Norton Infant School

Nursery have been working hard to resolve social conflicts this last week, as part of our first case study “How can the Goats and the Troll be friends?” This is within our new expedition “Once upon a time” and working towards answering our guiding question “Who is hiding in the pages of this book?”

Nursery have listened to the traditional tale of “The Three Billy Goats Gruff” and an alternative version of the story “The Three Billy Goats Fluff” by Rachael Mortimer. They have thought hard about the issues of both key characters; in that the Goats would like to eat the juicy, green, lush grass, but unfortunately they have to trip, trap across the bridge to reach it which in turns wakes up the Troll, who is desperate for some sleep, peace and quiet. Mummy Goat made the Billy Goats booties in the alternative story, but we wondered what if you insulated the bridge? So we have tried hard to make a quiet bridge for the Troll to live under using a variety of insulating materials. We tested baking paper, tinfoil, felt and bubble wrap. Here’s how we got on……

Some of the language and ideas expressed throughout this problem solving was amazing! The children said “the troll is grumpy because he is tired”, “the troll is frustrated because he wants to sleep”, “trip trap, trip trap keeps waking him up, because it’s noisy on the bridge”, “The goats need to be kind and go quieter”. The children spoke in depth about the materials, carefully using their senses to investigate them, some of the words used were; “Shiny”, “Crunchy”, “Crinkly”, “Rattly”, “Soft”, “Fluffy”, “Furry”, “Bubbles”, “Popping”, “Too loud”, “Quiet”, “Silent” and “noisy”.

What beautiful work Nursery – most children either came to the conclusion that the felt was the “quietest” or “softest” material or that the paper and tin foil were “too loud” or “noisy”. Some of the children thought about folding materials into layers to make the bridge even softer and one child thought about using the soft toy troll as a material, as he thought the felt was “still too noisy and the troll is bouncier”. Great experimenting!