Well we made it through to the end but it sure has been a busy half term. It’s been so busy that I have not managed to post any photos. Sorry, better late than never!
We started off this half term learning about space. The children made solar system hats and amazed us all by how quickly they managed to pick up the names of the planets in our solar system. They also had lots of fun making rockets and imagining planets that these rockets could fly to and discover.
One day the children and I started noticing crumbs around the classroom and we soon realised the adults’ chocolate biscuits had been getting nibbled. As our class dinosaurs now know better than to steal my biscuits, we set up a trap to find out who the culprit was. We caught the biscuit muncher in the act on camera. It was an alien! We decided to make contact and wrote him a letter. In his reply we found out that he was called Q Hootle 8 and he needed our help. He had come to our planet to find stories to take back to his own planet where they had all run out of imagination and creativity. Well Q Hootle had come to the right class, as Ash class had plenty of imagination and creativity to spare and they set about writing stories for our alien friend (even in their choosing time).
Q Hootle 8 took two of our class dinosaurs, Derek and Spike, to be his tour guides while exploring our planet but he kept in touch sending back letters and photos of their adventures. They ended up at the beach and even explored under the sea. We were a bit disappointed we couldn’t go too so we set up an underwater roleplay area so we could imagine we were there too.
Disaster struck when our alien friend met a pirate who stole all of the stories we had written but Ash class were ready to help as we created wanted posters to help catch the thief. Q Hootle was almost ready to return home but asked for one last story from one of the settings he had explored (space, under water or a pirate ship/island). The children chose their setting and planned their stories, choosing their own characters, problems and resolutions. They even created a settings box to help them imagine what their story setting could be like.
We have had plenty of exciting experiences this half term including Flying High day where we had a really interesting assembly led by a parent who is a pilot for Easy Jet. We also learned about drones and got to see one fly. We watched an animation about flying turtles (very fitting to our topic) and decided where the flying turtles could take the man in the story. We also made paper plane shooters and had a competition to see who could blow/fly theirs the furthest.
We also took part in Race for Life where the children embraced our class motto ‘I can and I will’ as they all completed the course (even though some of us were a bit directionally challenged at the beginning and went the wrong way). We were very proud of them all.
In the last week of term we decided that we would like to try our hand at being pirates (kind, friendly ones) and had lots of fun on our pirate day. The children still continued smiling when I served them dry crackers and lemon slices (to keep scurvy at bay) and told them that if we were pirates, we needed to eat like pirates. I eventually gave in and let them feast on the sandwiches and cakes they had prepared earlier.
I hope you all agree that it has been a fantastic half term but also an amazing year! I am so grateful to be supported by a very strong team who all go above and beyond to support the children. Even so, we were blown away by your kindness and generosity on Friday so I would like to say thank you again for the gifts. It has been an absolute pleasure to teach Ash class this year and I wish the children all the best in their new classes.