ay they wanted to point the pipe so they might need a compass.”
Investigation: how strong is spaghetti?
The children used lots of different strategies and trial and error to see what weight the spaghetti would bear.
“This doesn’t work and it’s not even heavy.”
“I think this might work.”
“It looks like you need a hand here.”
“I’m putting mine all in the same place.”
“This will be so strong.”
“I tried to push it down but it just snapped…I’m gonna try something else…It works!”
“Now let’s try something else…”
“Hmm, I wonder what else I can try…”
“I’ll add more spaghetti so it doesn’t break.”
“I’m going to get more to make it thicker. If it’s thicker, it might hold. It makes it so, so, so stronger.”
Art Attack: today a lot of the creation were inspired by the left over pieces of our concertina dragons.
“I’ve made the England flag.”
“England is a big country”
“It’s going to take 100 minutes to do this.”
“100 minutes is now until you are asleep.”
“So we’ll be making it in the dark!”
“My mummy will laugh at this – or the baby.”
“It’s a Power Ranger Air Fighter. It can transform into the Gold’s fighter aeroplane.”
“I’m going to try to make a tulip.”
“I just thought and thought. I was making a dragon and then I thought – I know! I can make a bracelet and I did!”
“I’ve made ribbons like P.E. I’ve even made a handle.”
“It’s the same height as me…Shall I put some people in? I’m gonna try!”
“It’s a dinosaur. He’s a type of diplodocus ‘cause he’s got a long neck and he needs to reach the trees.”
“I made a Power Ranger mask for my mummy.”
“I’m going to make a submarine…Does cardboard go in the bath?”
Yet another creative idea for a paper concertina!
Following our Chinese theme, we thought about rice in Cookery. Where did it come from?
“Maybe a tree?”
“Farmer’s crops? … Rice farms? The farmer grows them and puts them in shops.”
“It comes from China.”
“It’s similar to wheat.”
“It falls out of the hole in my hand.”
“It’s very noisy because it’s very hard.”
“It sounds clicky. Basically because it’s got hard bits on the end!”
“It’s a bit browny – not really white.”
“It feels hard and it’s round with sharp bits at the end like a rectangle.”
“There’s a hundred.”
“It’s raw. It means that…Oh! I dunno!”
“It means that something’s very cold and you can’t eat it.”
“You have to cook it.”
How could we find out about rice?
“Go to the world to that place.”
“When we go in a rocket, we can see the world.”
“My mummy knows about China. She gone there a long time ago.”
When we eat it, we want it to be…?
So how are we going to do all that?
“In a pan. After you put it in the pan, you let the water heat.”
“Afterwards you need to drain it out.”
“Actually the water has to soak into the rice. The water goes in and you don’t have to drain it.”
Once the rice was cooked, we had another look…
“It’s all sticky.”
“It’s white now.”
“It’s steamy because it’s hot.”
“It’s gone all bendy.”
“The water was soaked in and the water made it – I just remembered!”
We made a sauce to go with the rice using ginger and soy sauce.
“Is ginger a root?”
“How do they make ginger jam?... Maybe they cut it up and put it in the oven.”
“Grating is a quicker way to cut it.”
“Yeah! It makes it smaller.”
Finally, we looked at Chinese knives and forks.
“They open them up and then pinch bits.”
“Or they could stab it.”
– but what were they called?
The children loved using the chopsticks to eat with!
“I can just balance it!”
“I’m going to make some chopsticks. I will chop a tree down, then thin it down.”
“Why don’t we tell the children that aren’t Fledglings to use them!”
“You know what I’m going to say to my mummy – I want chopsticks!”
Unfortunately the great excitement meant we were short of time for role play. We watched a video and were going to be plumbers but “we can just make plans instead and do it next week!”
“This water plan is going down to the village to the houses – nearly to my house.”
“All that grey bit is the poo and horrible bits and these are the pipes that go to all the houses. Actually the pipes come from the house and they go to the ‘slewage’ works. This tank is for the clean wa