T is for Tortoise

In week two, the children learnt about the letter 'T' for Tortoise. We read 'The Foolish Tortoise' written by Richard Buckley and illustrated by Eric Carle. This story centres around a tortoise who removes his shell to be able to move through life more quickly. However, he realises after a few scary encounters with animals like hornets and birds that he is happy going slow and returns to the comfort and safety of his shell. Although tortoises don't actually remove their shell in 'real life', this story emphasises the  importance of being happy and content with who you are, a very important concept for children to learn at this age. To engage the children through rhyme we sang 'The Little Tortoise' which was slightly adapted from 'The Little Turtle' to make it more relevant to the session. See below for the lyrics.

The Little Tortoise

I had a little tortoise.

He lived inside a box.

He walked on land.

And he climbed on rocks.

He snapped at a mosquito.

He snapped at a flea.

He snapped at a worm.

And he snapped at me.

He caught the mosquito.

He caught the flea.

He caught the worm.

But he didn't catch me.

Following our song, the children moved to our outside craft area where we each completed a tortoise mosaic using a paper plate for a shell, four pre-cut legs, one head and tail, and six pebbles which were glued to the shell using Supatac (available from Zart Art). To complete the session, we also met a tortoise called Georgie who is a Western Hermann's Tortoise and the children were able to touch her shell and back legs. She was a very good girl and the children were thrilled to meet her!