At the start of last week, our Year 4 pupils arrived to find mysterious signs on the window…

What could it mean? Who or what are ‘Varmints’? After some detective work, we found a clue telling us to go to the outdoor classroom where we found seeds, flowers, and a mysterious letter from “The Gardener”…

Despite more clues, we still were unsure what on earth was going on. So we asked a range of investigative questions. The next day, we got to work following the Gardener’s instructions to ‘learn all we could about nature’ by dissecting flowers:

The next day things finally became a bit clearer – we were introduced to the AMAZING book Varmints by Helen Ward.

After some challenging but successful work on noun phrases, the children went on to plant their own seeds, and they’re currently learning how to write a cracking set of instructions to help the survivors of the Varmints cruel take-over to grow a new world.

Amazing work, Year 4! We’re so pleased at how inspired you are by this book and all the mysteries that surround it.

Dan, Matt and Sue.