Chapter 5 : Not so friendly After all!

Miss P has to clear up the big mess left over from making the friendship cake! Mr. Shrapnell was FURIOUS...... she just wouldn't keep to timetables!

As a result Mel and I decided that it would be a wonderful opportunity to examine the concept of timetables. For many children they had heard the term but had really no understanding of what it involved. We examined our school timetable and after some discussions we allowed the children to work in partners and create there own timetables....

It really was really amazing to listen to their ideas and thoughts ......

• 2 lessons of cooking a week at the beginning of the day as so many of them didn't eat breakfast before school so if they had cooking first thing they could cook their own nutritional breakfast!
• have gardening at the end of the day so that they could grow the vegetables that they wanted to eat and take them home for their mums to cook them instead of eating the horrible vegetables their mums chose for them to eat!
• crafts so that if they needed to make money they could!
• horse riding/ chess / games

Mel and I then decided to explore other timetables like tide, sun and moon and lastly bus timetables on the internet. We showed them ways to research the different tables and they loved it!

 It was at this point that we came up with the idea of the children using the internet to create their own 'outing' using the Mynah Bus timetable. This proved really difficult for some but a great learning experience was had.

showing us the time they thought we should catch the bus

some more excited ideas

these were the only ones who got it right ...8.55 was a feasible time

and these as well!

So Friday dawned and there was a bubbling anticipation as we set off by Eden bus - the first part of our journey. We worked out that it was too far to walk to Musgrave Centre where the bus would leave from. Our kind Eden bus drivers, Themba and Michael, dropped us off.

waiting for the bus

After what seemed like ages for some the bus arrived .... BUT it was full! Such a learning experience as so many were getting very impatient. However, as luck would have it, many people got off so we could all get on.....

and off we went.....

such a lovely patient bus driver

paying R5 for their tickets

so proud of their purchase

smiles all round

 



Eventually we arrived at our destination ....... Mitchell Park

After a brief picnic stop, which ended abruptly when the monkeys arrived to scavenge food, we went and explored the pond. The children could've stayed all day trying to catch tadpoles.

blake hiding his food from the monkeys!

throwing coins and making a wish

so small .......



 

Another enjoyable learning experience for our special class of 2014

 

Making a friendship cake......

Mel and I decided that we really had to embrace Miss P and all her crazy ideas so Friday was the day that we set aside to make 'friendship crumpets' ! 

It was a glorious day so we took the children outside to use the eco container.

They had been divided into groups of four before hand and had worked out who had to bring what implements ( Mel and I provided the ingredients) They were then given the recipe and had to follow the directions.

After mixing the ingredients together we had to wait for the batter to settle so Mel did an experiment using yeast. This experiment showed how sugar activates the yeast.

coke and yeast ; orange juice and yeast ; water with a teaspoon of sugar and yeast



Coke had the best reaction .... I wonder why?!

 

Then it was time to cook the crumpets. Thanks to some  mums who came and helped out.

 

 

After cooking we divided all the crumpets onto platters and went and shared them with the Grade 1's and Grade 3's. Some children had mixed up sugar and salt and teaspoon and tablespoons ........ so we had some very salty crumpets BUT mistakes are unbelievable learning experiences!

A fun day had by us all ........ Thank you to " Pandemonium at School" for the inspiration!