Foxes and Otters...sharing our learning experiences.: 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.