​Bricks and the Three Little Pigs

A very common building material, in fact, so common that it’s possible to ignore, to the point where it can be almost accepted, without question, that houses have always been built of bricks.

But, just for a moment, think about the story of the Three Little Pigs. What if that story is as much a historical anecdote, looking at human existence through the frailty of early building as safe places? From early shelters, maybe even straw or plant-based bedding, which was a material used in bedding through to relatively recent times, through wattle and daub dwellings, woven wooden material as a basis for holding some kind of mud mix, with roofing made of straw or reed, or some other plant material, eg peat, depending on what was available.

In fact, much of housing history is based on what materials are available locally. Humans have been adept at creating shelters, rudimentary “houses”, as a base from which to construct more secure dwellings, using local timber, mud or stone, and plants.
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It’s true that bricks made of mud, adobe, have been made in many parts of the world for several thousand years. These dried mud bricks, simply shaped mud rectangles left in the hot sun to dry, are features of buildings in many parts of Africa. 

These buildings are susceptible to wet weather, so need large overhangs of the roof to take water away from the walls, or, in the case of the Malian buildings, regular recoating with mud.

This was also a feature of much early vernacular housing in other parts of the world, where materials were simply accessed from whatever was available. Wattle and daub was a housing feature from probably Bronze/Iron Age times through to the 13th century, then refined a little in the 15/16th centuries in finer dwellings, becoming lath and plaster in later dwellings.
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Chalk was burnt to become lime, which in turn, with water mixed, became a standard “paint” that also helped to repel insects. Lime could also be used as an alternative to cement and was used from Prehistoric times for this. Lime, organic materials, plus available rocks, could be used to make solid walls, often known as cob, cobb or clom walls. Variations on the theme depended on local materials.

Butser Ancient Farm, wattle and daub, left and Hangleton, Flint (cobb) Weald and Downland, right.
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​The Romans were very adept at brick making, with their bricks being shaped and fired in kilns, which altered the properties of the bricks, so that they could be used in wetter climes. Of course, they also used the technique for pipes, crockery and kitchen ware.

Then they left, and seemingly, with them went the technology of brick making, although there are many areas of the country that have significant clay deposits. Some Romano-Britons may have used buildings left behind, but, for many, their wattle and daub houses were possibly not too dissimilar from earlier people. They might be circular or rectangular, with a central hearth fireplace and smoke passing through the thatch roof. Saxons, Vikings, low status Normans would probably feel comfortable in each other’s houses. Small or large the principle might be similar, a general hall, with the fire hearth, with areas off for sleeping or specific work areas. In fact, this idea persisted even into periods that ended with the Tudors.

In the 12th century, in Europe there was a renaissance of brick making, that gradually worked its way to Britain, with the earliest use of brick in Britain being 1190 in Coggeshall abbey in Essex. Probably from about 1400 they were becoming more common, but in a relatively narrow area along the Thames, imported from Flanders with Britain exporting wool. This gave rise to some of the significant buildings along the Thames, with Hampton Court (1514) being one of the most recognisable.

Slowly, artisan brick makers were brought to Britain to make use of local clay seams, probably for local gentry.
With many vernacular houses being made of wattle and daub, they were something of a fire hazard. Sometimes kitchen/cooking areas were built apart from the house, so that, in the event of a cooking fire, the house wouldn’t be destroyed.

The other issue with an open-hearth fire was the build-up of smoke inside the house, sitting as a haze, sometimes not far above head height. The method that was developed to address the issue was the smoke bay. This was essentially a wattle and daub channel to funnel the smoke through a narrow part of the building to a smoke hole in place of a chimney. It might have had a stone wall behind, or an iron plate to avoid direct contact with the wattle and daub.
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In 1666, the fire of London resulted in an edict that fires should have a chimney flue and where possible, houses should be made of brick, which was becoming more common. Houses that had originally been built as hall houses could be remodelled with the addition of a fireplace and chimney.

Both Bayleaf, left, and Walderton, right, had chimneys built in the 1500s, well after their original construction.

​Many timber framed houses survive today behind various facing materials. In Georgian times, it wasn’t uncommon for houses to have a “face lift”, with a Georgian brick façade covering the original timber frame. Sometimes they had wooden cladding nailed to the supporting timbers.

The introduction of the chimney flue enabled internal remodelling, with upper spaces able to be incorporated into living space, often with rooms having their own fireplace. Chimneys allowed separate internal cooking spaces, smoke holes for drying meats, bread ovens to be incorporated into chimney stacks.

Chimneys changed use of space, cooking and, inevitably improved health, as people were not breathing fire fumes, directly or indirectly by smoke seepage.

A thatched roof might be replaced by terra cotta tiles, slate or stone, to make them safer from stray sparks.

It’s worth considering “home improvement” as a feature of wealth. Fine houses were the domain of the better off. If you consider the householder of Bayleaf, which was rented with 100 acres, there would have been a need for general labour. It’s feasible that the labourer might have lived in a house similar to Hangleton, but the use of his labour would have been his means of survival. At one point, the owner of Bayleaf also had children from another part of the family in the household, as minor servants.
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So the little pig in the house of bricks, welcoming his siblings into his household, might well have been simply taking advantage of their potential for labour… 

A visit to the Weald and Downland Museum allows you to explore different parts of this. 
You can do 3D tours of some of the houses, linking to this area of the website. Click on the link.
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3D Virtual Tours at The Weald & Downland Living Museum 

During my early teaching career, I took my class in two halves to the local churchyard to read the opening part of Dickens’ Great Expectations, where Pip meets Magwich. The impact of sharing story in a specific place fired my imagination from that point.

One of my retirement opportunities has been getting involved in the Weald and Downland Open Air Museum, near Chichester, West Sussex. Celebrating its 50th anniversary last September, the collection of rescued and reconstructed “artisan” houses has grown significantly, as Lucy Hockley, the Cultural Engagement Manager, recently said to volunteers, “Covering 1000 years of history. These have been added to by archaeological reconstructions, such as the Saxon House.

The houses, in themselves, are products of their time and place, with locally available materials being used, often straight from the woodland or, later, the clay pit. They offer unique insights into life as it would have been lived during the earlier part of their history, having been interpreted and furnished in the style appropriate to the time. Furniture was made for many by the museum carpentry expert, Roger Champion, based on furniture in other museums or collections.

Gardens are created to the period and using the plants of that time.

Wills, probate records, letters, census, parish registers, rental contracts and other documents can be explored to find out some of the families who lived in specific houses, especially if they stayed for some time, or maybe held local office, such as bailiff or constable. Yeoman families are likely to have more records than, say, journeymen labourers or other lower status roles, like shoemender. So we know about the Wells, Clare and Tindall families, but not those in a lower status.

Artefacts have been collected and collated into the museum store, so they represent part of the historical record. In addition, the museum is very lucky to have connections with a range of historical “archaeologists”, such as Ruth Goodman, Ronald Hutton and Ian Mortimer, all of whom recently gave online talks to members and volunteers, on heating and cooking with wood to coal, festivals through the year and the Regency Period respectively. They add to the narrative that can be shared with visitors.
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All of these combine to attempt to bring history to life, to show that history is as much about ordinary families and their lives as the rich and powerful, whose stories are often told to the exclusion of the majority of the population.

​One thing that I would like to collate for the museum is a collection of historical fiction sources, using the collective expertise of Twitter. If there are books that you have used, especially read with children to link with historical periods, please append them into the reply box. I would be particularly interested in highly descriptive, short passages that might be read to children while they are actually within the houses, to link narrative with the evocative visuals and physical evidence.
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There is regular evidence on Twitter of the wealth of literary expertise and experience. Every offering will be very much welcomed, with our thanks.

With a significant interest in experimental archaeology, she has often been instrumental in exploring areas that may not have been previously considered. This interest was sparked when she was asked by the Mary Rose Trust to look at their reconstruction of the ship's oven. when discovered, the brick stands had collapsed, squashing the copper pots within. The reconstructed ovens had been built with a flue. This was a point of dispute, raised by Ruth, as no flue had been discovered during excavation. It had been assumed that the ovens should have a flue, so one was added. 

In the absence of written evidence, it is feasible that interpretations have been regularly made about how people lived, and this then becomes the stuff of experimental archaeology. This can range from building houses based on the patterns of post holes left in the ground, with limited knowledge of how the parts above the ground were put together. I remember meeting Peter Reynolds in the 1970s, as he was starting his experimental Iron Age site on Butser Hill, building round houses in different forms to explore how long they stayed standing to establish how the roofs might have been put together. Other areas of life were also being explored.

Ruth has used the Weald and Downland Museum site on a number of occasions and is a great friend to the museum. As a member and a volunteer, it was a pleasure to "meet" Ruth out of character, as she led a webinar organised by Lucy Hockley, to share a bit of her background thinking and experience, but especially to consider themes in a new book that she's written; The Domestic Revolution. How the introduction of coal into our homes changed everything, published my Michael O'Mara Books (2020).

Generations, over thousands of years, had used wood as their essential fuel for heat and cooking, for much of that time as a central hearth with smoke seeping through a roof, often thatched. It's interesting to think that Roman villas used a form of flue to create underfloor heating, but this technology was ignored by coexisting cultures. It was in the later Middle Ages when smoke bays were created to take smoke through a specific point in a roof, a very early chimney. From around the 14/1500s, bricks were becoming a little more common as a building material, often imported from Flanders, with the creation of chimneys to funnel smoke directly out of the house.

Coal was brought, by boat, from the North East, especially Newcastle, so first had an impact in towns along the East coast and into London. Burning hotter, it became a "must have", especially as the population grew. Ruth shared thoughts on the change to cooking habits as a result of the change. Where one-pot, pottage or stews, was a staple of wood fire cooking, iron pots on iron ranges led to such food being easily burnt, so they had to be watched constantly. Boiled foods became more popular, as they could be left for a while to simmer. Pots, pans and other utensils would therefore also be adapted to the new needs.

One interesting point that Ruth made was that, in many ways, women became more tied to the house as a result, possibly because some aspects of home needs increased. Perhaps technological change can move us further from earlier simplicities.

We can do more, but the "more" takes time from other thing, or maybe becomes a distraction in itself. I've just spent an hour typing this, when I could have been doing something else. In another time, this might have been essentials like vegetable or animal husbandry, making beer, making or mending clothes and shoes, cutting and carting wood...

I will look forward to getting a copy of Ruth's book, to look at topics in greater detail. Questions lead to questions.  

Saxon Hall house reconstruction at the Weald and Downland Museum. 

​It’s interesting to discuss ideas with like-minded people.
Dialogue is at the heart of human development.
While it is an opportunity to display your personal thoughts,
Occasionally this can lead to a divergence of views.
The dilemma is occasionally the diverse experience behind the discourse.

Sadly, some to see dispute in dialogue,
Causing a display of dissent,
That can, in and of itself, become disabling and disruptive of a potential display of unity,
Leading to a complete division.
People are diverse, in their background experiences,
Which have been instrumental in developing their thinking.
At any point, their thinking is a distillation of these formal and informal experiences.

Some enjoy the thrill of disruption,
Disowning their own thoughts to disarm someone whom they see as potentially more discerning and challenging.
It’s hard to discard beliefs,
But learning involves occasionally disposing of even long-held ideas,
As these are challenged by new information.

Expressing disdain, disgust and dismay are used to disrupt and disturb; all are potentially destructive.
Dialogue requires discernment and allowance of nuanced divergence,
Occasionally agreeing that A.N.Other may have a point.

If dialogue falls into disuse, discord can quickly follow.
​
A divided profession is easily diverted from its main purpose.
Discuss, disagree, diverge, but keep dialogue open to learn from each other.
Dis-interest disrupts personal and organisational progress.

For the past three months, probably the majority of children have been effectively doing homework, having been required to stay at home during the lockdown. There have been exceptions, for key worker and different groups of vulnerable children.

Homework, at the best of times, is a strange beast in the education system, in that it is mandated, but can result in very mixed outcomes. Activities that are set by the school are required to be accommodated during the child’s time at home.

For some, this might mean a clash between homework and chosen interests. For others the challenge of the work or possibly the challenge of working in the home, competition for space and available technology might impact. Certainly, the recent few months have highlighted the significant difference between the haves and the have-nots. Many schools have possibly discovered aspects of their children’s home lives of which they were previously unaware. It has meant, for many, that schools have had to duplicate on-line work with paper-based alternatives.

Has anyone ever really trained children into homework or home learning? Clear tasks and expectations might be set, but what about “how to”? And if a child was to say that they couldn’t, for some reason, what’s the response?

It may be the case that previous assumptions have been very much challenged. Do all children have the time, space and resources to be able to concentrate on a series of challenging tasks that replicate a school day? This also questions the independent learning level of each child; some will be more capable than others of working on their own, especially if they have been dependent on a level of additional adult help in classroom learning.

Home adult engagement levels may vary, too, from the completely focused and hands-on to those possibly unable to offer help within the learning challenge, and potentially the disengaged.

In many ways, the adult engagement has been the potential casualty of pandemic education, the equivalent of the class teacher scanning the class to see those who are in need of extra support, teacher standards 6&5, or Dylan Wiliam’s reflective, reactive teaching.

While the past twelve weeks may have been a kind of holding operation, the outcomes will be very mixed, because it's been a novel situation in everyone's lives, perhaps because everyone has been trying the find the right balance, but also seeking appropriate forms of communication that help children and their parents to accommodate set challenges.

I wonder how the lockdown experience has altered school views on setting homework, which will become a significant factor in any form of recovery dynamic when schools return? Equally, if the pandemic continues and home-learning has to continue into the autumn, how schools will alter any remote approach?

One thing is certain, it can’t be assumed to be “business as usual”, “back to normal”.

​Planning for learning will need to be significantly underpinned by clarity in assessment. It will need to be longer term, with clear purpose and goals and make better use of class time. Setting home activity might need to incorporate that time for children to have a topic to talk about at home, to write draft notes or first draft writing that can be used as the basis for editing and improvement under teacher guidance in class time. Tasks need to be something that the child can do independently.
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Using time differently will affect the overall dynamics of learning, with home adding greater value to class activities. It’s in teacher planning that this dynamic will start.    

​This phrase will dominate the educational discourse for the foreseeable future. It’s in danger of becoming a new political mantra, with any fallout, or negative consequences inevitably then falling onto schools. I’m sorry, that’s cynical, but it’s hard not to be at the moment.

We are in “unprecedented” times, another political catch phrase, coupled with “gaps in education”.

The unprecedented element is that schools are now hybrid versions of previous organisations, some in face to face, for varied amounts of time, some totally remote learning and some a hybrid of the two. This may well continue into the 20-21 academic year. The remote element has highlighted disparities in access to technology, hardware and data, or family challenges in having multiple need of available resources; parents working from home at the same time as children trying to do schoolwork. Now that this is known, schools might be in a better position to address individual needs should the situation arise.

There is obvious concern for “vulnerable learners”, children who are identified daily in a lesson with needs addressed during the lesson. In a remote situation, this lack of access is likely to be a significant missing element. It might have been addressed by identification and a request to come to school to receive misconception coaching and guidance, coupled with expectations of how to use personal time when working remotely, if this continues, or simply absorption into a learning “bubble”. Whatever happens, these children will be in classrooms in the future.

How much “teacher time” and I mean time with a teacher, do vulnerable learners get in a lesson anyway? I’ll just park that question for now, but it may become an issue in the future. Catch up will require, for some, very highly focused teaching, not just time with another adult.
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We’re now four months into an alternative reality, of which nearly a month would have been school holidays, so three months of lessons have been accessed through remote means, online or on paper. Some children will have gaps. Some through not working, some having accessed the work, but may not comprehend, some will have made progress, perhaps in different ways. Each will be “where they are”, so there will be a need for personalised assessment, within restructured planning.

Which bits of teaching are missing?

In an earlier blog, I looked at different “teacher” models, the presenter, the structuralist (becoming organised) and the holistic, each one a stage in personal development. In many ways, the current remote situation puts most teachers into the structuralist mode, simply because the opportunity to reflect and react in lessons is not possible. So learning is ordered and organised and presented appropriately to children but may not be subject to intervention that would include personal guidance and coaching.

By September, there is every possibility that some children will have been out of school for six months. It will be near impossible to try to “fill the gap”, perhaps the best that can be attempted is to “bridge the gap”.
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• Identify those elements of planned learning that are less secure, but are essential, and must be covered to enable future use of this learning.
• Put plans together for the whole of the next academic year, to give an overview of coverage and to be able to assess any continuous gaps. If possible, start to look at the subsequent year of learning, too, in outline.
• Assess time need for topics. Avoid the natural wish to fill the half term with one topic.
• Consider the use of lesson time and the potential for home tasking to include writing up of notes, or first draft writing, enabling lesson time to be more interactive and focused on learning dialogue.
• Primary schools; consider the amount of extended writing across different subject areas and synthesise the foundation with the core, to create quality, rather than quantity of writing. Maybe even all such writing in one exercise book; see link blog.

​Talk learning; let’s consider the power of dialogue to work through this situation. Everyone talking together to make the best possible framework that can hold everything together for the next few years, not just knee-jerk reactive plans that run out of steam in a few months. Let’s include parents in that dialogue, to help them to help their children, both with the necessary learning, but also the social and emotional upheaval that many will have faced and continue to face.
 
It may well take the whole of the 20-21 academic year to really make sense of where we are in education, especially as the coronavirus pandemic is not yet ended. It can’t just be “business as usual”.

The whole system needs to come together, not beaver away in personal spaces, sharing ideas, resources, and support for each other.

​It’s time for inclusive approaches, not isolationism. The latter way will be devastating for what is, at heart, a collegiate profession. 

Pandemic pensees

​Time is tight

Some readers of a certain age will remember Booker T and the MGs and their music. Time is tight (1969) was regularly played in the discos when I was a teenager, old enough to go out.

Time is tight is a useful mantra, though, in education, because everything is time limited, lessons, days, weeks, terms and now, after children have missed several weeks of personal contact with teachers, but having worked remotely for that time, with mixed outcomes, some commentators are looking at the situation and making statements about lost education. We don’t know how long this current situation will last.

Whatever we might wish, children will eventually arrive back in school “where they are”. Some will have kept up. Some will potentially be ahead of where teachers were expecting them to be and some will have less secure progress, with a few significantly concerning. There will be a need to establish where each child is and to determine the best way forward.

It will need an integrated approach and a reflection on learning dynamics, the link between school and home, of catch-up is to have any effect.

In Primary, this is likely to focus on maths and English. It might be possible now, having used remote learning for several weeks, to look at the dynamics of learning, to have a clearer focus on independent home tasking, maybe using home for practice tasks, with classroom looking at the teaching and addressing of evident misconceptions, with specific guidance for individuals.

It might be feasible for reading aloud, as a form of self-check, to be submitted through IT, using a phone, tablet or laptop as the receiver, to be forwarded to the school.

Extended writing could be done at home, following in-lesson stimulus and planning, with drafts coming back for reflective discussion.

In this way, I could see less argument for holiday schooling, as being proposed by some commentators. At this point in the pandemic, we cannot be secure in making any plans for a return to “normal school”.

Time with a known teacher is far more productive than time with a stranger, and I use the word stranger advisedly. Essential DBS checks on any army of volunteers, even retired teachers, could stretch some of the current systems.

Children will have missed a few topics. Deciding whether these are “essential”, given forthcoming plans might determine a few tweaks. If an essential topic is to replace another, by definition less essential topic, a further consideration might be to look at the allocation of time to the topic. Does the essential topic need to take, say, seven weeks of a half term, or could it be covered in five, leaving two weeks to offer a taster of the less essential topic? Moving away from the half term topic would free time.

All topics lend themselves to supporting the English and often maths curriculum, especially talking, reading and different writing forms, counting, leading to data and measures.

Integrating the different elements can help to free some time. How about sending home a piece of text to read, or an image to consider before a subsequent discussion lesson? Why spend fifteen minutes of a lesson giving time for consideration? Use the time to collate and share responses.

Space, time and resources are in teacher control. How they are used to support learning are under teacher direction. Time management will become more pressing as time passes.

Time is tight; to be used with care.

In December 2014, my blog was two months old.

For the Christmas break, I created a sort of reflective challenge to anyone who wished to take on an idea, to look back over their career and to distil what they had learned over that time, in three main categories; on you as a person, on children and on management, which I broadened to simply working with others.

The original blog had a number of very thoughtful contributions, so they can be explored at the base of the blog;
https://chrischiversthinks.weebly.com/blog-thinking-aloud/1000-years-of-experience
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However, even with a large number of very kind donations, the total came to approximately 700 years, so didn’t quite get to the 1000 years that I had hoped. So, as a last call approach, I hope that lockdown has given time for reflection on what is important in education, maybe lessons about yourself. Perhaps time away from front line teaching has offered food for thought about children as learners, maybe about working with others. There are some creative ideas for interpretation, but any reflections can be shared in the comment box at the bottom of this blog.

Some of the original collection were developed a little further into a downloadable "non-book", which can be accessed through https://chrischiversthinks.weebly.com/pdfs.html 

Reprise… background/initial blog.
Thank you to anyone who reads my blog. It’s been two months as of today and the visitor count has been high, which has been a source of much pleasure.

The site is a series of reflective posts, which occasionally seek to put current issues into a historical perspective, at least a career perspective. It has long worried me that large numbers of people leave education, after a long and successful career and that’s that. The wealth of expertise and their insights are lost to the system.

Schools are organic and go through phases of development. A settled staff, working together, develops an internal (historical) narrative that is enhanced and becomes more nuanced each year. When significant members, or large numbers, change, there can be a loss of history, with new members who may fail to understand the story to date and their own interpretations may be a shadow of what went before. Of course, it can be the case that the “group think” created by a settled staff can embed practices that a new pair of eyes sees more objectively. Either way, the organic nature of the organisation is to “heal” within the new body, to assume, hopefully, a new equilibrium.

Whether good, bad or indifferent, a school career offers insights into oneself, as a person and a practitioner, into children, as people and learners, parenting habits and management, either as a promoted post or having to deal with management decisions.

Having contributed to Rachel Jones “Don’t Change the Light Bulbs” book, it struck me that crowdsourcing could be a means of collating a wealth of information.
So I extend an invitation, to any reader of my blog, to share their distilled thoughts as succinctly as possible. If we can get to 1000 years, with a corporate effort, I’ll do my best to distil the thoughts further to come up with a collegiate précis.
Below is a contribution from @GazNeedle, who is normally sketching, doodling and cartooning ideas. As it wouldn't copy into the comment thread, I thought it would fit here.
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Please Read Gaz's written comment plus those of many other kind contributors below. (Ed; via the original blog)

My own effort is below. You can use that format, or any that suits your style.

40 year career, Secondary science, Primary, Junior, Primary, Junior, Infant (DH), Primary (HT) ITT tutor, assessor for a range of national schemes, Consultant (isn’t everyone, these days?)

On you, as a person.

• Keep things simple; they are then easy to understand and communicate.
• Be yourself, be strong and continue to be a learner and thinker. Have a hobby/life!
• Be a team player and a leader when necessary. Schools are stronger together.
• Organise a class space that supports learning, as well as your teaching.
• Resource effectively, for easy retrieval and return.
• Be ordered and organised, be strategic in your thinking and communicate effectively with everyone.

On children

• Know your children well.
• Plan for their learning, over different timescales, make sure the “story” is good and makes them think. There’s a big world out there; open eyes, ears, hearts and minds.
• Think with them, talk with them and make adjustments when you see they are not “getting it”.
• As you get to know them better, fine tune challenges to their needs.
• Parents are essential partners. Harness their energy appropriately. Make home activity count.

On management (working with people)

• Humanity should be a byword for everyone. Create a climate of respect. Model it.
• You work with and through your team. You are responsible for their welfare. Value them.
• Make sure the work environment supports their efforts, with appropriate space, resources and time.
• Goodwill works two ways; a “give and take” approach buys extra effort.
• Communicate, communicate, communicate; don’t assume.
• Strategy is only as good as the explanation and the understanding. You can have all the plans in the world, but, if no-one understands them, they will fail.
• Take time to say thank you.

Thanks to Craig Parkinson @cparkie, for the Wordle below, highlighting the key words from eight early contributors. Interesting what are the highlights; could be a useful discussion piece. Would your staff room agree the priorities? 
​

 
Field geometry?

Looking for simple challenges for children to use outdoors that have links to wider learning, straight lines and circles come to mind.

Challenges:

Lines
Using only three poles and either chalk or cones, can you create a straight line between two points on the playground or field?

Lines can be extended to drawing other geometric shapes. How about exploring Pythagoras theorem? It’s possible with year six. Linking squares with triangles and maybe extending to right angles and building with such simple geometry; builders 3,4,5 triangle?

Can you devise a method for drawing a vertical line? Crib note plumb line, a weight on a string.

Circles
You have a piece of string and a piece of chalk. Devise a way to draw a circle on the playground; for older children, that has a radius of 50cm.

What happens if you have drawn a circle, then “walked” the chalk radius around the circumference and marked points? What shape would it make? How else can a circle be divided?
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What happens if you draw a straight line, then draw circles at 20cm points along the line? Play with shapes?  
All these challenges could be replicated on a smaller scale with a compass, a ruler and pencils, exploring shapes within circles.

Make windmills?
This exercise was a part of a topic that I did around 1984, with a year six class, looking at energy, so it has some current resonance. Wind and water energies were exemplified and explored through a visit to a local windmill and watermill. Within the DT curriculum, attempts were made to create working models.

Alongside that, exploring circles allowed a homework project to create wind “turbines” that became the focus for a fair test to find the most efficient. The testing was relatively simple, with each turbine mounted on a compass, on a pencil embedded in the ground.
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Of course, just making our own windmill, coloured in, could be an interesting task in itself.
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With schools looking carefully at ways to accommodate children back into school, then with the advice/guidance to do as much working outside as possible, I thought I would put together a collection of ideas that might offer some start points, together with links to other blogs on my site that could add further.

The external environment can enable some high-quality opportunities for underpinning and understanding the use and application of the knowledge that is learned in the classroom.

Sensory experience is the beginning of exploration. Seeing, listening, touching, smelling and tasting, appropriately, are all essential basics. https://chrischiversthinks.weebly.com/blog-thinking-aloud/five-senses-starter

In English, for example, exploration of the site for micro-settings can be the starter for perhaps putting figures into the environment, creating an adventure in the micro world. If children are able to lie down and see that micro world from the point of view of the character, they can place themselves into the adventure. Really adventurous opportunities could be taken to fully storyboard and script the adventure, it could be created as an animated film.

Descriptive opportunities are all around; everything is capable of description, orally or in writing.

Report writing is also supported by outside activity, maybe in the form of a daily diary, a summative description of a specific event or activity. Rules or instructions for games being played?

Art. In the same way everything can be drawn, or painted or photographed, for use as the basis for a larger piece of work, which might be collage. How about incorporating natural materials? Don’t forget to encourage the exploration of colour naming, too. How about giving out a colour chart and getting children to find an object of each colour?

Looking at maths, counting opportunities are everywhere. How many… bricks in a metre square? How many bricks high is the school? How many paving stones in a patio? Ow broad are tree canopies? What is the circumference of a tree? Work out the diameter?

How many… petals on a daisy? This is interesting. Do all daisies have the same number of petals? Each child to pick ten, to organise and count each one. Results collated in a group, as a bar chart.

Measures. How long is… this can lead to measuring all aspects of the school, put onto a sketch map, with older children then transposing the measurements into a scale drawing of the school.
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Angles, yr 6, could be incorporated into the measures activity, as a form of triangulation activity, perhaps using a 360 degree protractor with a pointer fixed to the centre. Heights of things, buildings or trees, could be calculated from an activity using a clinometer, an angle metre. Don’t forget to remind the children about their own height, to their eyes…
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Activity data, link with PE; one minute data, see this blog… https://chrischiversthinks.weebly.com/blog-thinking-aloud/quick-one-minute-data

Having explored mapping the site, as a Geography activity, looking at the micro sites for ecology is a very useful activity. Go out onto the/a “grass” area. How many different plants actually make up the “grass” area? With a tray, childnre to look for and collect examples of different leaves of plants, to then seek to identify. Are there areas where plants are left uncut? How does this affect the growing paterns of the same plants? How high do they grow, uncut? How low can daisies flower?

 Animal tracks and signs can be surprising. What lives in the school grounds and what evidence is there that they are round? Blog, with pictures. https://chrischiversthinks.weebly.com/blog-thinking-aloud/creating-nature-detectives

Minibeasts. How about hunting the Triantiwontigongolope? Poem, song and ideas for minibeast hunting… https://chrischiversthinks.weebly.com/blog-thinking-aloud/triantiwontigongolope

Creating observers of the world is a key starting point for further exploration, in that it enables questions, from either the child or the teacher. All questions can be followed up. https://chrischiversthinks.weebly.com/blog-thinking-aloud/observation-get-them-to-look
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The deepening of exploration can be calibrated through a structured questining scaffold, as per the diagram below.

The material world of the school can be explored, looking at the building architectural features; what holds it up, what different materials have been used, for what purposes? Materials outside? What’s the soil made from? Anything looked at can be enhanced through a magnifier, or possibly under a visualiser on the IWB.

Are there shadows in the school grounds? How about making a sundial to check on the movement and maybe make a clock? How do shadows change in length at different times of the day? Why?

If it rains on a day when the sun may come out. How about drawing around a puddle and seeing how it alters during the day?

Using the sun to explore the drying action on different materials? Which material dries the fastest, or slowest?

Primary science is about children
Asking questions
About their real world
And
Finding answers by some kind of first-hand experience.
It is about children being scientific,
A process involving the skills of

Observing; starting with direct and short term observations,
Employing all their senses
And later,
Using tools to aid the senses to find the less obvious
And increase their ability to select from those observations
Those things that are meaningful,
Later ordering those observations to derive pattern and structure

Classifying; beginning by sorting things
According to attributes selected by the children,
Recognising similarities and differences,
Gradually accepting and using official ways of classifying.

Measuring; using non-standard units of volume, time, length, mass,
Later moving to standard measures, with increasing accuracy
And more sophisticated instruments.
Using measures to determine patterns of events, such as growth and change.

Predicting; speculating about possible outcomes of events or experiments,
At first intuitively,
Later making use of prior experience and logical argument,
To develop predictions that can be tested by experiment,
Eventually being able to formulate general hypotheses
Rather than single predictions.

Experimenting; early attempts to make tests fair
And record results,
Takin increasing care over control of variables,
Later selecting specialised equipment to tackle practical problems
That are abstract from familiar environments.

Communicating; Oral and drawn descriptions of first hand experiences,
Late developing a more precise use of language of planning, reporting and explaining,
Events or experiments,
Increasingly more accurate in recording,
Developing diagrams, graphs and working with data,
Making general statements, conclusions, from the results.

Explaining; exploring the links between cause and effect,
When I did this…that happened,
With increasing use of reference material
Supporting their thinking and reflections,
Later developing explanations that derive from their reflections
Rather than relying on first-hand experience.

Evaluating; reflecting on the whole process,
Suggesting ways in which they would change their approach,
Next time.

Making sense of their experiences, through refining and honing central skills,
Using developing knowledge to help address new situations…

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On my blog, in the contents section, scroll down towards the bottom to find more subject ideas.  https://chrischiversthinks.weebly.com/contents.html
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Pandemic pensées. Feeling kinda blue…

It’s proving to be a very strange time, this lockdown stuff. We can do some things, but not others. In many ways, it’s the restrictions on life in general that begin to wear thin at times. Stoicism enables some resilience and we’re lucky to have a garden and countryside within a few minutes’ walk, so we can occasionally “escape” to wander and see and hear the wider world.

Occasionally, the desire for some normality, like stopping for a coffee can weigh a little, but then thought of the front line NHS workers put that into perspective. We all have to be grateful for everything that they have done, often in near impossible situations.

Passing total strangers, with them either wishing to have some contact, at a reasonable distance of course (walking poles are an excellent guide) or, as we encountered recently, an elderly lady totally turning her back as we passed, because she was afraid. There are reasons to be fearful, especially as the Government has spoken often about asymptomatic cases of Covid19. You look healthy, not showing any signs, but do you have it or have you had it (mildly)?

It’s the not knowing all the details, despite reading as much as possible and preferring to listen to the “experts” that leaves residual concerns.

Politicians have a different agenda. They have to show that they are in charge, because that’s their job. Being in charge means telling others what to do, which is probably easier in a totalitarian state. It can appear as if today we are moving further towards that, rather than the more liberal state that we have known.

Lockdown, to a large extent, shows how people will comply. It also showed the fear, in panic buying, although it is arguable that this was simply sensible, given the potential that, at any point, a family could be required to be in a two week quarantine, reliant on neighbours if family members weren’t close.

So we have endured six weeks of lockdown, at a prescribed distance from others, seeing the best of neighbourliness and friendship; watching out for signs of distress, checking on food supplies, or, in our case, also acting as a mobile library for a housebound elderly friend. It’s proving beneficial to have kept books that have been read; they can be lent. As she is an artist, they are also giving food for thought as she seeks inspiration in isolation.

So what’s life for most of us reduced to?

Basic essentials; food, drink, sleep, gardens/exercise, reading, TV, texts and calls to keep in touch. For some, these have been in short supply, so neighbourliness has also included checking on those essentials; schools have become ad hoc food banks, free school meals interpreted as food hampers by some, bypassing the Government vouchers. Handing over food is a means of also checking how things are. Vouchers can be remote and they didn’t work properly, at all, for a few weeks.

Schools have worked exceptionally hard to accommodate the learning challenges of remote teaching and learning; setting up platforms and communication systems, checking and seeking to address home internet and hardware needs (the latter probably easier than the former), phone checks on children’s well-being and how they are managing with set tasks. It’s been very time consuming, in a different way to normal planning and classroom activity. Much of this will prove beneficial in what will inevitably become the “new normal”.

Since their inception, schools have been based on the class or year group of children, with various organisations over that time, from the large groups with monitor teachers that are now organised as a class of about 30 with a main teacher and a full or part time assistant.

Will we see whole class teaching in the near future? As a school Governor and as a grandparent, I am as concerned as anyone to consider this.

Classrooms, since the 60/70s have been based on a notional 55sq m as the basis size. This has been interpreted over time in different ways. The larger part of my teaching life was in a scola build, a mid-1970s incarnation that included the walk-through spaces as a part of the 55sq m. The class bit was about 35 sq m, so corridors were part of the teaching space. I use this as an example that not all schools have the same accommodation. This will include corridors that will vary in width.

Entrance doors vary from those with handles to automatic entry points. Some need handling, others don’t. This has an implication for hand and surface hygiene before entry and then at all points of the day.

Playtime is a social gathering time. This is when mingling might occur. Breaks are also the time when most schools ask children to go to the toilet, again a mingling, messing about, time. Maybe children will need to be allowed to go to the toilet singly during “lessons” instead?

We are now in May and there’s speculation that schools will be asked to open in June, so timescales are relatively short, to take account of the broad range of needs to be accommodated.

There are many permutations of how things can be organised and every school will, no doubt, be trying very hard to work out what is best for everyone. Pressure will grow to open fully, to enable parents to go back to work, but that might not be safe in the short term and safety, of everyone involved has to be paramount. There’s no benefit in exposing everyone to a rapid, second spike in the virus.

There are a number of options that immediately spring to mind.

1. Maintain the status quo. Keep teaching remotely for as long as is needed, bearing in mind that a number (different in each school) will not be fully accessing or participating in learning.
2. A full return. This would prove virtually impossible in the majority of organisations. Maintaining social distancing, whether defined as 2m, 1.5m or 1m, unless every child was expected to wear a face covering and teachers offered some kind of PPE; maybe wearing a face visor would be mandatory? Guaranteeing hand hygiene would be impossible and all tables would need to be wiped down assiduously. Would children move between lessons, causing corridor mixing, or teachers move to classrooms? There will be a difference between Primary and Secondary. Many will see this as near impossible in the short term.

Taking 1 and 2 into account, it’s more likely that children will return to school in groups. To ease family issues, if children are in the same school, attending on the same day would seem sensible. I would be considering a half day experience, probably 9-12, with no breaks and going home for lunch to avoid playtime mixing in the short term.

1. One year-group back as a whole, which seems to be the politician articulation of what will be expected? Take the example of a one form entry school, of seven age groups and an example class of 30/32 children. Classroom space of 55sq m is likely to allow 6-8 children to be accommodated in one space, so this will take four classrooms and require four adults. There wouldn’t be space for any other year group as a whole to attend, so attendance patterns would be a seven-day rotation. There would be a continuous need for every year group to do remote teaching for the days where children were not attending.
2. One group of eight children per year group? Morning only. Afternoons then available to teachers to plan and catch up with remote learning. I have tweeted that this reminds me of my 1974 integrated day planning, in that large classes of 40 children required organisation into groups for needs, so there was an element of remote or independent activity between formal teaching and catch up.

What if:

The key teaching day for essential information was on Friday, giving the weekend as a distillation period, with Monday to Thursday attendance in groups for teachers to do essential overlearning for some and guidance/additional challenge for others? Groups would attend on the same day each week, except for essential worker children, who will require a continuous provision of oversight on set learning, plus additional social activities, for however long this situation has to last.

Which groups come in on which days? Vulnerable learners on Monday, to secure learning that they can then do independently, maybe with a check in/reprise on Thursday?

The main focus for the three hours attendance was Maths, English and Topic (30 minutes each) with time then given to a social activity like art, for some as therapy and a chance to chat?

Schools are between the inevitable “rock and hard place”. Whatever organisation is put in place, there will be inevitable complaints. There needs to be a political acceptance that every school will be doing its best. It will do no-one any good to know that “the school down the road does x”. That school’s facilities may differ greatly. Locality communication will be essential, to seek to minimise that pressure.

At some point in the near future, as a Governor, I will be involved in discussions about plans to restore some element of face to face direct contact with children, ensuring that safety is paramount. Teaching is a people job, it’s also a social role. Getting close to children and their needs is the essence of good teaching and learning. We have to safeguard all adults in schools and monitor carefully any potential adverse consequences of these initial decisions.

We could try to hope that, for a week or so in July, some element of normality might be possible, maybe whole days and a chance to ensure transitions are managed for September. No-one should be over-confident that this will happen. It will be a case of envisaging and planning for all eventualities.

One of the simple pleasures of the recent need to stay at home for extended periods has been the opportunity to watch the bird feeders and the bird bath, both of which get regular visitors, getting up to various acrobatic tricks and having no shame in their bathing techniques.

Having some shrubs and small trees around does help the birds confidence, as they can make a quick getaway if necessary to avoid local cats or occasionally, us. However, by being a quiet presence in the garden, many birds are now coming to within a metre of us, and not just the robins.
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Both the feeders and the bath are very simple; something to hold seed or more open to hold the suet balls. Our local pet shops and certainly our local Wilko or B&M are open.
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The bath is nothing more than a tray to stand a pot in. It holds water and fits the space. It doesn’t need to be special; an upturned dustbin lid will work, too, with stones to make an “island” for birds to stand safely.
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A few weeks’ ago, we had a dozen varieties of birds coming in an hour. This week, April 14th, the birds are more active in the garden picking up bits of nesting material, so we have cut some of the dry grasses to help and also put out hair that was caught in hair-brushes.

Over the next couple of weeks, we will expect to see the parent birds coming regularly to the feeders to collect particularly the suet, if last year is anything to go by, to feed themselves, as a quick snack while out looking for insects, but also their young, eventually coming back in family groups for a few weeks before they disperse.

It’s very simple, but good fun.

​Online identification is possible, if you’re not confident in naming the birds that come., We’ve had blue tits, great tits, long tailed tits and an occasional coal tit, sparrows and starlings, robins, blackbirds, nuthatches, greenfinches and goldfinches. The wren makes an occasional appearance, as do the thrushes and jays. Fortunately, the magpies have been quieter this year, although they are impressive birds.

More blogs on using the natural world.
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Observation; get them to look
Creating Nature Detectives
50 things to Do; Thinking Locality
​A Sense of Place; naming things

The Wildlife Trusts have a junior section; Watch.
https://www.wildlifewatch.org.uk/
Or there’s the RSPB
https://www.rspb.org.uk/birds-and-wildlife/wildlife-guides/identify-a-bird/

As someone with a couple of lifetimes in education, from time to time I look back on my career and wonder how I managed to maintain myself through the inevitable ups and downs that life offers; making time for opportunities, or coping with life events.

The newly married probationer had time to play a lot of sport, sometimes mid-week and twice at weekends, plus fit in home life, which entailed DIY on the house. There was time for a local amateur dramatic group, too.

Time stretched, but time was our own for a few years and then along came children, so time altered, to cater for the new life. Sport went on one of the weekend days and midweek got more difficult, to be replaced by crawling around the floor and immersion in parenting. Carrying children in backpacks became de facto weight training. Camping replaced hotels and B&Bs, but it still allowed holidaying.
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Learning to play the guitar and local wildlife combined some elements of parenting, singing silly songs with the children and taking groups to different places to discover wild areas. A link with a local building society helped to create poetry and art competitions. Busyness continued apace. Somehow, post grad studies, waking at 5am to do a couple of hours before children woke, fitted in.
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As children grew a little older and a bit more independent, time became available to participate in a local folk dance group as percussionist/bodhran player, with weekend camping trips for festivals, so family had some fun as well and met some new friends.

Headship was a bit more challenging to find time, especially at the start, but summer camping then included trips to France to visit friends who had emigrated, so gave a couple or three weeks of head space. It also meant a continuing music link, playing in the Radio France final of the Truffe de Perigueux.

Three years later, a diagnosis of breast cancer caused a radical rethink, and, to everyone’s surprise, resulted in buying a French hovel; a continuous life project. It was buying “headspace” a rebalancing, time out of normal life, which continues, even after bereavement. The escape to the country made real. The simplicity of practical DIY projects, of coppicing, pollarding and haymaking, of collecting hedgerow fruits, or eating a meal outdoors are underrated pastimes.
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Looking back over this, the notion of “headspace” is a common factor. We all live busy lives, with the busyness occasionally as a result of an inability to say “no” to anyone. The inevitable juggling and time stretching is often fine until an unexpected event tilts the balance, to a point where we feel that we are not coping.
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Some situations allow for stepping back, letting others to take some of the weight, using the collegiality of family or a work team to allow a period of rebalancing. Knowing yourself is key; knowing when to step away might be a necessary action; hopefully short term.
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Pandemic pensées
We’re living in very strange times. The world’s closed down. People are at home, some working, some furloughed, some looking after themselves or others, whose lives may be risked by catching the current virus.
Teachers are working really hard to maintain some elements of normality among the altered reality and, in different households, the capacity to support children with any areas of learning might be strained. Teacher capacity to identify and support individuals with specific help will also be constrained.
Children have been put into a situation where they are distance learning. Even as an adult, this can be a challenge, in motivation, resourcefulness and perseverance. Frustrations that might be expressed in normal times about “not understanding” what is expected may be exaggerated further by the expectations of a number of hours each day devoted to “schoolwork”.
This tweet, posted by an Aussie teacher made me stop and think.
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Teachers may well be sending home work that challenges the child’s ability to conceptualise what is being expected. If we look at maths as a separate area, in this case, a teacher or other adult might seek to unpick the problem and exemplify what is being asked by the use of supportive diagrams or with reference to physical materials.
But… home is not school, so the resources may not be available.
That, in itself, set off a train of thought and took me back to my first classroom, which I inherited with resources that were either twenty years old, or non-existent. There was a need to create, devise or collect resources that would support counting, matching and grouping. So visits to the beach might mean picking up shells to bring home, boil and clean to take into school. Autumn meant collecting conkers. I did try marbles, at one time, but, for some reason, they kept going missing… It soon became clear that anything could become a counting aid, so newsletter requests to parents helped with a variety of materials and the local sweet shop was a source of large, clear jars.
I thought it might be an idea to consider how to make resources from very simple materials that might be available in homes, provide useful activities in their development, then be useful in specific maths activities.
Let’s start with counting.
It’s possible that families are getting through quite a lot of cereal, or other boxed foods. The cardboard can be used as free base materials. A ruler, marker pen, pencil and scissors are needed.

Open out the boxes and cut the larger pieces. Keep bits, in case you want to make more at some stage.
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Measure and rule a 1cm grid, or larger, 2cm, if you are worried for a child’s dexterity, using as much of the card as possible. Identify a couple of 10*10 grids, as 100 squares, where you can cut 10 squares into “rods”, leaving the remainder to become “ones”, “singles” or “units”.

Drawing a 3cm by 4cm grid can create a series of rectangles that become number cards. If you have enough, numbering to 100 is very useful to challenge later learning.
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Cut out the various pieces.
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Combining the counting numbers with the cut out counters can begin to develop thinking mathematically, matching numbers, showing these in physical form.

Challenges can then develop, linking physical, diagrammatic and abstract.
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A very simple activity that can be very effective in supporting rapid calculation could be called race to or from the flat. This can be an extension from making the resources above, with the addition of one or more dice.
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As long as you have made the materials above and have some dice, this can be developed to cater for a variety of needs.

The rules of each game are simply described.
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·         Decide whether it’s a race to or from the flat (100 square). Decide whether, when the dice are thrown, the numbers are added together (any number of dice) or multiplied (two or three dice?).
·         Dienes materials available tin the centre of players, plus dice appropriate to the needs of the group.
·         Each child takes turns to throw the dice and calculate the sum or product.
·         This amount is then taken from the general pile and placed in front of the child. The calculation can be recorded eg 3+4=7. This can provide a second layer of checking.
·         If playing race from the flat, the child starts with ten ten rods, then takes an appropriate amount from these.
·         Subsequent rounds see pieces added to the child’s collection; recorded as needed, eg round 2, 5+2=7 (7+7=14; the teacher should see one ten and four ones)
·         The first child to or from the flat is the winner.


Altering the number of dice alters the challenge.

As we're largely stuck indoors at the moment, it's likely to be hard to stimulate children's imaginations.

I've been looking through various files recently and came across an item that was a part of the first half of my classroom career, where I took the class book and interpreted it into a prose poem that then became the basis for musical interpretation as a part of a school assembly.

The book is well known; The Iron Man, by Ted Hughes. It's recently had a number of interpretations in a variety of media, many of which would be beyond school or personal equipment. However, it is very possible to take a shared text and remodel it, perhaps into "scenes", which can then be interpreted as a visual storyboard, which in turn can be the basis for a musical background to a story or, as here, a prose "poem". Sometimes, it's a case of use what you have got.

The Iron Man… by Ted Hughes
A prose poem interpretation.
 
The Iron Man came to the top of the cliff.
Where had he come from? Nobody Knows.
How was he made? Nobody knows.
Taller than a house, he stood, on the brink in the darkness.
He heard the sea.
His eyes glowed white, then red, then infra-red.
He stepped forward, off the cliff,
Into nothing.
CRASH…His arms fell off.
CRASH… His legs fell off.
CRASH… His great iron ears fell off, and his eyes fell out.
CRASH… His body ended up in pieces at the bottom of the cliff.
Then silence.
 
A seagull came and found his hand,
It also found his eye.
It took them back to its chicks on the rocks.
But no good did it do them.
 
The hand picked up the eye,
And set off down the beach.
Looking for the other parts of the Iron Man to make him whole.
And bit by bit, and piece by piece they found him in the sand,
And put him back together,
‘Til the Iron Man stood tall once more.
 
Hogarth, a farmer's son, was fishing by a stream.
He heard the Iron Man climbing up the cliff .
He watched, he thought, he feared,
He ran off home tell his mum
Of the Iron Man on top of the hill
His father got his gun.
Driving along in the darkness, they saw his headlights eyes
And a tractor bitten right in two.
They drove off home in fear.
 
That night,
At every farm around,
The Iron Man ate all the tractors,
All the earth diggers at all the ploughs
Add all that was left were his footprints…
 
Farmers dug a great big pit
and covered it with earth
they hoped to trap the Iron Man
and Bury him forever
 
Time passed. Nothing happened.
Time passed. Nothing happened.
 
But then,
Hogarth was trying to trap a Fox
When the Iron Man reappeared,
Eating barbed wire beside a field,
Chewing it like spaghetti,
Clink, clink. Hogarth tapped a nail against his knife.
The Iron Man turned to face him.
Clink, clnk. Hogarth tapped a nail against his knife
And the Iron Man came,
And the Iron Man came, and came…
CRASH.
He fell and the whole world shook.
His metal gears ground in anger.
The farmers came and filled up the hole.
They thought they'd killed the Iron Man.
 
They slept peacefully for many days, but under the ground the Iron Man stirred.
 
The earth moved and the Iron Man reappeared,
This time, instead of trying to kill the Iron Man,
They took him to a scrap yard,
Where they sat him down.
Now, day by day, he sat and chewed.
A stove was like a toffee.
A bit of chrome a double decker bed, the best of all was brass.
 
One day, there came some dreadful news
About an Angel dragon
Landing on Australia.
The people were afraid when the dragon said
He’d eat up all the human race unless they kept him fed.
 
The Iron Man bravely challenged him
To battle in a furnace.
For the Iron Man it was an oily fire,
But for the dragon it was the sun.
 
Twice they went through this ordeal
Until the dragon faltered,
Crying that he'd had enough,
He’d be the Iron Man's slave
and fly through the sky making heavenly music.
 
Now peaceful sounds filled the air…

Like many people, I have a collection of “things” around the house. Found, picked up, purchased or inherited, they, in themselves hold a part of my back story, which can be triggered by a look or picking them up. They are reminders of a former self, another’s life, or a place. They are my “memory things”.

In addition, around the house are other things, more purposeful things, that make life easier. These are functional things.

The thing that all these things have in common is that they have names, words that might describe their function; chair, table, knife, forks.

There are similarities between things; there are several different chairs and tables around the house, each having a different function. On some chairs, we sit and eat at the dining table, on others resting in the lounge, the deckchair allows rest in the garden. But they are all chairs, objects that allow sitting.

Naming things is a function of a growing awareness of the world.

Exploring similarity and difference between things is an important step into classification and differentiation. This requires differential words; some simple, such as hard, soft, large, small, quick, slow. These develop into synonyms, or, in other words, an extended vocabulary.

Things therefore create the need for words, naming and descriptive.

Things can create a short journey of “discovery”, giving things their attributes, possibly leading to questions that can be answered by scaffolded exploration; Is it… Can you see/feel/hear/smell/taste as appropriate… The adult role is extending the oral awareness of the “things” that are the current focus. It’s a bit like playing “I spy” on a car journey, the spotting can lead to extended talk. "What's a...?"

The world is full of things.

They can be called artefacts and used to develop historical, geographical or scientific routes into exploration. The imagery of the artefact can be the start point for imagination and speculation, which, if developed carefully, can become hypothesis, a narrative that can be checked through ever more careful measuring or observation.

Things are the bread and butter of counting and arithmetic, being replaced by concrete representations that fulfil a different narrative journey; Dienes blocks, starting with one to one correspondence, leading to set and group theory and place value.

Things underpin learning. Without a mindful of named things, the ability to think can be limited. I am personally aware of that in a different language.

Give children “things” to think about, to talk about, then share in the discovery and description of those things. What are the similarities and differences in the objects in the header photo?

A spine of experiences, seeking to deepen exploration through scaffolding. This can, of course, be extended into the home through "Talking homework", something positive to explore at home with parents; guided parenting rather than paperwork homework.

Making sense of experience…
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Poem by Roald Dahl from James and the Giant Peach
 

(C) I've eaten many strange and scrumptious (F) dishes (G7) in my (C) time,
Like jellied gnats and dandyprats and (F) earwigs (G7) cooked in (C) slime,
And (G7) mice with rice they're (C) really nice, when (F) roasted in their (C) prime.
(G7) (But (C) don't forget to sprinkle them with (F) just a pinch of (C) grime.)
 
I've eaten fresh mud burgers by the greatest cooks there are,
And scrambled dregs and stink bug eggs and hornets stewed in tar,
And pails of snails and lizard’s tails and beetles by the jar.
(A beetle is improved by just a splash of vinegar.)
 
I often eat boiled slobbages. They’re grand when served beside
Minced doodle bugs and curried slugs, and have you ever tried
Mosquitoes toes and wampfish roes, most delicately fried?
(The only trouble is they disagree with my insides.)
 
I'm mad for crispy wasp stings on a piece of buttered toast
And pickled spines of porcupines and then a gorgeous roast
Of dragon’s flesh, well hung, not fresh. It costs a pound at most.
(And comes to you in barrels, if you order it by post.)
 
I crave the tasty tentacles of octopi pie for tea.
I like hot dogs, I love hot frogs and surely you’ll agree
A plate of soil with engine oil’s a super recipe.
(I hardly need to mention that it’s practically free.)
 
For dinner on my birthday shall I tell you what I chose?
Hot noodles made from poodles on a slice of garden hose
And a rather smelly jelly made from armadillo's toes.
(The jelly is delicious, but you have to hold your nose.)
 
Now comes, the centipede declared, the burden of my speech.
These foods are rare beyond compare, some are right out of reach,
But there's no doubt I'd go without a million plates of each,
For one small mite, one tiny bite, of this fantastic peach.  

On (D) top of spag (G) hetti, all covered in (D) cheese,
I lost my poor (A7) meatball when somebody (D) sneezed…(atchoo)
 
It (D) rolled off the (G) table and onto the (D) floor,
And then my poor (A7) meatball, rolled out of the (D) door.
 
It (D) rolled in the (G) garden and under a (D) bush,
and then my poor (A7) meatball was nothing but (D) mush.
 
The mush was as tasty, as tasty could be,
And then the next summer, it grew into a tree.
 
The tree was all covered, all covered with moss,
And on it grew meatballs, and tomato sauce.
 
So if you eat spaghetti, all covered with cheese,
Hold on to your meatball, whenever you sneeze.
 
 

A vowel exchange song

(C) I like to eat, eat, eat, eat. I like to eat apples and ban(G7)anas.
(G7) I like to eat, eat, eat, eat. I like to eat apples and ban(C)anas.

 A emphasised
I like to ate, ate, ate, ate. I like to ate ay-ples and baynaynays.
I like to ate, ate, ate, ate. I like to ate ay-ples and baynaynays.

E emphasised
I like to eat, eat, eat, eat. I like to eat ea-ples and beaneayneays.
I like to eat, eat, eat, eat. I like to eat ea-ples and beaneayneays.

I emphasised
I like to ite, ite, ite, ite. I like to ite i-ples and buynuynuys.
I like to ite, ite, ite, ite. I like to ite i-ples and buynuynuys.

O emphasised
I like to ote, ote, ote, ote. I like to ote o-ples and bononos.
I like to ote, ote, ote, ote. I like to ote o-ples and bononos.

U emphasised
I like to ute, ute, ute, ute. I like to ute u-ples and bununus.
I like to ute, ute, ute, ute. I like to ute u-ples and bununus.
​
Finish
Now we’re through, through, through, through.
Now we’re through with apples and bananas.
Now we’re through, through, through, through.
With a-e-i-o-u

Row your boat
Strummed (C)
Row, row, row your boat,
Gently down the stream.
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily,
Life is just a dream.
 
Frere Jacques
Strummed (D)
Frere Jacques, frere Jacques,
Dormez vous, dormez vous?
Sonnez les matines, sonnez les matines,
Ding, dang, dong. Ding dang dong.


Same tune
Hairy jackets, hairy jackets,
Warm inside, warm inside,
But they're very itchy, but they're very itchy.
Scratch, scratch, scratch. Scratch, scratch, scratch.
Back to top, repeat as wanted
 
You can’t put your muck in our dustbin
(D) You can't put your muck in our dustbin, (A7) our dustbin, (D) our dustbin.
You can't put your muck in our dustbin, (A7) our dustbins (D) full.
(A7) One bottle away, (D) two bottle away, (A7) three bottle away, (D) four bottle away,
(A7) Five bottle away, (D) six bottle away, (A7) seven bottle away, (D) eight.
 
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