Ay oh whey oh, ay oh whey oh... Walk like an Egyptian.

Welcome to the butterfly blog!

We had such a wonderful week last week, the pictures we took don't really do it justice! I will try and tell you the story of our adventure to Egypt.

 The children had told us what they wanted to learn about next, (have a look at the door in the cloak room too see their very creative ideas!) and they were all very excited to learn about ancient Egypt.

The adventure started when a tent mysteriously popped up in our classroom. Miss Whitelock told us that when she was getting things ready for our learning, Rosie Cat found a spell book and read a spell!

After that, she had poofed away in a cloud of smoke. Miss Whitelock had looked everywhere, but couldn't find her, so had gone home for the night feeling sad.

That morning, before she came to school, a very strange letter had arrived through the cat post! Luckily Miss Whitelock's cats were there to meet the cat postman (because cat's can't use normal post boxes, they're too high up for them to reach!).

That's when we found out that Rosie cat was trapped with a Mummy and we had to make the classroom look like a pyramid so the Mummy would want to come and live there and would bring Rosie Cat back!

The rest of that day was a buzz with activity, as we made traps and wrote clues to tell us how to get through the traps, made real and fake gold coins and solved very tricky puzzles written in hieroglyphics.

  It was so busy that we forgot to take any pictures!

After being part of an exciting story, it was time to have a go at writing our own.

Mrs Harris's phonics group had a close encounter with an antler. They used it as inspiration to write their own stories. Having something real to feel and see really helped the children to come up with some fantastic descriptive words.

Mrs Creighton taught us a new way to write a story. We learnt about "story mountains" where a main character meets a problem, finds a way to solve their problem, and of course there has to be an ending! 

This is a great activity to try together, creating your own stories about people you see in the street, or just using your imagination.

Then is was time to get busy. First, we drew four pictures representing the key events in our stories.

Then, we were given very special pyramid books to write our final drafts! 

The butterflies worked so hard and came up with some fantastic ideas. We hope that you have enjoyed reading their stories! Perhaps you can work together to write chapter two?

After all of that busy busy work, it was time for some fun! We have really been enjoying the sunshine and have been doing lots of outdoor work.

What a tall tall tower!

When playing with dolls, it's the story that's important. The best way to encourage language that will help your butterfly to write fantastic stories is to pick up a doll and get stuck in!

After building traps for mummies and tigers, the children have really taken to den building. They built a huge house with different rooms!

We can't be Egyptians without costumes! The butterflies then decided they needed to do an Egyptian dance. About 20 children joined in and created their own routine! We put the music on and did a performance. It was just spectacular.

But we didn't get any pictures! Sorry!

The children have been having so much fun experimenting in the water tray. They worked together as a team learning about currents and how to change the flow of water.

It was such a busy and fun filled week! But it wasn't just the butterflies working hard.

We also had some ABSOLUTELY WONDERFUL helpers come and wrap toys for the Lucky Dip.

Thank you so much! I really cannot say how much we appreciated your time. You really helped make the fair a success. There were only 18 toys left in the lucky dip by the end!

That's all for this week. We hope that your butterfly came home full of stories and things to tell you about our adventure.

Last week was our last swimming session, we will not be swimming again before the holiday. 

Wednesday is sports day. We hope to see lots of you there in your trainers ready for some fun!

Friday is the whole school picnic, please send your butterfly with a packed lunch as no hot dinners will be served this day.

We have started learning  "Tiger Feet" by Mud  as part of our 40th anniversary celebrations. Feel free to dance and sing along at home!

Good bye and toodle-oo!