Before morning ring: make jelly and cut oranges in half

Morning ring

(Hide an orange behind you when you sit down for morning ring)

• Call the children together using their special morning ring signal
• Sing good morning to the children (the children join in)
• Say a short prayer of gratitude
• Tell the children that, as it is Friday, the Friday helpers have a turn to tell news
• Ask the children what the weather is like today – decide together what the weather feels like
• Make a circle with your hands. Say to the children that you are pretending to hold a round fruit in your hand and the colour of the fruit is orange. What kind of fruit do they think you are pretending to hold? Yes! An orange! Take the orange from behind you with a flourish – as if you are performing a magic trick. Ask the children to look for the colour orange around the classroom (still sitting down)
• Spin the colour whirly with red and yellow – it turns orange. Look through the red and yellow ‘glasses’ at the same time – the world turns orange!
• Tell the children that today they will be making oranges with orange jelly
• To end: Let the helpers go to the main art activity first. The other children can go in groups to the other art activities

Art Activities

Main activity: Cooking: oranges with orange jelly OR a printing activity using orange paint

Other activities: Playdough, drawing with feathers and food colouring OR drawing with charcoal or making a collage

How to make oranges with orange jelly

You will need:

• orange jelly
• ½ an orange for each child in your class
• 6 bowls
• 6 plastic cups
• a list of the children’s names

Method

1. The children squeeze the oranges into the bowl a bit. Then they put the cup upside down in the bowl and squeeze the orange over that. They may need help
2. They pour the orange juice into the cup and drink it
3. Then they pour (with help if necessary) some of the jelly mixture into their orange half
4. They get their name from the teacher and place the orange on top of their name on the tray
5. The wash their bowl and cup and put it back on the table for the next child

How to lay out the main activity:

Music: drama

• Call the children using their special music signal. (claps or songs, etc.)
• Act out the story ‘The unhelpful crow‘ all together while the teacher tells the story
• To end: Say that all the children wearing orange can skip to wee and wash their hands for tea. Then say the other colours…

Outdoor play

Water the garden with the children who want to help. Don’t forget to point out interesting things in nature. Encourage children to look for insects and to think about whether they are camouflaged well.

Do not kill the insects. Encourage the children to do the interest/discovery activity of mixing colours if you have set it up outside.

Indoor play

Show the Friday helpers how to use the shape stackers.

Story time

• Call the children using their special story time signal.
• Tell the next Bible story.
• Try to find stories about colour.
• To end: Tell the children that when you touch their feet they can go and wee and wash their hands for lunch.

Remember

Teachers always sit during morning ring and story time. Only stand in music time when you and the children are doing an activity where you need to stand.

If you stand while you are telling the story or having morning ring the children will have to bend their necks at an uncomfortable angle. Also you look very tall and scary to the children when you lean over them.