Don’t forget odd socks today - see last week’s newsletter for details. 

Today we are going to revisit ‘helicopter stories’. We will begin by rereading a couple of the stories that children created last week. We will explain that the children used their imagination. Then we will explain that the rest of the children are each going to have the opportunity to create their own stories using their imagination. (Maybe Jamie's will be about a leafy sea dragon - he thought that they might come out of the water, fly and breathe fire). We will encourage the children (in their small groups) to tell / dictate their stories – these will be written down verbatim, exactly as they are told, by the adults. Each child will have a whiteboard and will be encouraged to record (using the pinch and flick technique) illustrations to match the story as it is told. The groups will each then gather around a taped out stage and act out their story (without an audience and in their own way - the adult delivering the activity doesn’t need to join in or lead how the story is acted out as the children will do this). We want to develop the children’s ‘imaginings’ during both the telling and the acting out of their stories.

When Fiadh looked at a picture of a piglet squid she told us that it looked like “an underwater queen”! We will remind the children of the story that we read yesterday (The Other Ark) and will show them some pictures from the book - adults will model descriptions. Linked to this we will ask the children to create an imaginary sea creature. We will ask them to describe what it will look like, the colours that they will need etc. They will be able to represent their sea creature using paint, pens or chalks. We will remind them to create an outline for their creature and add some detail / colour for effect. At the end they will be asked to name their creature

Marsaili asked “Can they” (sea creatures) “ all slither on the ground? (an undersea snake can)” We will talk about this and watch some clips of sea creatures. We will then talk about what fish might feel like - how might their texture help them slither on the ground or move through water? We will look closely at a fish under the visualiser and ask the children to describe how they think it might feel. Then all the children will have the chance to feel it - again we will ask them to describe it - does it feel the same or different to their own skin? We will explain that we have been left a pile of rubbish that was washed up in the sea and we need to sort it by how it feels. We will ask questions such as “Is it smooth like the fish?” The children will need to work together and talk about their discoveries as they handle objects in order to sort them.

Today we have our second PE lesson led by Game On. The children will still be changing for this so all PE kits need to be in school. Just a reminder to recheck that everything is named.

Friday

Maia Dodd asked “Does it“ (piglet squid) “ eat biscuits?” Sebbie told us what sharks like to eat. Today we will begin by talking about what some sea creatures eat. Then we will explain that we are going to pretend that we have some sea creatures coming for snack time. We will begin with three sea creatures. We will show the children some pots, some spoons and some cereal (we will highlight that they wouldn’t really eat this!). The children will need to spoon food items such as raisins or cereal hoops from a shared bowl into small pots. An incorrect number of pots provides the first problem and then a choice of spoons (one larger and one smaller) provides the second problem. The large spoon will be visibly too big for an  individual pot. In small groups the children will be set the challenge of making sure that each sea creature is fed. They will need to work out if they have too many, too few or the same number of pots. They will need to explore which spoon works best. We will then explore this with a different group / quantity of sea creatures, number of pots and spoons (including sizes) will be varied too