After a super year in Otter BB, it seems terrible to delete all of our memories on here, so I’m going to have this as an archive. The page is incredibly long but scroll down to see some of the things we did.

St. Nicholas’ Priory:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lightning’s Diary:

I hope you’re all enjoying half term! I brought Lightning home with me again, and thought you might like to see what he has got up to so far…

Look out for the “Spot the otter” competition at the bottom of this post!

At the disco with Otter BB

Birdwatching in the new birdhide at Bicton Park

About to go fishing (again!) in the rockpools off Exmouth beach

Killerton….hiding!

Smelling the snowdrops…

 

My goddaughter restraining Lightning before he jumped in the pond!

Look at the photo with Killerton House in again. Can you spot Lightning? If so, leave a comment at the bottom of this telling me where you think he is hidden!

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Older posts about Lightning…

I thought you would all like to know that we now have a name for our class pet! Meet Lightning the otter!

Otters are normally very elusive (hard to see!) and they can move like lightning through the water, so congratulations to Bradley for coming up with the idea!

 

Keep an eye out on the blog to see what adventures Lightning has!

 

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Miss Butcher wrote:

Hi everyone.

I feel a bit daft now, but after asking you if you would like me to put Lightning’s diary up on the blog, it suddenly occurred to me that otters might not be very good at typing or keeping a diary, so I thought I ought to write something for him.

I hope you’re all ok. I’ve got that annoying cold that so many of you have had this week, and have therefore spent most of today on the sofa feeling grotty. However, about three pm, I suddenly realised that I hadn’t seen Lightning at all, so I started searching for him.

You’ll never guess where I found. He was down the garden, hiding in the long grass staring into the fish pond! Maybe you could find out for me, but I have a nasty feeling that otters only eat fish, and I have no idea how long he was down there for. Hopefully tomorrow I’ll be able to keep a closer eye on him, but I might keep the cat flap locked tonight just in case!

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Sunday

Miss Butcher wrote:

You know, I think our otter might be more trouble than we thought! I’ve had another quiet day, but after a while  I again realised that Lightning had disappeared. I looked around for him, under the sofa, behind the beds etc, but this time he hadn’t gone outside to watch the fish. Oh no, he’d discovered the fish tank on the kitchen table!  At one point I even found him on top of the fish tank lid, trying to get in!

You’ll be pleased to know that Fish and Chips are fine, and still swimming around happily. I have stuck their lid down with sellotape, so they ought to be safe for a while. Who knows though what that otter will get up to next….I have a nasty feeling that he has learnt how to use the cat flap…. but I’ll let you know!

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Miss Butcher wrote:

Sorry for not writing this before, but I’m still feeling rough and have been staying at home. This means that Lightning hasn’t had the chance to go out and about….or so I thought! 

I woke up today to find the house empty-no Biggles and no Lightning! I wondered round, looking and calling out but there was no sign of either of them. I couldn’t work out how the otter had got out, but then heard the cat flap click and there he was! Bad otter! I don’t know what on earth he has been doing while I’ve been ill, but hope it hasn’t been anything bad. I’ll have to go and count the goldfish again tomorrow.

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Tuesday:

Miss Butcher wrote:

Hi everyone! I went for a drive along Exmouth beach this evening and guess who I saw walking along the promenade? How unusual! I’m not sure how many fish he’d see down there…

I might have to block up that cat flap!

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Wednesday and Thursday@

Miss Butcher wrote:

Hi everyone,

I hope you’re enjoying your half term holiday, which seems to be rushing by! I’d love to say I’ve been having fun here, but unfortunately Lightning appears to be quite a handful. Yesterday he disappeared completely. I couldn’t find him anywhere, and in the end had to give up looking, so hence the fact that there is no photo for yesterday.

Today I thought we could go out, so I took for a picnic up on Woodbury Common. It was beautiful: the wind was blowing, the sun was shining and the view was amazing. You could see Dartmoor, down to Torquay, Exeter and of course the River Exe. I’m not sure though that Lightning was quite so impressed…

Lightning wrote:

Woodbury common may be a very nice place to be, but for some reason Miss Butcher wouldn’t let me wander around, and kept me away from all of the pools and boggy areas. I knew that there were lots of frogs and things around that I could have snacked on, but there are far more in Miss B’s back garden, and her fish are much easier to catch!

As it was, all I could do was sit on that stupid bench and have people smile as I had my photo taken. Miss Butcher took ages because the strap kept getting in the way. I spent the time working how long it would take me to get down to that big river…I bet there are some nice fish in there!

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Sunday:

Miss Butcher wrote:

Hi everyone! I hope you have enjoyed the half term! It has certainly whizzed by. I seem to have spent most of the holiday looking for our badly behaved otter. I had no idea that he would be such hard work. He seems able to get out of the catflap as soon as I turn my back and disappear. Today I found him 3 miles away, down by Mudbank Lane in Exmouth! You won’t find it hard to guess what he had been looking for…

 

November 25th

As part of our science work investigating solids, liquids and gases (and the properties of materials) we made ice bombs! We filled a balloon with water, added a pinch of glitter and a drop of food colouring, and this is the result!

 

 

 

 

 

 

They were beautiful, but for some reason very cold to the touch! We admired them all afternoon, compared the bubbles and colours, and then the children watched as I heated some of the melting ice and turned it into water vapour. You can see how much the children enjoyed it by looking at the faces!

 

Wednesday 9th September:

Today we had a visit by the Fire Brigade. We learnt about fire safety, how quickly a fire can spread, escape plans and as you can see from the photo, how to put on a fireman’s uniform!

Doesn’t Mrs Hitchins look good?!

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Monday 21st September

Class elections for the School Council. After writing and rehearsing speeches about why we’d be a good class rep, we held elections by secret ballot. The speeches were really good, with some interesting ideas. Some people talked about new play equipment, banning school uniform, having a climbing frame. Others said about why they would be good at the job. I think my favourite one was the person who said she was “very good at talking!”

Our new class reps are now Luke and Amber. Well done both of you!

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Wednesday 23rd September

We got a new class pet today! She was rather unusual, and we had to let her go free at the end of the day, but we had “Bubbles” the spider staying with us! Elizabeth chose the name as we found the spider in the sink…

 

The Iron Man

This is a series of blurbs written by children about the Iron Man by Ted Hughes….

Amber and James

In this book Hogarth finds an incredibly scary Iron Man.  He decides to dash back to tell his understanding father.  His father goes and tells all the farmers he knows. 

The Iron Man’s head is as big as a bedroom, his feet as big as a single bed.  They set a clever trap but will he come?  Read the Iron Man to find out more.

Chloe and Ella

The Iron Man goes on lots of adventures around the country.  The people that see him are shocked, including farmers and a boy called Hogarth.  The Iron Man ate lots of delicious metal in the scrapyard.  His feet are as big as single beds, his head is as big as a bedroom.  If you have nightmares then don’t read this book!

Julie and Chris

How would you feel if an iron monster was eating your car or van?  One day three  farmers and a little boy called Hogarth tried to capture this iron beast.  Find out how some robots, who are as tall as houses and think lovely iron cars are yummy, aren’t very easy to control.

Timmy and Lewis

One evening Hogarth was fishing when a gigantic iron man appeared.  The beast ate all the farmers machinery, leaving a wheel each time.  He got trapped in a big hole dug by the farmers and he furious.  They took him to a scrapyard where he could eat lots of cars and metal.  This book rocks: Warning don’t read if  you have nightmares.

Nathan and David

One day the Iron Man appeared on the edge of a cliff.  How far had he walked? Nobody knows.  How was he made?  Nobody knows.  What was he doing on the cliff?  Nobody knows.  Then he put his right foot, his enormous iron foot forward and fell because there was no cliff left.  Crraaassshhh!  He fell to bits on the rocky sunny beach.  There was one part of his body left moving, will he find the rest?

 

Exciting menus for the Iron Man….

…but would you fancy eating any of these things?

 

Big School’s Birdwatch:

We had an unusual morning today: I actually encouraged the children to spend their time looking out of the window! We were taking part in the RSPB’s Big Schools’ Birdwatch and I suspended the curriculum for the morning.

We started off the Birdwatch by watching a video about how other schools were doing the birdwatch and why the information would be useful for the RSPB, and then looked at different types of birds, learning about colours and shapes. Before I’d even got onto the third bird, the call went up that there were birds on the playground, so we carefully turned off the lights, grabbed our identification sheets and started looking!

I was amazed at how many different birds we saw. I’ve been feeding the birds at school for about 2 months now, but never expected so many to turn up today. Even in the carpark this morning there were goldfinches, and that was before we even started!

We spent the first 15 minutes in the classroom looking out of the windows (much warmer than being outside, and it didn’t matter that the children were quite so excited!) and then went outside the back door to look up in the trees. By this point we’d seen a wren, bluetits investigating the nesting box, herring gulls, woodpigeons, blackbirds and chaffinches. Next we went to spy at eye-level on the carpark, hiding down low behind the wall so that we didn’t frighten the birds, but we only saw gulls and crows so went into the park.

We stood along the fence, being as quiet and still as fence posts. I was amazed at how brave the birds were, and amongst others we immediately spotted 11 house sparrows in the guttering of the nursery, a robin and some coal tits!

I was a bit worried about how interested the children wouldn’t enjoy watching birds, and thought behaviour might not be as good as usual. However, I was so impressed!!!! The children were all actively involved and enthusiastic, more so than normal! They were making good observations and comparisons and when we got back to the classroom we made graphs and tables to show what we saw. We also wrote recounts, and through excellent team work produced our own non-fiction book about what we did and the birds we saw, all within an hour! Amazing! I was particularly impressed at the drawing skills displayed-many of the birds you can recognise instantly from the drawings with their accurate reproduction of shape and colour!

Well done Otter BB: I’m proud of you!

(Pie chart from the RSPB’s interactive recording tools, provided when you log your results!)