Tambourines and underpants

Happy New Year everyone! 

Believe it or not, it's the start of the Spring term. However, there was nothing Spring like about the weather today, far from it, as rain soaked little learner after rain soaked little learner was catapulted through the classroom door on a chilly and very gusty wind first thing this morning.

Strangely, this combination of high winds, heavy rain and dripping children occurred last year at this time. It failed to dampen the spirit of the little Sunnysiders of the day, and it failed to quash the excitement of the current cohort upon their return to school following the Christmas break.  

With the festive season a dim and distant memory, the time has come for the little learners to launch into a brand new topic, which for the next few weeks will be the rhyming stories of Julia Donaldson. As well as revelling in the wonderful world of, The Gruffalo, Stickman, Superworm and Tiddler, to name but a few, the little learners will also be focusing on learning more phonic sounds. Their next step will be to learn to blend these individual sounds to make words. Some children find this easier than others, so the Reception Team are always trying to devise fun ways in which to help all little learners achieve this skill, like involving puppets for instance during their phonic activities, or hungry lions no less!

And it was hungry lions that sprang into Mrs Very Jolly's mind when she stumbled across the remains of one, while crashing about (in search of pipe cleaners) in the far reaches of the store cupboard today. She hadn't found a real lion of course, it was one of Mrs Crayon's creations (from a few years ago now) made to support a variety of literacy activities, including learning phonic sounds and letter names.  The idea was for the little learners to feed 'Lester' lion (as he became known,) a diet of letters and sounds by posting them straight into his open jaws, so long as they were able to say the sound and name the letter correctly. 

The children loved Lester, and they made it their mission to ensure that he had plenty of letters and sounds to eat each day. They also made it their mission to ensure he had plenty of other things to eat, especially at tidy it up time! It was only when the Reception Team spotted that the draws and cupboards in the classroom were strangely bereft of equipment and materials, and that tidy up time was taking an extraordinarily short amount of time to complete, did they put two and two together and realise just what their crafty pupils were up to. Lester's bulging belly, along with the little learner's uncharacteristic willingness to tidy up after themselves, should have provided the Team with all the clues they needed to determine the whereabouts of the contents of their classroom! 

Anyway, after reminiscing with Mrs Very Jolly about 'Lester The Lion' and deciding it was high time they either repaired him or created a new one, Mrs Crayon set off on a mission of her own, and that was to pen a poem celebrating their beloved phonic friend and his remarkable ability to consume a classroom!!!!

Better late than never Mrs C!   

    

Roll up!

Roll up come see our lion,

You're in for a surprise,

When you see the size of him,

You won't believe your eyes!

Our lion's always hungry,

So his jaws stay open wide,

And to see all that he's eaten,

Why not take a peek inside!

 You'll find a......

Stick of glue,

Somebody's shoe,

A plastic frying pan,

A tambourine,

An aubergine,

A tiny Lego man.

A writing pen,

A number ten,

A pair of underpants,

An ironing board,

A length of cord,

A herd of elephants!

There's a.....

Roll of tape,

A squishy grape,

A shell from the sea shore,

A wooden spoon,

A popped balloon,

A scary dinosaur!

A telescope, 

A skipping rope,

A paper aeroplane,

A teddy bear,

With fuzzy hair,

A teapot and a train,

Then there's a.....

Cotton reel,

Dried orange peel,

A shark with spiky teeth,

An apple core,

Oh wait there's more,

Lurking underneath.

A piece of chalk,

A knife and fork,

A magnet and some dough,

A spotty dice,

A ton of rice,

Four conkers in a row.

There's a....

Racing car,

A small guitar,

A necklace and a ring,
A set of scales,
A map of Wales,

A Ninja Turtle thing!

A rubber duck,

A dumper truck,

That's very nearly it,

Well fancy that,
A policeman's hat, 

And someone's PE kit!

Now that you've seen our lion,

We hope you are impressed,

It seems to us there's nothing

That our lion can't digest!

Should we forget to feed him up

Our lion will complain.

So when tomorrow comes around,

We'll do it all again!

"Eat up all your sounds Lester...then you can have some glue sticks!"