The Old Woman in a Shoe (1980)

hahaha [Music] yes I'm The Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe I had so many children I didn't know what to do [Music] people used to ask me how many do you have and I couldn't answer you see I really didn't know did I have five children or four or ten I'd never counted them and since I didn't really know how many children I had I was never really sure how many bowls I'd need for their dinner I always used to wonder will this many be enough or maybe I should take out one more I always wished I had a way to be sure but I was just too busy to stop and think about it now I know you're thinking why didn't she try counting her children and I knew my numbers I could say one two three four five and so on but I just didn't know how to use numbers for counting things if I did then I would have known how many polls I needed I never knew but one day my children gave me an idea look there they are let's ride them I wondered if there were enough horses for All My Sons and then I saw how my sons found out even though they couldn't count things either one horse for me and one horse for you and one for you and you and one for you too you see they matched one horse with each boy that was good thinking now and then I thought what maybe I could use matching to find out how many bowls I needed I'll take my bowls outside and match them with the children oh that wasn't too good an idea there had to be an easier way I wondered about an idea I had that might work so I said children children I need your help would each of you please give me one stone well each of them did [Music] and soon a handful of stones one from each one of my children it's how I did it the stones helped me find out how many bowls I know it worked I laid out the stones then I took out my bowls again I matched one bowl with each Stone that let me be sure that I would have one bowl for each child because I knew I had one stone for each child dimple wasn't it I didn't know why I hadn't thought of that years ago that's when I realized that I could match the bowls with numerals in the same way I tried [Music] first I got rid of the stones then I put numerals in their places [Music] then I tried matching the numerals with the bowls the way I match the stones with the bowls I kept the numerals in the right order the right order that was important then with this bowl I match the numeral one here with the next Bowl the numeral two then the numeral three oh it was easy point to a bowl then put down a numeral four and five six seven eight and nine and since nine was the last numeral I matched that meant that I had nine bowls and if I had nine bowls what I knew how many children I had nine children I had nine children and nine bowls for them that number in my head I knew I'd need nine slices of bread one for each child but now I knew how to match each slice with a numeral one two three four five six seven [Music] eight nine nine slices of bread I counted them counting is really easy when you know how to match oh I was so excited about counting but I forgot I had to finish getting dinner ready too high I hate bending down me too our hooks are too low the hooks oh they were another problem but I thought maybe I could try matching again so I imagined that all the children were gone [Music] saw how the hooks were arranged the lowest Hook was at one end and the hooks got higher toward the other end the hooks were arranged in order by height then I thought if my children arrange themselves in order by height the same way the hooks were arranged why the taller children would have hooks they could reach and the shorter children would have hooks they could reach and then I decided I I could give each hook a numeral and if the children always remember their numerals they would always be able to find their right hooks oh I was so excited but I hadn't forgotten my hungry children all nine of them that day I had the right number of bowls finally it was wonderful on one tray I had one two three bowls on another tray you guessed it three bowls and on the other one three more that helped me make a very interesting discovery I knew that I had three and three and three more bowls fine bowls so nine had to be the same as three and three and three and then I thought nine children but how many are girls and how many are boys I had one two three four four girls and I had one two three four five five boys and that's how I discovered five and four is also the same as nine they're different names for the same number oh there were so many things I wanted to count and I taught my children how to do it too yes I'm the old woman who lived in a shoe I can count my nine children I know what to do they need nine spoons and bowls and nine slices of bread and tonight Belle sleep snugly in nine little bit [Music] oh