16 October 2005

Farmer in the Dell


Today we had a delightful afternoon with the local homeschool group. Our group of families meets the Third Sunday each month and involves Mass at 11:00am followed by no planned activities until 1:30pm when we have some devotions in the Church for about 30 minutes, then more socialising. As each family has, on average, about six children there are a lot of people with which to interact.
At one point a group of the children of varying ages began to play "Farmer in the Dell" (pictured). One child starts in the middle as the farmer. Then the children all join hands and dance around in a circle singing:
The farmer in the dell, The farmer in the dell, Hi Ho the dairy-o, The farmer in the Dell.
Then they sing:
The farmer chooses a wife, the farmer chooses a wife, Hi Ho the dairy-o, the farmer chooses a wife.
Then the "farmer" chooses one of the circling children to be his "wife".
The children then sing, "The wife wants a child...", the "wife" then picking a child, then "The child wants a dog" and "The dog wants a cat" and "the Cat wants a mouse" and "The mouse wants some cheese." and "The cheese starts to dance..."
This is the end and the "Cheese" is the farmer in the next round.
Good fun all round. As you can see there are children of all ages playing - even a three year old boy standing in the middle watching all those around him in amusement.

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