Grandpa's teeth...

When I travelled back to the UK for an Excellence in Early Years Conference, I was passed a very beautiful box while eating my (delicious) lunch. Inside was a pair of false teeth! Alistair Bryce Clegg an Early Years consultant has his own blog; it was here that I saw the chance to collect his dear Granny’s old teeth to inspire some excellent learning in our FS2 setting. Just like our much loved class toys Otto and Basil, these teeth get passed from setting to setting so that good practice can be shared by lots of early years professionals. Here is how these teeth were introduced to your children (if you haven’t already heard all about them!)           Miss Sullivan

During snack time a mysterious box was placed in the middle of the table, this was ignored for a while in favour of a photograph of a dancing penguin! Katie was the first person to notice it, she carefully opened the box only to be shocked that it spoke to her! The words ‘’Oh no, where are Grandpa’s teeth? ’’ floated out to her as she reached in and pulled out a sheet of paper. Beneath the sheet of paper were four talking tins. Archie noticed that they were numbered and played them in order. We listened to a very funny poem about a Grandpa whose false teeth one day jumped out of his mouth, chattered out of the cat flap and travelled to exotic countries sending postcards from afar.

The poem is called Granddad’s wayward teeth and is written by Gareth Lancaster.

Katie spent some time reading the poem as she finished eating her banana. Edward commented that her banana was a very ‘’healthy choice’’ and that if she kept eating fruit her teeth wouldn’t jump out of her mouth like Grandpas! (much to Katie’s relief!)

Imagine our surprise when from the nearby talk sofa we heard Aaron exclaim in delight that there was something new on the shelves. Katie ran over…’’Is it Grandpa’s teeth?’’

Yes!!

Aaron decided that they weren’t clean and they quickly disappeared off to the sinks for a wash ‘’No toothbrush!’’. He was followed by lots of squealing FS1 children.

Mrs Gill was caught up in the commotion and was soon swamped by lots of chattering FS2 children explaining what they had found. Mrs Gill explained that false teeth had to be glued onto your gums. ‘’Not pritt stick though’’ said William A.

We all gathered back together on the carpet to listen once again to the poem, we discussed our own holidays and where we thought the teeth might have sent postcards from. Zoe thought that perhaps they had gone to Norway. Miss Sullivan showed us two postcards that were hiding in the bottom of the box. They were addressed to Grandpa but had no photograph on the front. We had to go on a hunt to find them!

One of the postcards was from Nepal…Marwin, Sophie and Aditi excitedly told us that they had been there. ‘’Kathmandu is the capital city’’ shouted Aditi. The teeth had written that they had enjoyed eating momos. We had all seen them before in Marwin's lunchbox.

The other was from Australia…Archie and Katie told us all about their holidays there. The teeth had been surfing and seen a shark. The teeth weren't scared beacuse they had ''gnawing gnashers'' too.  

We split up and followed clues to find the missing photographs so that we could send the postcards onto Grandpa for the teeth.

We found some very interesting objects on our hunt.

An Aboriginal painting,

A traditional Nepalese dress.

The children who were searching for the photo of Nepal found themselves sat under the prayer flags in our quiet garden talking about the tallest mountain on Earth. Can they tell you what it is called?

We all ended up in the library where there was a big pile of atlases waiting for us. We spent some time looking at the contents page and index to find the countries we were looking for.

William D noticed that Nepal was much smaller than Australia. We discovered that Nepal is bordered by countries called China and India. ‘’My aunty has been to China’’ shared Annabel. ‘’It’s just like the Magic Paintbrush Story.’’ said Kenola.

Lots of the boys were particularly interested in the flags.

When we got back to the classroom there was lots of excited chatter about the two countries we had learned a little bit about. We shared our objects, paintings and photographs with the other children in our class.

The learning didn’t stop there! Throughout the afternoon the children made links between their new knowledge and their own experiences. Marwin found Australia on our map of the world puzzle and then made a didgeridoo out of rolled up tubes of paper.

The next morning we had a very lovely surprise. Marwin and Sophie brought in their very beautiful Nepalese clothes and wore them for us all to see. They answered lots of questions. Katie brought in her photo album of her holiday in Australia and a very cuddly koala. Katie and Aaron spent a very cosy afternoon looking through photos together while sat on our talk sofa. Aditi showed us the Nepalese flag and told us that she wears these clothes on special occasions. She wore a red skirt and dress with beuatiful red bangles. 

Some of us decided to create our very own spotty, dotty pictures just like the painting from Australia.

We even looked through some of Miss Sullivan's holiday photos. We saw a photo of a baby kangaroo and noticed that the trees and plants in the rainforest didn't look like the trees and plants we see in the woods here in Herford!

We decided that we should write postcards back to Grandpa seeing as the teeth's postcards never made it! We included lots of detail about both countries. I think you will agree that the children worked very hard during their independent writing time and produced some wonderful writing.  

If only we could visit Nepal and Australia ourselves! Think how much we would learn then.

 We sent the teeth back to Grandpa with our postcards. Now he knows all about his teeth’s adventures and what they got up to once they escaped out of the cat flap. We wonder if he will write back?

Goodbye Grandpas teeth. Thank you for visiting us. Let us know if you visit any more countries.

From the Otters and Foxes.