Never Assume A Thing

[SueFinanceManager]

The secret is in the preparation and today I made an assumption and suffered the consequences. Hope this little tale makes you laugh, the collegue present during my disaster today cetainly laughed.

 

This week in circle time I have been doing 'Arcemedes theory'. First day big pot of water, playmobile princess had dropped her magic flute in the 'well', oh dear how can we get it out. Great suggestions, put in stones, water rose, princess got her flute back all very happy.

 

Today, pot became a cauldron filled with blue water. Playmoblie wizard asks apprentice to mix a potion while he goes out. So I had a little playmobile spoon and yellow food colouring and made apprentice drop yellow colouring into pot and to the delight of the children the liquid changed colour. The wizard had warned the apprentice not to drop the spoon in as the spoon was his favourite and very special. I made the model drop the spoon into the pot thinking that it being made of the same material as the flute the day before it would of course float and then we would proceed to raise the water level until it reached the top.

 

Well the rotten little spoon sunk to the bottom like a stone. Sat at the bottom of the pot mocking me. I could almost hear it say, come on then, what are you going to do now. My collegue was smirking and trying not to appear unsupportive. The brigther kids who had seen the whole floating thing the day before weren't sure what to think, afterall the theory won't work if you chuck things ontop of a sunken object.

 

So this was what I ended up doing. Whisking the water round and round really fast with a paint brush, which of course I told the children was a magic wand, I managed to drop stones in so that they sank to the bottom before the spoon could again. I continued to do this until the level had risen enough for the model to drag it out. The green water in the pot was flying out all over the place splashing all, it's OK I told them it was 'happy potion' although one rather particular little girl seemed less than 'happy' to have a blob of water on her foot. My collegue must have been splashed by lots of happy potion, she was so happy I thought you was going to wet herself laughing at my efforts to make the whole thing look perfectly planned and totally proffesional.

 

So to all out there, never assume anything and preparation is the key. Alternatively leave the teaching of scientific theories to reception teachers :wacko:

 

Sue

[Susan]

what a lovely story! Thanks for sharing.

[Guest]

, Sue, thanks for that, who needs "happy potion" when we've got you.

 

note to self: Review all staffs job descriptions and add; ability to "ad lib" as essential criteria.

 

I love spontaneity, ( where's spell check!)

in fact I'm in danger of spontaneously combusting.

 

Peggy

[SueFinanceManager]

Peggy

 

I have come to the conclusion if I can wrap a theory, topic or any saliant point I want to make to my little ones in a story then I've got them. If the story happens to have magic, dragons, princessess or dinosaurs in as well then bingo, got them hook, line and sinker

 

The ability to ad lib is wonderful and has saved my skin a few times. Interesting, when I worked in sales (previous life before children) ad libbing was called something else, you know, the stuff bull's produce

 

Sue x

[Rea]

What a wonderful example of my life!! Thanks for the laugh Sue

[Guest]

How fabulous! I love it when stuff like that happens, just as long as you're not being observed by someone important like ofsted or the head! Good old tick the box for problem solving!!!

[Beau]

Wonderful Sue. I think you deserve a round of applause for that performance.

[hali]

EXCELLENT

[Guest]

You certainly wouldn't have this much fun at Sainsbury's!! Things like this make it all worthwhile - brilliant improvising

Nikki

[Guest]

Just to be awkward! The two best things that happened in our group today were unplanned! We're doing the Gingerbread man this week and today finished our cooking after 3 days (thank goodness!). Seeing one little boy not engaged in anything particular (and having the unusual luxury of only 11 children and 4 staff!) I spontaneously suggested we found a huge piece of paper and drew around him for him to make a massive gingerbread man! 10 minutes later lots of the children had joined us and we all made beautiful life-size gingerbread men pictures - even the youngest 3 year olds added incredible detail to theirs, and one wrote her name totally unaided which we have never seen her do before!

We also dragged out the OHP (historical object these days!) for the children to explore the magnetic letters on. Before long they had worked out the orientation and were 'writing' their names and obviously projecting them 'big' on the wall. This led to more large sheets of paper being found and bluetacked to the wall and we drew around their names for them to colour in and take home!

 

I loved today - but, where was Mrs Ofsted - lots of high quality, high level, child led activities not specifically planned for!!!

[Guest]

Fabulous LJW

 

Its a well known fact that Mrs Ofsted goes into hiding whenever anything truly spontaneous and wonderful happens. And anyway, she probably wouldn't have seen any of this fantastic learning going on because she'd have had her head stuck inside your filing system searching for paperwork with no dates on, or 'i's not dotted or 't's not crossed.

 

Is it my imagination or am I getting more cynical with age??

 

Maz