The further adventures of Stickman

At the time of  my last post (ha ha that doesn't sound right somehow) we had completed making our Stickman and had begun the preparation for writing the further adventures of The Stickman or in the case of some of the girls in my class the further adventures of the Sticklady love.

On the Friday after making the Stickman I made sure I had taken photographs of  all of them as a prompt for their stories as I knew very well the whole class were chomping at the bit to take their creations home to show their adults what they had done.

So there we were on Friday, my fabulous TA and I giving out reading journals, Friday books ( I will come to these in another post), letters to go home about Meet the Teacher evening and finally The Stickmen and women. Now for those of you have taught Primary children and especially KS1 children you can picture the chaotic scene, especially when we realised that our diligent labelling of the said Stickpeople with Sharpie pens had actually been covered over by their recently added clothes.

Now add into this the boy (who shall remain nameless) proclaimed every single Stickperson we held up to be his own and you can imagine our eventual meltdown into hysterical laughter.. This was also compounded when it became clear that one of the girls in our class had lost her Sticklady love but we simply couldn't figure out who had hers. I then took the very reluctant, yet selfless decision to hand her my Stickman, you know the WAGOLL, or Blue Peter Stickman that I had lovingly made and now found myself inextricably attached to.  Guess what said little boy said?? 'That's mine!" Now it was at this point I became a 6 year old when I replied "I know for absolute certain L.......... that this is definitely not your because guess what it's mine"

Result an absolute breakdown into hysterical laughter by myself, my TA and the rest of the class.

Thankfully every child even L... went home with a Stickman or Sticklady at the end of the day and as for the stories well again true to form with year 2 lots were well structure re-telling's of the original story but thankfully also some very original ideas for further adventures.

What I do know however, is how much the children have enjoyed the whole experience and even the children who re-told the story rather than coming up with their own ideas actually wrote so much more than they have before that the progress is clear to see.

On that note why oh why do I feel the need to protest that they made progress I don't know? Wait yes I do it is the system that we are working within at the moment. I at times like this, reflect that to me, progress is often not measurable. How can you measure the effect that making those Stickmen gave them, the group work, discussion, team work when constructing them, the independent choices they had to make in the material for the clothes and yes the absolute joy of that chaotic afternoon, breaking out in spontaneous laughter as a class and then finally going home, Stickman held aloft!

It is therefore a very valuable, personal reflection time writing this blog as it reminds me of all of those precious 'teaching moments' that often get lost in the stresses that the outside pressures bring us. I do hope however, that my musings are at the very least an entertaining distraction for you the readers of my blog.