Captain Curiosity

One day in a classroom at Devonshire Infant school a little girl sat behind her friend on the carpet. They were learning all about animals and the teacher was explaining about the different types.

The little girl looked around her and saw all the other children. They seemed really excited and all had their hands up wanting to find out more. There were some pictures on the whiteboard of animals but the little girl wasn’t sure what they were. She wasn’t really that interested in animals and she didn’t know what to say, so she just looked down at her hands in her lap. She hoped it would be playtime soon.

The teacher was really pleased with the other children who were all asking questions about the animals. Then something happened! The teacher chose the little girl! “Would you like to ask a question about one of the animals?” she said. All the other children were looking at the little girl. She didn’t know what to say and felt very embarrassed. The teacher was very kind and reminded her of some of the question words they had been learning.

“You could ask a ‘what’ question, or maybe a ‘where’ question if you want” the teacher explained. But still the little girl didn’t know what to say. She didn’t want to find out about animals and wished it was lunchtime.

The next day the teacher explained that a lady from Zoolab was coming into school to talk about animals. The little girl was so disappointed. She didn’t want to learn about animals again!

The lady arrived and the children were all sitting in a circle. Carefully the lady brought out a box with a cover on the top. Instead of looking at her hands, the little girl looked up. Mmmmm…..she wondered what was in the box? It looked quite big and heavy. Slowly the little girl started to put her hand up. The Zoolab lady said “do you want to ask a question?” “What’s in the box?” the little girl asked.

The ZooLab lady began to take the cloth off. Inside was a huge snake! The little girl couldn’t believe her eyes. It was the biggest animal she had ever seen. The little girl put her hand up again “how long is the snake?” she asked.

The lady took the snake out and stretched it out so the children could see how long it was and she even let the children touch it. The little girl was so excited! She put her hand up again. “What does the snake eat” she asked. The lady explained what the snake liked to eat and then told the children a little bit more about it. The little girl put her hand up again. “Wow don’t you ask a lot of questions?” the Zoolab lady said to the little girl. “You are very curious which is how you learn so many things well done!

The next day the teacher asked the children to write some sentences about the snake. The little girl was so excited. She knew lots of facts now because she had asked the Zoolab lady so many questions and listened really carefully.

There was just one more thing that the little girl wanted to know and she had forgotten to ask the lady. She put her hand up to ask the teacher. “What was the snake’s name?” she asked. The teacher said “his name was Sid and you ask so many questions your name is going to be Captain Curiosity now” she said.

The other children all looked at the little girl and she felt very proud. She realised how exciting it was to find out new things and from that day on Captain Curiosity loved finding out about everything!