Saturday 30 March 2013

Tall hats and rabbit ears


It may have been a freezing cold day today, but inside Whippy Cove's little church, there was enough warmth being generated to heat the whole church and all the homes that surround it! 

The source of all this warmth was of course the little learners of Sunnyside School. Family, friends, staff and children all came together to celebrate Easter and to marvel at the wonderful array of beautifully hand crafted Easter bonnets, worn by Sunnyside's little learners.

The parents and carers of Sunnyside School rose to the challenge set to them a little while ago, to work with their children at home to produce an Easter bonnet for the parade.  The response was tremendous, not to mention the results of all their hard work.

Sitting in the pews were; tall hats, fluffy hats, wide hats, thin hats, hats with dingle dangles, hats decorated with eggs, hats that were eggs, hats festooned with chicks, hats adorned with fresh flowers, hats with ears and hats with beaks, hats with wings and hats with feet! 
It was indeed, a hat extravaganza!

The little learners sang and the little learners paraded. It was a truly wonderful event.

Well done everybody! 

At the end of the day, and whilst it was still fresh in her mind, Mrs Crayon dashed home and rustled up a rhyme and a doodle to mark this wonderful occasion.





When you make your Easter bonnet



When you make your Easter bonnet,
Do your best to build it high.
Just throw everything up on it,
And make it reach the sky!!!


HAPPY,HAPPY EASTER EVERYONE!


The little learners will be back for more fun and learning on Monday 15th April.

In the meantime Mrs Crayon will continue to post doodles and musings throughout the Easter break, courtesy of the clever little learners of Sunnyside School.

Tuesday 26 March 2013

Green hair and shiny eggs



"Five shiny eggs golden and brown!"

No... not one of Mrs Crayon's hearty breakfasts, but the title of one of the songs the little learners will be performing later in the week, as part of their Easter celebrations.

It is Easter week!!! So the little learners launched straight into Easter makes of all kinds today. The classroom was filled with brightly coloured tissue paper, crepe paper, card, paints, glue, tape, shiny bits of this and fluffy bits of that!

 The makes included miniature gardens, Easter cards, Easter boxes (in readiness for a certain rabbity visitor later in the week) and Easter bonnets for the forth coming Easter bonnet parade.

"I'm excited for the Easter bonnet parade!" Said a very animated little learner to Mrs Crayon today.
Before Mrs Crayon had the opportunity to respond, the little learner was off and gone. Approximately ten minutes later, the same little learner returned and with a quizzical look on her face, she said to Mrs Crayon.
"What is a bonnet?"

This wasn't the only incident that brought a smile to Mrs Crayon's face today.  Little learners have started to bring into school the grass heads they made with Mrs Very Jolly a few weeks ago. 
How could anyone forget the seeds and sawdust fiasco, where little learners and Mrs Very Jolly alike, ended up covered in grass seeds and sawdust following their grass head making activity. (See "Handy gadgets and stuffed stockings")

Well, those very same little grass head characters, are now sporting lush green hair dos, and this makes them impossible to look at without laughing out loud!!!

The team laughed at them a lot today and Mrs Crayon felt duty bound to  doodle their transformation!!!

   Just look at me for a little while,
And I guarantee that I'll make you smile!!!


Friday 22 March 2013

Funny notions and magic potions



What do magic potions and outer space have in common?

The answer is of course, the little learners of Sunnyside School!! 

Those little Sunnysiders have got all inspired about the planets and they have requested to learn more about the subject. So the team has responded to this request, by seeking out a wide variety of fiction and non fiction books to share with the little learners. They have also created an "outer space" area in the classroom where the little learners can "outer space role play."

This afternoon Mrs Jolly found several large boxes, suitable for the little learners to use as spacecrafts, and the little learners found colanders and saucepans from the home corner to use as space helmets.

So, whilst in the classroom little learners were sitting in boxes with kitchen utensils on their heads, in the garden more groups of little learners were indulging in their other area of interest which happens to be magic potions. 

The team provided the little learners with all manner of water filled containers  in which they could mix and stir their potions  and the little learners found grass, leaves, sawdust, sand and compost to add to the water. The result was delightful!!!

One very hard at work little learner downed his tools for a moment and announced to Mrs Organised. "I know how to make chicken casserole." 
"Well there's a coincidence!" Replied Mrs Organised. "I'm cooking chicken casserole for my tea today, how do you cook your chicken casserole?" She asked. 

The little learner went on to list his casserole ingredients which included: broccoli, cabbage, carrots, potatoes, sausages and most important of all, something called... chicken "goozons." The little learner assured a very curious Mrs Organised that she would be able to buy "goozons" at the supermarket, when she enquired about their availability. "They're near the fish fingers!" stated the little learner.

Good luck with finding those "goozons" Mrs Organised. You could be roaming the supermarket aisles for quite some time!!! 


Monday 18 March 2013

Mysteries and triangle cheese


A thought crossed Mrs Crayon's mind today as she emptied the contents of her heavily laden dust pan into the bin. Where else (other than in a Reception setting) would you see a policeman's helmet, filled with an enormous dollop of playdough, laying at the bottom of the waste bin?

This curious vision, set Mrs Crayon thinking about some of the other more unusual sights and sounds that the team experience on a regular basis, but probably don't give a second thought to, simply because they are part and parcel of the normal working day in the Reception class.

Things like: a starfish (with a broken leg) in the scissor drawer, a cheese triangle in the home corner washing machine, a photograph of a team member on the bottom of a little learner's shoe, a Lego Man encased in a glue stick.

However, without fail the little learners will have a their own unique  explanations at the ready, should they be asked about these strange happenings. 

Take for instance, the case of the starfish in the scissor drawer.
"That's my pet sea star!" Said a little learner to a mystified Miss Kind when she came across it just the other day. "I bringed it to school in my pocket. He had a bandage on his leg but it falled off."
Miss Kind then found herself living up to her name yet again, by helping the little learner to make a new bandage for the "sea star!" 

 As for the policeman's helmet with it's playdough filling, well... Mrs Crayon didn't even go there with that one. She decided that some mysteries are best kept as... mysteries! 



"I mean...honestly, do I look like a pair of scissors?"

Friday 15 March 2013

Four arms and flappy ears


"Aliens love underpants!"

Not a fact, but the title of a picture book by Claire Freedman, and story of the week for the little learners in the Reception Class at Sunnyside school.

The little learners have so far this week, looked in detail at the story's rhyming text and the colourful illustrations, and they have also participated in lots of alien type activities. 

One such alien activity today, involved the little learners inventing and painting  their very own alien. The Reception team knew they were in for a real treat, given that this particular group of little learners is so imaginative. They were not disappointed! The little learners spent ages creating some brilliant and incredibly detailed aliens. 

Aliens, must have been on one little learner's mind this afternoon, when he boldly marched up to Mrs Jolly and announced. "When I'm bigger, I'm going to have four arms. My skin will be blue and my wrists will have green fluff on them!"

There wasn't a tremendous amount Mrs Jolly could say to that. Mrs Crayon on the other hand couldn't wait to get home and start painting and rhyming!!!!







Tuesday 12 March 2013

A snowy surprise and Lego eyes


Snow fell on Whippy Cove today. 

Last week the little learners were dreaming of Spring as they sewed their grass seeds. Today they dreamt of putting on their snow gear and heading out into the garden to build a snowman.

Well... this afternoon the little learners' dreams came true! Mrs Very Jolly and Mrs Caring braved the arctic temperatures and took small groups outside to play. But not before each little learner was layered up to their eyebrows with warm clothes and waterproof everything! 

Despite the abundant layers, the excited little Sunnysiders managed to move their limbs well enough to run around and scoop up snow to build an unusual, but nevertheless rather splendid snowman.

Mrs Organised, Miss kind and Mrs Jolly all stayed in the warm, to either assist the little learners to remove their waterproofs, ring out and hang up their wet hats and gloves to dry, remove wellie boots, or to help reunite little learners with their shoes, preferably the exact same ones they came to school in.

Mrs Crayon however, was nowhere near the wellie and waterproofs mountain, she was in the classroom with the red cheeked little learners who had come in from the cold.

This particular group of little learners was most insistent that she should look out of the window to see how their snowman was progressing. With his satsuma nose, Lego eyes, ivy twig arms, flowerpot hat and a pair of what looked like pyjama bottoms for a scarf, Mrs Crayon felt he was shaping up superbly. 

So, it came as quite a surprise, when she returned to check on the snowman building crew less than a minute later, to see that the snowman had completely and mysteriously vanished! After rubbing her eyes and looking again to see if the snowman had miraculously reappeared, Mrs Crayon observed Mrs Caring walking around the garden with the head of the snowman tucked under her arm.
She then watched Mrs Caring ram the snowman's head onto what was left of his snowman body, before adjusting his pyjama scarf and coming back indoors.

Mrs Crayon just about managed to create a quick sketch of the snowman before the tears in her eyes prevented her from seeing clearly! 

   
"I didn't break him!"
"And I definitely didn't break him!!!"

Friday 8 March 2013

Funny thoughts and wet toes




"Do you know...?"

Now there's a phrase the Sunnyside grown ups hear many, many times each day from the little learners in the class. And each time they hear that phrase, the grown ups will automatically grab the nearest post-it pad and pen in readiness to note down the little gem of information that always follows.

The team adore the "do you know?" moments when they pop up because they are invariably nothing to do with anything that's going on at that moment. They are random, spontaneous little learner thoughts, and this makes them even more special. 
As far as the team is concerned "do you know?" moments bring extra sunshine to the day and they are yet another reason why the team love working with little learners in the Reception Year.

The following do you knows all popped up this very week. The team hope you enjoy them as much as they do!

  











































It's worth mentioning that if it wasn't for the wonderful little learner "do you know?" moments, there would be no pet polar bears, uncle Robin Hoods, talking hamsters and chirpy ogres. And what's more, no doodles for Mrs Crayon!!! 

Wednesday 6 March 2013

More seeds, more dust!!!


It's been another very busy and fun filled day. 

The little learners chomped through their daily diet of new sounds and new words, then for pudding they revisited the concept of measure. This time however, the focus was on capacity and weight. 

Groups of little learners enjoyed experimenting with sand and water, filling different size containers and determining which containers were the lightest and the heaviest. They attempted to make accurate predictions about which containers would hold more and they recorded their findings on clipboards with great enthusiasm.

Little learners love clipboards! It is a very common sight to see little learners patrolling the setting during their free play with clipboards, making notes on this and that, then more often than not asking members of the team to sign on the dotted line as it were! Who knows what the team has signed for over the years!!!

 This afternoon as the sun shone down on Sunnyside's little garden, Mrs Very Jolly worked with the last few little learners to make their grass heads.  Once their tights and stockings were stuffed with sawdust and seeds, the little learners brought their creations indoors to Mrs Crayon who was waiting to help them to create faces for their grass heads. 

As the little learners came in one by one, Mrs Crayon wondered why each of them had more than just a light dusting of the seed and sawdust mix all over their coats, in their pockets, and even in the turn ups of their trousers. Then Mrs Very Jolly walked in covered head to toe in the sawdust and seed mix...and then Mrs Crayon new why!!!          

Dusty little learners, seeds, sawdust! There's definitely a doodle in there somewhere Mrs Crayon!!!



Sewing seeds in the Spring,
Is a GLORIOUS thing.
And all the children in our class,
Think it's fun to WEAR their grass!!!



Friday 1 March 2013

Bottle tops and playdough blobs


The little learners had an idea today..and it was a jolly good one!

They decided to transform the home corner into a sweet shop. So, this afternoon out came the rolls of coloured cellophane and just about everything that was small and sweetie shaped was wrapped in it and popped into large plastic sweet jars.

Milk bottle tops were wrapped, along with Multilink cubes, counters, blobs of playdough, and all manner of small pieces of construction. By the end of the afternoon there were sweeties aplenty, enough to supply everyone living in Whippy Cove and beyond. 

As the little learners wrapped and stacked their sweeties, some of them became mesmerized by the effects of looking through the different coloured cellophane at everything around them.

Upon observing the little learners reaction to the cellophane, Mrs Crayon hastily cobbled together a pair of card and cellophane glasses. Before she had the chance to try them out, a long queue for cellophane glasses had formed, and so for the rest of the afternoon Mrs Crayon found herself making umpteen pairs of glasses for umpteen little learners.

 The sight of little learners wearing over-sized spectacles, reminded the team of a very famous and much loved tv comedy duo from the good o'l days of yore.    


"And it's goodnight from me..."
"And it's goodnight from him!"