Saturday 29 June 2013

Beanstalks and buttery fingers





The team had a special surprise treat for the Sunnyside little learners this morning. 
BEANS ON TOAST!!! 

Yes beans on toast was on the menu for mid morning snack, much to the delight of all the little learners.

Miss Kind and Mrs Crayon were chief cooks and bottle washers, with Miss Kind in charge of toast and Mrs Crayon in charge of beans!
The culinary duo transformed the hall into a cafe, where the little learners could come and butter their own toast and help themselves to their own beans, before sitting to a table to eat. 

To say that the little learners were excited for their beans on toast, is an absolute understatement. They could hardly contain themselves as they waited outside the hall door with their noses squashed against the glass. When the cafe opened, the little learners poured in buzzing with excitement and very eager for their hearty snack.

Buttering toast is an acquired skill for sure, and this became blatantly obvious when Miss kind and Mrs Crayon stopped to observe the little learners as they attempted to butter theirs. Had the ladies not intervened and assisted the little learners with their spreading, there may have followed several heart attacks from the mound of butter heading towards the little learners arteries. 

So, why beans on toast in the first place?.......Well it's all due to Jack and his beanstalk!!!

'Jack And The Beanstalk' has been the focus story this week, so as per usual many of the activities have been Jack, and or, beanstalk themed. Although it's a rather tenuous link, the team thought it would be fun to cook beans for the little learners to round the week off.

It was fun, and very, very popular with the little learners. It was extremely popular with one or two individual little learners, whose revisits to the baked bean table didn't go unnoticed and were in fact, too numerous to mention!!!   




Yummy Beans!


We had a special treat today,
It was yummy toast and beans.
So we kept on going up for more,
Till we were bursting at the seams!

But when it comes to eating food,
We're a very eager bunch,
Because although we ate a tonne of beans,
We still polished off our lunch!!



"We need to hurry up and eat these.......we've got a roast dinner waiting!!!!!"


Tuesday 25 June 2013

Hip hooray! It's yellow day!


If you're not keen on the colour yellow, you'd have done well to stay away from Sunnyside School today!! 

Everybody, young and old, was dressed in something yellow! When the sun came out this afternoon, so did everyone's sunglasses. The glare of the bright sun on so much yellowness was somewhat dazzling to say the least!!!

So what possessed Sunnyside School to go all yellow? Well... it was their 'Go Yellow Day' today. 'Go Yellow' is an annual fundraising event which sets out to celebrate the amazing work of the Island's Earl Mountbatten Hospice. As part of the celebrations, the Sunnyside learners who took part in the schools Walk the Wight  fundraising event back in May, were presented with their official Walk The Wight 2013 certificate and medal, by the Fundraising Manager of the Hospice during a special assembly this morning.

The image of more than hundred yellow and very smiley little learners, standing shoulder to shoulder in the hall this morning, inspired Mrs Crayon to want to dash home at top speed and dig out her yellow watercolours to get painting!! 

Six hours later, Mrs Crayon drove home (in a sedate sensible fashion) and dug out her yellow watercolours and got painting.....and rhyming!!!!! 




Could those little Sunnysiders be any more sunny????

Saturday 22 June 2013

Culinary dragons and experimental pirates




Have you ever seen a donkey rolling out sausages at the playdough table, or a skeleton taking afternoon tea in the home corner? How about a policeman having fun with pasta shells, or Buzz Lightyear building sandcastles in the sand tray? 

Walk into a Reception Class anywhere and you're likely to see any one of these scenarios, if not all of them at the same time on occasion!!!

Since the beginning of the academic year, the team at Sunnyside School has seen, vets constructing (and flying) kites, princesses playing teachers, dinosaurs making sandwiches, magicians planting beans, pirates experimenting with magnets and Mary and Joseph pedaling a tricycle!  

Little learners love to dress up and little learners love to role play! And little learners love to make jam tarts whilst dressed as a firefighter or a dragon.......and why not?

If a little learner, in his very first year of big school, can't charge around on a tricycle dressed as an astronaut, then when on earth can he?




"When I've finished being a dragon chef.....I'm going to be a 'Bob The Builder' princess!"

Monday 17 June 2013

Red Nannies and Green Granddads


If there's one thing the Sunnyside team enjoy more than anything, it is spending time talking! Not with each other it must be said, (except at lunch times when a great deal of talking takes place) but with the little learners in the Reception class. 

This afternoon was one of those wonderfully relaxed afternoons, where little learners were spread out right across the setting, engaged in their respective chosen activities, so creating little pockets of quiet areas, where team members could have a good o'l chat with individual little learners.

These moments are not only special and very enjoyable, they actually afford the team the opportunity to determine all sorts of things about how individual little learners are developing and learning. The team's assessments of these important chats, ultimately helps to inform the weekly planning.

This afternoon, Miss Kind found herself deep in conversation, with a little learner whose knowledge and understanding of trains, is extensive to say the least, in fact you could fit what he doesn't know about trains on the smallest of "well done" stickers. After Miss Kind had been informed of the train times from Ryde Pier Head to Whippy Cove here on the Isle of Wight and Portsmouth Harbour to Cardiff City Centre on the Mainland, the little learner suddenly shoved his hand under Miss Kind's nose and said. "See my fingers Miss Kind, they're red...............that means I'm good with trains!" 

"Well I never!" replied a somewhat startled Miss Kind. "So... what does it mean if you have green fingers then?" The little learner looked her straight in the eye, screwed up his nose in disgust and said, "Oh! That's just gardening!" He went on to tell Miss Kind that his Granddad has green fingers, his Nanny has red, his Dad has red fingers on one hand and green on the other and his Mum has... "Just got normal hands, so she's not good with trains or gardening!!!" 

 After hearing all about this wonderful story from Miss Kind, guess what Mrs Crayon did when she got home today???
  



"I'm good with trains!"

"And I'm good with everything else!!!"

Wednesday 12 June 2013

Jelly feet and little heroes



When Mrs Jolly, Mrs Very Jolly, Mrs Organised, Miss Kind, Mrs Caring and Mrs Crayon all converged at the entrance to Sunnyside School this morning, they were each carrying two large mixing bowls full of wibbly wobbly jelly. Yes jelly!!! Some of their bowls of jelly had small dinosaurs set in them, others had sparkly glitter, one or two had pirate figures, one even had gold doubloons if you please!!!! 

No, the team hadn't brought their breakfast into school, the jelly was destined for the Tuff Tray outside, where the little learners were going to participate in an exciting and potentially messy afternoon of jelly exploration. 

It was a very warm afternoon when the little learners and the jelly came out to play. So whilst the jelly was super wibbly wobbly at the start of the activity and the little learners had great fun delving into it to find the buried treasure within, in a very short space of time, the sizzling June sun turned the jelly to something that's...well, really tricky to describe! But there it was, a strangely brown mixture, (red jelly + green jelly = brown jelly) with plastic pirates floating in it and turning warmer by the minute.  The little learners couldn't get enough of it though, and the jelly experience prompted some wonderful vocabulary, which incidentally was the prime objective of the activity.

The clearing up wasn't funny at all, and it was especially unfunny when Mrs Crayon emptied the Tuff Tray of the warm runny brown stuff and it ran straight into her sandals!!!!!!!!!!!! 

When finally she went back get inside to attempt to prize her feet off the soles of her shoes, Mrs Crayon was immediately greeted in the doorway by two little characters she hadn't seen at Sunnyside School since the beginning of the academic year. She first met this brave duo last September, when they swept through the playground at top speed, almost knocking Miss Kind off her feet in the process. It was when Miss Kind stopped them in their tracks and asked them to slow down, that the energetic pair introduced themselves to her as "Batman and Robert." 

And now all these months later, here they were standing right before Mrs Crayon, demanding to know why she was "walking funny" and wondering whether there was anything they could do to help. Mrs Crayon asked the caped crusaders if they would mind fetching her something to clean her jelly coated feet. Before you could say "Holy jelly moulds!", the dynamic duo had returned with armfuls of paper towels and (very thoughtfully) a little learner size chair for her to sit on. The sensation of sun baked jelly and paper towels stuck firmly to her feet, is something that Mrs Crayon will never forget....... or ever wants to repeat!

"Our work here is done Robert!"
"Holy apple pie and custard Batman, that's put me off jelly for life!!!"



Sunday 9 June 2013

Bad teeth and wooden legs




 'Shiver me mainsail...........And hoist me timbers!!!' 

'Ahoy there matey, me laddie! Prepare to be boarded the Good ship Sunnyside!'

No prizes for guessing what the new topic is for the Sunnyside little learners. Oh yes indeedy me hearties, they've launched straight in to pirates, and in a big way to boot.

There was a frenzy of pirate hat and telescope making this afternoon and an awful lot of,  Arrrgh!!!!!!!!! Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of orange squash, and Cap'n Sir ye wooden leg's got termites! More about that later.

Welcome back everyone!!!!!!!!!!!!!  We are just seven weeks away from the end of the academic year and the end of the little learners' time in the Reception class. This fact is even more keenly felt, because it is also the time when the team meet the teeny weeny learners from the neighbouring pre-schools, who in September will become the Reception class of 2013. The teeny weeny learners are scheduled to visit Sunnyside School for an hour in the afternoons from now until the end of term and they will have the opportnity to join in with the little learners' activities and to get to know the team and of course the classroom environment.

So, the teeny weeny learners will be joining in with all things pirates, which is sure to go down extremely well. If there is one topic all little learners love, it is pirates and the team know this from experience. This particular topic seems to inspire the best makes, the very best writing and drawing, and then there's all the fun to be had from dressing up as pirates and singing pirate songs.   

The literacy and numeracy activities will also have a definite pirate flavour to them.
For instance in literacy, some of the activities will include: Writing a message in a bottle, making and labeling maps, drawing and describing pirates. 

The role play area is destined to become a pirate ship, and it was Mrs Very Jolly's job this afternoon to create and paint a pirate ship. 
The team would like to take this opportunity to apologise to all the parents and carers of the Reception little learners, who went home today with crispy brown hair and crusty brown uniforms. Well done for that, Mrs Very Jolly!!!! They did however manage to produce the beginnings of what is sure to be a tiptop pirate ship......eventually!!!!!

As well as the brown painting activity, little learners were also involved in the making of pirate hats and telescopes. As they toiled away, the little learners were keen to share their piratey knowledge with one other. Mrs Caring overheard some marvelous pirate facts like:
  • "Girl pirates wear flowery hats."
  • "Boy pirates have greasy teeth."
  • "Pirates always have a wooden leg because their real leg got popped off by a cannon!"

So..... Welcome aboard everyone!!! Let us raise the anchor and sail off on a piratey adventure, where we will eat disgusting biscuits, drink barrel loads of blackcurrant juice, sing ye olde sea shanties, wear parrots on our shoulders,and go arrrgh, arrrgh, arrgh, after everything we say!!! It's going to be great fun!!!!!!


WE BE THE SUNNYSIDE PIRATES






Saturday 1 June 2013

A big surprise, for Mrs Crayon's eyes!


Dear Readers

I am an extremely excited and honoured Mrs Crayon. In fact I feel so honoured, I want to share the reason why with you all.

On Thursday of last week, I was presented with the most beautiful gift, made by the fair and incredibly talented hands of Mrs Creative from ecclestongeorge public artists. It was a complete surprise and it took my breath away........and here it is!!!!

....A wonderful Sunnyside little learner brought to life!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Isn't she adorable!!!!! Clever, clever Mrs Creative!

Best wishes

Mrs Crayon x