Yo,Ho,Ho,a Pirating we go!

Today we launched our new adventure for our final half term together! All the teachers were dressed as pirates and the children were told that something had happened on the field! We went up to investigate and discovered a ship wreck, a treasure box and a letter! The letter explained we needed to read the start of the adventure story and become pirates like our teachers! We discovered from the story that the pirates ship had crashed into Westwood Island and that Princess Spaghetti had been taken. The only way to rescue her is to find the missing shield pieces and complete the shield! I wonder where we will have to visit to find the shield pieces... 

Look at how we then became pirates with every activity we completed throughout the day... We really loved making pirate hats, eye patches and swords!

We have been so interested in pirate ships. We learnt all about the different parts of a pirate ship and the children produced some fantastic writing! Here are a few examples...

Maths

Today we started learning about doubling. Doubling means, "twice as many", so to double a number we need to add the same number that we start with to it. The children began to show a good understanding of this. We used a butterfly template to help us. We selected a number card and placed that many cubes on one wing of the butterfly. We then had to make sure there was the same on the other wing. We then counted the total number of cubes to work out the double. The children were super confident with this process!

After lunch today the children discovered a letter in their classroom! It was addressed to reception and it looked really old! We thought it might be from the pirates. When we read the letter we discovered it was in fact from the pirates and they needed our help! They needed to get their boat fixed so we could sail to the next island and find a piece of the shield. They asked us if we could help find a suitable material to fix the ship. So we carried out a floating and sinking investigation. We made predictions for which materials would float or sink and then we check by dropping them into a big box of water. We discovered a lot of materials do actually float. However we found that, play dough, stones, cardboard and paper all sink.

We then made our own boats. A lot of children thought back to the investigation yesterday and chose materials that could float. We then tested our bots in the water water tray to see what happened. After this we wrote our evaluations...

Maths 

This week in maths we have been looking at halving. We have discussed how halving means sharing into 2 equal groups. The children have shown fantastic knowledge of this! They have been able to halve fruit, objects and even treasure by sharing them into 2 equal groups! Some children have even recognised that halving is the inverse of doubling. For example, Theo said, “double 5 is 10 so half of 10 must be 5.” This really shows off that the  children have a really secure knowledge of numbers to 10 and are getting ready for their next journey into year 1! Have a look at some pictures below of us working so hard... 

Maybe you could challenge your child to halve their snacks at home by sharing it onto two plates? 

This morning when we arrived to school we arrived to upside down, back to front island! To be able to be on this island we had to wear our clothes back to front or inside out! In our classroom the tables and chairs were all upside down and our teachers clothes were too! We enjoyed having an upside down back to front day. The children discovered a note from the pirates whilst on this island. They set them a challenge! To explore the coins.. we completed the challenge by producing some lovely coin rubbings and discussing their values. The children received a piece of the shield for this and are one step closer to saving Princess Spaghetti! Look at all the fun we had on Upside Down Island, we even did some upside down colouring! 

Monday morning!

Today the children used imagineering to travel to Darkness Island. We had a bumpy ride on our pirate ship. When we were there we discovered another challenge. In order to earn the next piece of the shield we had to become scientists and complete a circuit to power a light bulb! The children really enjoyed this challenge and it’s safe to say we completed it and received our next shield piece! 

We then wrote a diary entry about our time on Darkness Island! See below for a few fantastic examples...