Ten Year Olds Know Best

The Night Zoo was recommended to me by a ten year old – possibly the best that you can have. “You’ve GOT to do this with your class, because they will LOVE it!” So I investigated its possibilities.

It seemed to me to be an easily adaptable, concise and well considered literacy-based topic which could stand alone or link to other areas. Our French topic for the half term was ‘Les animaux de la jungle’ so I decided to link the two, with a bit of art thrown in!

From the outset, the children were gripped. They loved the idea of the zoo, and the idea that their creations could enter this zoo… if they came up to scratch! As a blogging, skyping, ICT-loving class, the idea of working on i-Pads and computers as part of the project was taken in their stride, and they were soon using their log-ins at home to share their work so far with siblings and parents.

There were many opportunities for talk for writing, and the children enjoyed discussing the animals’ characteristics and powers as they drew, painted, and created their creatures on paper. We used Eric Carle’s illustrations as inspiration for our own art work, and had a lovely afternoon reading swap with the infant class where we took our favourite Eric Carle stories and shared them with our buddies in the class below. We analysed his use of colour and techniques for creating animals and backgrounds from patterned and textured paper, and went about creating our own, bringing in and foraging round the school for interesting items to use – forks, corks, combs, sponges, coins, string, clay tools and different textures and types of paper.

The scheme allowed us to extend our work on familiarisation with grammatical terminology in preparation for the new SPA G tests higher up the school, and we were soon talking nouns and adjectives, alliteration, simile and metaphor with ease. We used ‘Pass the Bomb’ and word games (some from Pie Corbett’s Jumpstart Literacy) to consolidate our learning in this area. We progressed through the discussion phases to planning and writing our stories, and had a formal Big Writing session of 40 minutes to write our stories, at the end of which the children begged for more time. Most wrote for an hour with short breaks to share their ‘best bits’ , in order to complete their work.

We then took our artwork and used it again in various ways. We shared it in celebration assembly and through our blog. We reduced the scanned images to a smaller format and created a plan of our zoo on A1 squared paper in our maths groups. Each enclosure was a different shape, and images of the different animals were placed in each. Additional features were added (gift shop, café, toilets!) as well as paths between the enclosures. We then used our plans for:

• Revision of basic shapes
• Properties of shapes
• Symmetry of regular shapes
• Careful measuring with a ruler (to the nearest cm, ½ cm & mm)
• Introduction of the word ‘perimeter’ for Y3 & measurement of perimeter for Y4
• Co-ordinates, position and direction (including giant games of zoo battleships!)

In French, we considered how to name our animals using the vocabulary we had learned: le zébre-éléphant, le singe-hibou etc. It provided us with an opportunity to revise how we use dictionaries in French (French in the front!) and to enjoy wordplay in another language. We extended it to phrases using key vocabulary – j’aime, j’adore, je n’aime pas, je déteste – and through using this daily at registration time, we have progressed to sentences with constructions such as:

Moi, j’adore les zébre-éléphants, et j’aime les hamsters aussi.- Y4

They scanned and produced artwork images and had their final outing in Science. The focus this term has been electricity, and to end the topic we created electricity quiz games using a buzzer or light and a simple circuit to test our answers. The zoo animals and their names in French had to be matched to make the buzzer light up. We used phrases like ‘C’est bon!’ and ‘ça ne marche pas!’ when we played our games with each other. So, our Night Zookeeper project has encompassed:

Reading, Writing, Speaking & listening, Maths, Science, ICT, MFL and Art

It has encouraged creativity, imagination, sharing and discussion.

The highlight of the project for the children was a Skype with the Night Zookeeper, where the questions flowed and curiosity grew… it was followed by an in depth discussion amongst the children as to how they could visit the night zoo. Speculation on its location was intense, and they went through many different possibilities before generally agreeing that the most likely place for it to be was London. The class will be visiting London in March for a trip to the British Museum, and will also be taking an open-top bus tour of the city, as only one child in the class has ever visited the capital. They agreed that they would spend the time on the bus looking for clues for the Night Zoo – they agreed that it wouldn’t be obvious, they wouldn’t be able to actually see it but from their vantage point on the top deck, they would spot possibly a flamingo flying over the roof tops, or a Night Zookeeper in the crowd… it was a beautiful discussion to witness, and possibly the highlight of the project for their teacher!

Impact On Writing

As a teacher, I particularly liked the following:

• Plentiful opportunities for talk for writing
• Smaller writing opportunities throughout
• Writing for a purpose
• Relevant grammatical content
• Opportunities to extend
• Easily differentiated

At Y3/4, most children find writing stories easier than writing non-fiction texts, but assessment of the written work showed that all children had achieved well and written extensively.

• The children consolidated their understanding of story structure
• They used alliteration and plentiful adventurous adjectives in their work
• They wrote for an extended period of time
• Work had a clear structure
• They wanted to share their stories with others (peers, teachers, other children in the school, families)

After the writing session, there was a ‘buzz’ in the classroom of positivity: they felt good about their work – all the children enjoyed their writing, and before the work was marked, knew that they had performed well and looked forward to receiving feedback.

The project appealed equally to girls and boys, there was no distinction between which gender group performed better. (It is a small cohort and this is not unusual).

One child took her unfinished story home and wrote extensively with the help of a brother and a parent to continue, and is still working on her ending.

‘That is the first time I have not wanted to stop writing. My hand hurts and it feels good!’- Y4 boy.

The Night Zookeeper project has given children a sense of achievement and concrete evidence that they can write well. It has boosted confidence and allowed all children to be included in a celebration of good writing. As a teacher, it has been satisfying to engage with the Night Zookeeper project because it allows for extension and creativity in cross-curricular lesson planning as well. My 10 year old adviser was right, we really did LOVE it!

Interested in writing a guest post on Night Zookeeper or filming a video for our YouTube channel? – Send us an email to paul@nightzookeeper.com