On Tuesday afternoon the otters were busily wrapping twigs in wool as part of their funky fingers provision when all of a sudden I could see a lot of activity happening underneath the table.
Following a few huffs and puffs I came to find Christopher not wrapping his twig but wrapping the table leg. ''Oh, I'm just making a dinosaur trap!'', he nonchalantly told me. I wasn't aware we had to trap any dinosaurs so asked him why. ''I keep finding clues that they wake up at night, just like in toy story....so I'm making a trap.'' He continued to string ribbon and wool across two of the classroom tables and soon a few more of the intrigued Otters were busily making dinosaur tarps around him.
The children discovered that they had to tie the ribbon taut or else it would droop in the middle. Reese and Mateo set about writing a poster that said 'Stop Dinosaur!'
I was left under strict instructions not to leave school on Tuesday night, instead I was to ''Be on Guard!''.
This morning, the children were the first to get to the classroom as I was busy talking to Mrs Sturrock about todays' funky fingers provision. As we were talking I was interrupted by an almighty sound coming from the classroom. The children were squealing and rushing out to drag me back into the classroom. I couldn't believe my eyes. The trap had worked...almost. For all over Otters classroom was chaos caused by the pesky dinosaurs. They had strewn the children's enquiry books all over the floor and knocked over all of the ingredients for making an erupting volcano.
The Otters were not impressed! Mateo's beady eyes noticed that the trap had caught a few of the dinosaurs but some of them had managed to sneak underneath and that was how they had been able to sneak through our enquiry books.
The morning's activities all stemmed from this excitement and the children initiated their own learning from it. Signs were made and Lucas even tried to teach the dinosaurs how to make an exploding volcano WITHOUT knocking everything over. Chloe even made a ''bounceleen'' from a plan that she drew. Her idea was that if the dinosaurs dared to creep back in they wouldn't be able to walk on the ''bounceleen'' but instead be bounced back into 'Dinosaur land.''
In literacy, the lesson I thought I would be teaching went out of the window! The children wanted to plan how to make a better trap ...so we wrote instructions. We knew that Year two had been trying to catch a dragon so ventured upstairs to get their advice. They helped us with our text maps.
Lunchtime was a flurry of activity. The deconstructed role play area that had been a Frozen palace was now turned into a makeshift dinosaur trap. Chloe and Kerron upturned one of the boxes of toys to lure the dinosaurs in.
After lunch was no different....the children were keen to try out their plans and follow their instructions so a busy crew of den builders set out to the quiet area to construct traps, dens and hides. Samuel, Samridi, Jack and Reese wrapped the blue wool around the benches and trees, creating a web. ''The dinosaurs will get stuck.'' ''It's just like in Home Alone'', said Reese. Samuel tried out his best commando rolls and leaps to check that the Otters could safely manoeuvre through it.
Children were working together to create all sorts of dens. Ask your child what they made. At one point a well positioned telescope was constructed...again, I was told that I would have to do the night duty!
Impromptu writing opportunities arose and Paige even created her very own reading den and asked to go back into the corridor so she could collect some dinosaur books.
Mr and Mrs Gill were invited to take a look at the dens, traps and hides but were safely walked through the danger zone first.
There is SO much more I could write about today but I hope the photos will speak for themselves. Thank you Christopher for the spark that started it all off.
...I suppose some dinosaurs might have to appear in the trap overnight.
Watch this space.
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