Our Lady's Catholic Primary School

In Reception we have been making sea creatures using the flotsam of plastic which washes up in the waves. From reading the story ‘Flotsam,’ we have learned new vocabulary like flotsam, marine, environment, pollution and recycle. We also used our phonic knowledge to write words and sentences about what we could see in the ocean.

Year 1 had lots of fun during ‘Reading Week’. We began our week with a hook to our whole school text ‘Flotsam’. We came in on Monday morning to discover a tuff tray full of flotsam and interesting, old photographs from the beach. We used our inference skills to ask questions about the pictures and linked the pictures in the book to our own experiences, writing some wonderful setting descriptions.

Year 2 had lots of fun during reading week and enjoyed completing activities based on the book Flotsam, by David Wiesner. The children learned some new vocabulary including flotsam, incredulous, uncontrolled and coastline and they used these words to retell a section of the story. They created some beautiful, underwater art and learned about the seven continents and the five oceans that linked to the children in the book. Finally, they all dressed up as their favourite book character and with thanks to one pupil’s interactive, Harry Potter, Sorting Hat, we were all sorted into houses. Poor Miss Worthington was put into Slytherin, oh no!

For reading week in year 3 we used a book called Flotsam. We used dictionaries to research new words and find the definitions. We also observed the pictures in the book and used the information we knew to help us to make predictions about what we thought would happen next. Finally, we wrote a diary entry from the perspective of the young boy in the book.

What a fantastic week we had in Year 4! We started the week off by looking at what the word 'Flotsam' means and making predictions based on the front cover. Our predictions couldn't have been further from the actual story if we tried, though we did have some beautiful suggestions such as; a unique fish that was different to all of the others, but everyone loved him for his differences! Later in the week, Miss Maddox managed to get hold of a vintage camera which was similar to the one in the book; we had so much fun looking at how it works. By the end of the week we had produced some fantastic English work including, character profiles and persuasive adverts! In addition to our fabulous English work, we also used the book for inspiration for our geography, science and art work! 

Year 5 absolutely love to read so we were certainly in our element this week! Using the camera from the story, we followed the journey across the vast expanse of the world’s oceans. We used our inference skills to become a character from the book, in addition to describing the various settings throughout the book. We were also inspired to delve deeper into current global issues and wrote some very persuasive arguments against single-use plastic. Miss Arands brought to life our artistic flares through the use of photography and observational drawing.

Year 6 worked really hard and produced lots of brilliant work during our Flotsam week. In English, we used the book for inspiration to create setting descriptions, character descriptions (making up a character’s backstory), writing our own poetry, and even writing about the problems with plastics in the ocean. We were able to use the book to look at vocabulary, inference and comparing and contrasting during our reading lessons. As well as all of this amazing English work, we also used the book to help with our art work and as inspiration for photography in our computing lessons.