Prazer, Miss Whitelock!

Welcome to the butterfly blog.

This week was international week thorough out the school. The butterflies learnt about Brazil and it has been one of the most wonderful weeks of the year!

We started by learning about The Amazon Rainforest. Max the sloth came to tell us about his beautiful home and shared some pictures of what we might see. We were very inspired by the gigantic plants and trees that could can find there, and the children were heart broken to hear that people have been knocking them down!

They quickly got to work building their own rainforest so that Max the sloth would have somewhere to live!

The chlidren were allowed to work anywhere they liked, using any resources that they could find.

When everything was finished, we snuck it into the buddleia room, where it was very dark and hot, just like a rainforest!

What hard work! It looks fantastic. Be sure to poke your head in to look at all of the beautiful creations that the butterflies made.

Can you spot where Max the sloth has chosen to live?

After the rainforest we heard about the different types of houses people can live in, and some of the experiences of people who lived in the Favela.

We learnt some Portuguese phrases, if you ask your butterfly "Tudo bem?" they should be able to answer.

We learnt that even though there were many different people living in Brazil, everyone came together at carnival time!We watched a video, and the children's imaginations were really sparked by the bright colours and carnival atmosphere.

Then is was time to get busy making our own carnival floats!

We spit into groups, and were designated one teacher each.

We had to come up with our own ideas, and work together as a team, talking to our friends and making sure our floats looked fantastic!

The butterflies worked so nicely. They have gotten so good at thinking up their own fantastic creative ideas. 

Working so hard really paid off, because our floats look supercalifragilisticexpialidocious! 

Well done butterflies! You have learnt so much about being creative this year, and it really showed in the fantastic work you made!

While we were all busy busy working, something snuck out of it's shell unnoticed...

One of our caterpillars finally completed it's metamorphosis and became a painted lady butterfly. 

Hooray! Little did we know what would happen later in the week...

In the outside area, the children have been using what they've learnt to hunt for mini beasts. They found a lot of worms living together under this log! 

They've also been coming up with some fantastic ideas for their play, and lots of the children have been working together to make cement.

Some one has seen a cement mixing lorry, and knew how much you needed to stir it to get it just right.

(We love messy play because: as children investigate through messy play, they learn about the word around them. In a game where there is no 'right way' they can make their own observations and discoveries about the world, developing their cognitive skills. As they talk to each other about their play and what they have discovered, they learn to communicate effectively, and messy play is the very best way to develop gross and fine motor skills!)

Then something amazing happened.

Our lunch break was cut short, because someone noticed something moving in out butterfly house.

We ran inside and silently crowded around. A butterfly was emerging from it's chrysalis right in front of our eyes!

We saw as it broke out of the fragile shell and took it's first look at the world as a new butterfly. It was absolutely amazing. None of the teachers had ever seen this happen before and we were so lucky to see such a special thing happen!

By the end of the day, two more butterflies had hatched, leaving just one left in the chrysalis. 

 Wow-ee!

After we had shown our beautiful floats in assembly, and packed up all our creative work, it was time for some special visitors!

We were so lucky to have so many grown ups come in for our father's day celebration! It really was lovely to see how everyone played together, and the great big smiles it brought to the children's faces!

I am going to let the pictures do the talking, as it really was a wonderful afternoon.

(There was one more rather fantastic picture taken of a Daddy working with his daughter, but I felt a bit mean putting it up! If you are the person I am talking about and wouldn't mind us sharing it, leave a comment and I will put it up for you to see.)

Then it was time for things to get really serious.

It was time for a competition!

First we split into teams to work with our grown ups.

 READY..SET..GO!

Then it was time for the real competition to begin! Dad's verses butterflies!

I think some of the Dad's weren't trying their very hardest this time! 

It was a clear victory for the butterflies. Hooray!

It was such a perfect afternoon, and we're so thankful for all the people who could make it! If you didn't get a chance to come in this time, there will be a one more open day before the end of the year, for sports day and graduation from foundation. Letters will be going out when dates are confirmed.

It has been a very different week this week, and so much fun. We hope that your butterflies have learnt lots of facts about the unusual wildlife in Brazil, and have had as much fun being busy as we have!

As the weather gets hotter, lots of butterflies are choosing to take their jumpers off during school hours. Can you please ensure sure that everything is named so that jumpers can quickly be handed out at the end of the day. We have taught the butterflies to put their jumpers in the home box as soon as they take them off, and if you could reinforce this message at home it would be very useful for us, as it seems some jumpers have been found wandering about in different places!

Swimming will be happening on Friday at 1:10 and we are still welcoming helpers. If you are interested you will need a CRB with school, which can be obtained from the school office.

Thank you once again for your continued support and for making this week such a success!

Goodbye and toodle-oo.