Last week we took a year 2 class to the beach to bring to life our
theme of 'sea voices' and 'pirates tales' . They arrived ready to go!
We are lucky to have a great coastline near to the city centre and within 20 minutes we had arrived at Tynemouth and an empty beach.
The plan was to be able to 'actout' our pirate drama on the beach but first of all everyone needed a good explore and to collect 'sea treasures'.In order to be able to use these sea objects they had to ask permission from the sea with a message drawn in the sand. Meanwhile I started to create a spiral to store the found treasures (we had been making spiral poems in class and looking at spiral shells).
The young pirates took their treasures into the spiral to leave safe while they drew their pirates ships on the beach. There were no shortage of ideas and it was great to see such a variety of designs some small and perfect others using beach combing trophies.
When it was time to return to School we took the treasures with us and I replicated the spiral in the forest school with the treasures in the centre ready to be retrieved. By now they represented more than sea trophies but whole stories. We finished the day telling each other 'salty tales' before burying the treasure in the forest ready for the next time.
The value of this way of developing stories from shared experiences can't be underestimated. Children live in a close relationship with nature and their sense of wonder brings to life the setting in a way they never forget. It is a real antidote to the complicated time restraints of the classroom. The end result is everyone has a good time even the teachers which they truly deserve after a busy year.
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