Wednesday 10 November 2010

Purple potatoes and painting the sky

I wandered around Sainsbury's last night looking for something for tea. I could not think of anything apart from baked potatoes. In the potato section I was drawn to a bag with purple lettering. The potatoes are called something like purple glory. They have very dark skins, almost black. I was not expecting the colour of the insides! Really vibrant purple. Imagine mashed potato, or purple chips! They were really tasty, and looked excitingly garish with the orange baked beans. Mmmm, purple and orange food!
Today we painted the sky for the Three Billy Goats Gruff display. We rollered one colour of blue, then toothbrushed turquoise and Prussian blue. Then we sponged white using number sponges. We made a lovely mess and got very dirty but it was really fun!








I had a brainwave about how to arrange the display. I normally just make guesses about the sizes of large painted backgrounds, and the rough shapes, but I always end up getting it slightly wrong. I suddenly thought that if I taped up newspaper, then drew the shapes of the background on it, I could then cut it out as a pattern. I wish I had thought of this years ago! Now the sweet green grass, the dry yellow grass, the sky and the river are there. Tomorrow I have to put up boxes the children painted for the bridge. Then we just have to make the goats and the troll.
This week we have had parents evenings-two so far and one more tomorrow. I am really enjoying them and the parents have been so pleased with the learning journey books, so all the hard work has been worth it. We have not had parents evenings before, arguing that we see parents all the time and so don't need to. This year however, we are really trying to improve our contact with parents and sharing knowledge about their children with each other, so we decided to start having them. It is so lovely to have 15 minutes dedicated to talking about one child, with no noise or interruptions, and not just because there has been some kind of incident.

5 comments:

Leenie said...

Purple potatoes are surprising. Even with the unusual color they taste very good. We grew them in our garden one year and got quite a crop. My problems was, as you mentioned, the color is a bit garish and the oddness spooked the kids.

The sky painting looks so fun! Hope you share the final results of the display. Billy Goats Gruff is on of my very favorite children's stories.

Glad things are going well with the parent evenings. Especially when there are good results to talk about. Sounds like you've had some great success. Bravo!

Diane Rooney said...

Purple potatoes!! Whoa! Never seen them before. Definitely a visit to Sainsbury is in order this weekend. Love that colour.

Love, love Billy Goats Gruff. One of my fave children's stories. There's a fantastic Christmas display of fairytales at our local garden center this year and one of them is BGG. Must try and get some photos to show you. x

jabblog said...

Lovely food colours - but not a combination to contemplate if you're feeling a little delicate :-)
Glad you're enjoying parents' evenings. I always enjoyed them when they were over!

Kat Mortensen said...

I like them! We get a variety pack of small spuds with purple ones in there and they are delicious! I like the idea of purple fries too.

Excellent idea about the pattern - reminds me of my old home economics classes.

Kat

Anonymous said...

I have never seen purple potatoes! Neat!

I am glad things are going well at school. I think the parent nights are a really good idea!