Weeks Four and Five
Following on from last week’s telephone message, we decided that we needed to draw on our previous knowledge about coastal marine life to try and find out what species has been washed up on the shore. Taking the information from the phone call, we measured the length of cars in our company car park to understand roughly how long ‘3 cars’ would be, finding that these were between 3 and 4 metres. In relation to our creatures, this leads us to think the creature could possibly be a Minke whale (9m) or a baby Humpback whale.
Looking at the village, we discussed as a team what is in a typical fishing village, and went about creating these – houses, a school, a church, a bakery and so on. After creating these, we labelled them and added them to our map. The question ‘what is the name of our village?’ was raised, and this prompted us to come up with different ideas to name our village. Fish village? Sea shell village? Pebble village? Eventually, we put our ideas to the vote and decided on the name Pearl Village – leading further investigation on how pearls are formed! We wondered why the village would have been called this – but that’s a question for another time.
To ensure we can carry out our rescue endeavours to the best of our ability, our company boats must be dependable and able to withstand challenging weather conditions and substantial weight. Back at our company headquarters we have been trialing and testing boat designs using playdough to find out what shapes and forms float best, and what can take the most weight. We thought about the effects of gravity and up thrust when making and testing further designs using only paper and masking tape.
Using small gemstones as our weights, we tested our miniature vessels in tubs of water, observing what was happening to them when more weights were added and recording our findings. On reflection, we discussed what aspects of our designs worked well, and what we could alter later on.
Week Six
This week we decided we should go to the village and assess the beached animal in order to form a plan. We decided we needed to find out if it was hurt, how heavy it was, and whether we could move it. We used drama to get all of the equipment ready that we needed and set out on our different modes of transport to get to the beach (some of us in cars, others in boats). As we neared the beach we paused using binoculars to take in the surroundings. We began to describe what we could see, hear and smell using basic language; this was then developed by adding adjectives to our observations creating increasingly descriptive sentences. We then wrote down what we could see, hear and smell as we approached the beach. Later this was edited and redrafted by the children with support from the teachers.
Much of our descriptions led to observations of the whale bleeding and being in pain. This will impact upon what care we can give the whale and how successful we may be in releasing him back into the sea. The children talked about the amount of water we will need to keep it cool and wet, and this is identified as something to investigate soon.
On arrival at the beach we found a number of people (our Danish teacher visitors) around the whale. These were residents and workers in the village and they all had different opinions about how this happened (given by the teacher). The children identified who the villagers were (where they lived or what their job was) and broke into groups to talk to them about what they thought. Having to listen carefully to the villagers the children drew what they thought had happened and presented their findings to the rest of the group. This developed into a big discussion about the impact of plastics and about materials that do and do not decompose.
Week nine
This week, our team of experts received an urgent voice message from the RNLI in Southwold asking for our help in finding a group of missing fishermen from Pearl Village. We looked at our village map, and were able to locate the family homes of the missing fishermen, and discovered that they all have different faith and beliefs which could help them keep hope in their time of need. We discussed how their family would be feeling with them not returning home, and put ourselves in the position of these family members to produce a piece of writing explaining their concerns and emotions. We referred to our map showing the village and the port and drew out different possible routes that the fishermen could have sailed to. This involved us using directions using left and right, and quarter, half and three quarter turns.
The case brought up a lot of questions for our company. Have they been stranded somewhere? Where they trying to catch a whale? Have they drowned? Are these shark infested waters? Is fishing good for the environment? With all these questions and opinions, we wrote down our initial thoughts, then held a company meeting and talked about what we should do. Although we have thought about the negative impact fishing can have on the environment, we feel that it is our duty to save the fishermen and return them to their families. Time to plan the rescue!
The rescue of the sailors lost at sea was not an easy task, but we used our expert skills and returned the sailors back to their relieved and grateful families. We looked once again at the way in which each family was praying for their safe return and used drama to explore the moment they were reunited.
When speaking to the fishermen, they said they they had been very scared whilst stranded and had heard strange sounds and mysterious tapping noises from underneath the boat. They had seen its shadow and were convinced it was unlike any other creature they had ever seen. Thinking about what could have caused this, we started to question what sea creature this could be. We wrote down our ideas and described what happened from the points of view of the fishermen, thinking about how scared and worried they must have been feeling.
Our maths work involved an ongoing case from our company, as we received a phone call a few weeks ago telling us that lots of gems had been washed up on the shore in Pearl Village. We all estimated roughly how many gems there could be, and then used our knowledge of the 2, 3, 5 and 10 times table to count them by grouping. This led us onto some further maths investigations around number, questioning ideas like ,“What happens if you multiply an odd number by an odd number?”, “Does multiplying two even numbers always result in an even number?”, and “Do two odd numbers make an even number?” We are now wondering if the jewels have anything to do with the recent sighting of an unknown creature.After having time to think about what this unidentified sea creature could be, we first drew what we had imagined and then each created a detailed clay sculpture depicting our vision of the being. We also looked at Kennings, an Old English and Anglo-Saxon expression in poetry where a two-word phrase is used in the place of a one word noun. For example, “Blue-lurker”, “Boat-tapper”, “Sharp-swimmer” can mean sea creature! We wrote our own to describe this mystical creature.
We are starting to think about what this creature could be trying to do – Are they a guardian of the ocean? Maybe it hurt itself and it’s trying to get our attention? Perhaps it’s trying to protect its babies? So much to find out for next week!
Week Twelve
We explored number investigations and place value, and worked in groups to find different answers and possibilities.
We’re ready to go into the next week with the determination and knowledge to get to the bottom of the many questions we all have in our company. Go Sealife Savers!
Week Thirteen
Another busy week for the Sealife Savers!
Our focus in maths has been looking at place value, and using hundreds, tens and ones to represent an amount. We also investigated different ways we can arrange a group of 10 cards labelled 0-9, arranging them in two-digit numbers to fit a certain target. For example, finding the largest even number, the largest off number, largest multiple of five, smallest odd number and number closest to fifty – each digit being used once only. This lead to a lot of different outcomes and discussion for how we arranged them.
Wednesday marked the first day of advent, so to celebrate the lead up to Christmas, we have a Christmas tree with a goodie bag for each day of advent hanging on there. Each day we are taking a name out of the stocking to see who gets the treat for that day!
We have also been further investigating the sightings of the mysterious sea creature and have made some progress in finding out more. We looked at how we classify animals and the six main groups we do this by – mammals, reptiles, amphibians, birds, insects and fish, and found out how we differentiate these from each other.
With our newly built boats and newfound knowledge of classification, we ventured out onto the sea, and investigated within the square kilometre where the creature was last sighted. We discussed the atmosphere as we approach the sight, how we are feeling and what we have prepared.
Our determination and knowledge of the creatures whereabouts mean that we were able to see the creature for ourselves, and drew out and label a large scale version of what we saw. Some of its features include scales, sharp teeth, tentacles and gills, which tell us that the creature could be an amphibian or a fish. We have also noted that there is a large scar across its back, possibly from human interaction before, and an eerie symbol printed onto its torso. We wonder if this has any link with our company break ins, or if the creature is working for pirates
On Friday morning we received an envelope addressed to us, with another copy of the symbol that was on the creature inside. After deciding to hold an emergency company meeting, we discussed the link between the creature and our company headquarters, and suspect that the creature has possibly been hurt by pirates and now has to guard the gems for them. We wrote down our thoughts and opinions, and feel that we need to try and help the creature in some way instead of hurt it. We are now thinking about ways in which we can communicate with the creature and find out more…
Week Fifteen
This week has been filled with festivities and fun, including a visit from the Norwich Puppet Theatre and the school Christmas dinner. As well as this, our company has been busy as ever with further discoveries about the mysterious sea creature. The creation of our music helped to build a level of trust between our team and the sea creature. When he came to the surface of the water to see us, we found out his name was Callan. Callan told us that he had come from a faraway ocean, and had been separated from his family by the pirates, who took away his gems and used him to scare off other explorers. Now knowing that this creature does not mean harm, we discussed ways in which we could free Callan and return him to his family. The threat of the pirates finding out our plans were a cause for concern for both Callan’s and our safety, so keeping quiet and discreet was a must.
Finally, we had the idea to leave a trail of fake gems for along the ocean floor for the pirates to follow. Whilst they were doing this, we led Callan to safety and returned him to his sea-cave, along with the rest of his family. We left him with our spoken thoughts and wishes for his future as we watched him disappear into the cave. Hooray for Sea life Savers!