (Series 2)
Justin doesn't actually say that he is visiting a school, but we see the children painting in a classroom.
People who help us (Series 2)
The toys want to play school, so Mr Tumble joins in and pretends to do several jobs.
Shapes (Series 2)
The children at school are using sticky paper to make pictures from different shapes. This episode contains one of my all-time favourite moments, when the teacher advises one of the pupils to use, “Just a little bit of lick!” However, it also contains one of my little boy's least favourite bits when Mr Tumble wears the weird face picture he has made out of shapes – scary!
Art (Series 2)
We see the pictures that children at school make, using lots of different materials.
Opposites (Series 2)
Children playing in a playground go up and down, inside and outside.
Drive (Series 5)
This shows the journey to school and a typical special school bus.
School (Series 3)
Justin goes to school to meet Noor, who's in the hydrotherapy pool. She has fun splashing. We'll be looking at this episode in detail next week.
What next?
- Teach your child the first letter of his or her name. You can find the finger-spelling alphabet here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Sign_Language or here: http://www.british-sign.co.uk/fingerspelling.php where there are lots of free resources to help you learn the fingerspelling alphabet.
- As well as showing your child the sign that you do, trace out the sign on their hand too. My little boy's name begins with J, so I put the capital J from his bath-time sponge letters onto his palm and traced over that. Then I put two sponge letters on the side of the bath and asked him which one was “his” letter. When he sees a picture of Justin in the Something Special magazine, he signs J.
- Line up dollies and teddies and play schools with them. Teach them some signs and the letters of their names.
