Yo ho ho!

                                                         Pirate Day

Today our Foxes and Otters dressed up as pirates and had lots of fun speaking in pirate voices and trying to creep around the school unheard! Mrs Hird-Shaw was very surprised to see a group of pirates walk past her classroom on the way to the ICT suite this morning.

Pirates like to talk on the ‘Talk Sofa’ too….

Pirates like to do yoga just like us…

Mrs Gent shared with us her experiences of running the Prague marathon last week. We couldn’t believe just how big her medal was…she certainly deserved it. She had taken some very funny photographs of Otto that made us all smile.

Pirate Moran showed us the surprise that she hides underneath her eye patch!

Mrs Gill was made to walk the plank at golden time. The FS2 corridor was a hive of activity this afternoon with lots of sword fighting and treasure hunting. I think there will be some very tired pirates tonight.

Have a wonderful half-term.

Remember………the Octonauts are coming!

A sailor went to sea, sea, sea

Well, I am so very glad it was my turn to be outside today! There was such a lot of busy purposeful play and so many swashbuckling pirates around that I didn’t know where to point my camera first.

The boys quickly found the foam swords I had planted in the material box and were busy fighting each other and making bandanas and belts from my fabric basket. Soon enough they had decided to build themselves a pirate boat. Edward added a plank and the old poles from the broken reading tent (well done Mrs Gill for saving those) became fishing rods. Freddie made himself a lifeboat and his fishing rod soon became some oars to row him to safety.

 A rousing rendition of ‘’there’s a hole in the bottom of the sea’’ was soon heard above the roars of ‘’Land Ahoy’’ and ‘’Aha me hearties.’’ Amidst all of the singing Wyatt’s bandana soon found itself wrapped around his wrists. When I asked him what had happened he told me that he had been arrested and put in the bottom of the boat ‘’with the barrels.’’  His bandana had become handcuffs.

Freddie and Owen cried out that the ship was sinking and a very sneaky Wyatt tiptoed over to me and whispered, ‘’They don’t know it yet…but I escaped and put a hole in the boat.’’ There was a big groan at tidy up time…but the fun didn’t end there.

After lunch my afternoon phonics groups were extremely excited about the pirate ship they had heard the boys talk about during playtime. They wanted to make a list of everything a pirate might need. They used all of their phase three phonic knowledge to write lists, all sorts of things were mentioned, Jolly Roger flags, oars, swords, cannons, hooks, treasure (and many more.) Ebony was most insistent that we must not forget that pirates need beds too.

We gathered everything we might need to create a pirate ship and all went outside to set to work on creating a pirate ship big enough for all of the Otters.

Jolly Roger flags were drawn...(along with dangerous warnings not to get too near!)

Telescopes were made. (They inspired a very funny game of ''I spy with my pirate eye.'')

Aaron suddenly shouted that a storm was coming after Erin had told us that she was ''reversing into England!'' Rowan had a solution. She quickly jumped into her lifeboat and rowed her way to saftey just like she had heard Freddie did this morning.

She was quickly follwed by William and his ''floating device.''

Aaron hid in a barrel (stacked tryes) for safety...

And Malindi quickly made a beach for her pirate friends to become stranded on...

Another imaginative day in FS2!

Miss Sullivan

And they're off...

As you know we all took part in Lister Races a couple of weeks ago. This is an inter school competition that has been running at Lister school for many years. KS2 children from other SCE schools all travel to Herford to take part in races on our school field. Every year the KS1 and FS1/2 children of Lister school are invited to kick the whole morning off with a fun run around the sports field. This year was no exception…in fact one of our little foxes managed to beat some of the year one and two children around the field. Well done Felix!!

Mr Duggan took some wonderful photos of our warm ups and running.

Look who turned up to cheer us all on!

We're going this way, that way...

Today was a very exciting day for Foxes. A pirate called First Mate Sulli visited us from Neverland. She came to ask for her help in making swords for the pirates. In Neverland they don’t have luxury things like sequins and glitter as Tinkerbell pinches all of those. The only things they had were toilet rolls, card, scissors, tape and a pencil. First Mate Sulli showed us the swords she had and then we worked hard with our talk partners to think of a way to make them.

First Mate Sulli wanted the children to help her write instructions for all of the pirates so they knew how to make them next time they needed some.

We all worked hard to show First Mate Sulli how well we can use our phonics in our writing. We had to stop so that she could get back to Captain Hook with the instructions before he woke up (and for assembly).

Steven followed his instructions to show us a finished sword, I expect more of the Foxes will carry on making them next week.

 

Well done Foxes you showed us how well you can share your ideas and lots of engagement and motivation.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Otters

Running alongside our pirate fever we have had the long standing interest in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles! (TMNT) So much so that last week three of my biggest TMNT fans took William’s lead and created themselves a turtle headband each. Not content with just the head gear they set to work thinking of ways to create the all important (and protective) turtle shell.

 

After a lengthy discussion as to who should be who in the upcoming TMNT game the boys decided that it would be best if they all wore name tags so that there was no confusion as to who was who. 

Archie asked his friend Ethan for help writing the name ‘Leonardo.’ Ethan sounded out the word slowly for Archie and showed him how to find the letters he needed on his sound mat. Ethan then worked incredibly hard to segment the sounds in the name ‘Raphael’. Can you see the sounds he was saying in the photos….r….a…..ph….

As all of this was going on Edward was busy trying to think of ways to attach his shell to his name badge. He came up with a lot of ideas but glue didn’t work and balancing them on his back seriously affected the quality of his TMNT moves!! He thought back to the books he saw his friends make with a hole punch and treasury tags. Edward hole punched his shell and name badge and asked me to tie ribbon to them so that they hung over his shoulders. He was incredibly proud of his thinking skills and proudly flaunted his name badge, shell and incredible Ninja moves to Mrs Gill. Mrs Moran. Mrs Savage and Mrs Lewis!

Another very busy, child directed activity with a whole heap of critical thinking skills, engagement and motivation.

Otto's Terrible Day...

Well, it’s been another adventurous few days in Otters class. (And Foxes but Mrs Lewis will tell you all about that later!)

As we were getting ready to visit the ICT suite on Friday morning a very unusual visitor stumbled into Otter’s room. She introduced herself as Mrs Hook and told us some very worrying news. As we were all sleeping in out beds Mrs Hook’s husband, Captain Hook, had snuck into our classroom and kidnapped Otto!!

We were outraged! Mrs Gent was incredibly worried as she was planning on taking Otto to Prague with her as a mascot for her marathon.

Mrs Hook told us how she had heard her pet parrot squawking the words ‘’they’ve got the string, they’ve got the string’’ and suddenly realised that her pirate shipmates had tied Otto to the top of their mast. She knew we were wonderful writers and wondered if we could convince Captain Hook to send Otto back to us.

Well, of course we were going to help Mrs Hook send Otto back! All thoughts of our ICT learning had gone out of the window. In our talk partners we devised ways that we could release Otto. Archie helped us to remember that we needed to release Otto with our writing not our fighting.

We could write a letter. We had lots of ideas of who to write to; we know that we have lots of friends in Neverland. We helped Miss Sullivan to write to Peter Pan asking for help…some of us decided that we wanted to write to Tinkerbell to see how she could use her magic to aid us. The Rainbow Fish and the Kippers were feeling brave and decided to write to Captain James Hook himself to persuade him to send Otto back to us.

The Elmers labelled our Map of Neverland with the features of the landscape…just in case we were feeling brave enough to travel there ourselves.

Mrs Hook gave us some very important information. Letters aren’t sent by post in Neverland but by bottle. We had to roll up our letters (tricky for little fingers) and sprinkle some fairy dust into the bottom of the bottle before sealing it with a magic thought. We then of course had to label them so that the fish knew where they were to be delivered.

In the afternoon Mrs Gill popped into our classroom and was instantly surrounded by the otters retelling their very exciting morning. ‘’We met a pirate who had your hair’’ said Erin.

Mrs Gill must’ve been feeling brave because she suggested that she followed the Elmers map with all of the Otters to rescue Otto themselves. The Otters didn’t take much convincing.

They carefully carried their messages and followed the map to Peter Pan’s tree house where they left their messages for Wendy to float in the sea. They followed the map past Mermaid Lagoon and realised that to have a good view of the pirate ship they would have to first scale the mountain. From the top they had a good vantage point and Otto was clearly seen hanging for the mast by his tail.

The brave little Otters snuck past the snoring pirates and valiantly freed Otto from his otherwise terrible fate.

Mrs Gent was terribly pleased to see him back. After having lots of cuddles and friendly reunions with his Otter pals Otto was ready and raring to travel to Prague for his next adventure.

….Now we have to sort out Captain Hook’s ransom demand before he realises we released Otto. He has asked for more weapons so that he can fight crocodiles. I somehow think this will be an easy task for the children in Otter’s class…