20th November

The string team are back at the local primary school - but this time with a different reception class. A few changes have been made for this group. The first being how the children are brought into the space - before they were seated in a circle but today a rope lies on the floor and they are asked to sit behind it in an 'end-on' fashion. The string babies were given out and the 'How to hold a baby song 'sung. In this set up the children seem immediately more responsive to the discussion following the song. I wonder if this is down to a difference in the class or because the children are more used to sitting end on with one focus rather than in a circle. When asked what the babies can do after eating many suggestions come forward notably 'Burping' and 'teeth brushing'.

It comes to our attention that not all the children keep hold of their babies which leads to an interesting discussion on how to invest the string babies with worth to increase the likelihood that they will be kept hold of. Naturally there will be some children who won't want to hold on to their babies - which is absolutely fine - but the challenge of investing these babies with as much worth as possible is fascinating. At the end of the school session - I noted that the majority of the children were keen to whisper to their teacher the names they had given their babies - This seems like a brilliant way of investing worth - inviting the children to share with everyone the names of their babies and not just that - but also making it a habit for the actors to constantly check in with the children regarding the state of their baby - 'Is your baby happy?' 'How does your baby feel now?' - the hope being that the more we enter into the world of the string babies - the more the children will enter into that world and therefore be less likely to leave their babies lonely on the side :-(