Term 2

This term in ‘Who likes to party?’ we have been looking at and comparing festivals and celebrations from around the world with those that we celebrate ourselves. It has been such a busy time!

In the first week we became fully immersed in activities celebrating Black History and those people who have made such incredible contributions across the world. Each class had a specific author to study and we found out about Floella Benjamin and the contributions she has made to literature and the country as a whole! Our artist was Wilfred Branch. We looked at their achievements and work, created some incredible abstract art and posters demonstrating what we had learnt over the week.

The children also discovered that some annual events that occur in the UK do not always celebrate happy times. We have looked at the meaning behind remembrance and the significance of the poppy. We created some fantastic observational drawings of poppies, made some poppies in out tech area and observed a two minutes silence to commemorate lives that have been lost throughout our history.

In order to ensure we included everything we needed in our Post Office role play area and to learn all the services you can access at it we walked over to the Wingham Pop Up Post Office in the village hall.

Then we returned and ensured we added lots of extra bits to our own role play,

Next, the celebration of Diwali enjoyed by people of the Hindu and Sikh faiths. The story of Rama and Sita gave an insight into this celebration. The children made their own shadow puppet to retell the story in small groups. They had a go at doing some traditional Indian stick dancing before using their artistic skills to create Diva pots and Rangoli patterns in a variety of interactive ways- using paints/pens/computing drawing/symmetry tools. We made Indian sweets and invited our families in to see what we have been up to and have a go themselves. We had a fantastic time!

In Maths, we have been developing our counting skills, discovering how subitising skills help us when it comes to counting a mixture of different valued coins and applying what we have learnt in our Post Office role-play area. We have also been learning our number bonds to 5 so that we can quickly recall the different ways we can make numbers. Plus we have looked closely at a range of 2d shapes so that we can describe the properties of them using a range of mathematical vocabulary. We have then applied this knowledge when creating 2d shape pictures, talking about the shapes we have used and the reasons for our choices.

We were so lucky to have some parents in to tell us about other celebrations observed. One  mummy came in and told us about La Tomatina; celebrated in Spain and El Día de los Reyes Magos which is an event that is celebrated on the night of January 5th and on the actual day of the Three Kings which is January 6^th. Another daddy told us about the differences between a French Christmas and an English Christmas and told us about the galette des rois which is a cake traditionally shared at Epiphany, on 6 January. It celebrates the arrival of the Three Wise Men in Bethlehem. Finally, another mummy came in to talk about celebrations that occur in Finland and how they compare with English celebrations.

 We then invited our significant grown-ups in to showcase all we have been learning. It was great fun and we really enjoyed showing off what we have learnt by singing sings and retelling the story of Rama and Sita before getting stuck in and creating more lovely Diwali inspired art and crafts alongside our significant others! Ut was a very special afternoon.

We have studied the story of the first Christmas and why it is the most important event in the Christian calendar. We have then really enjoyed retelling it through our Christmas nativity entitled ‘The Sleepy Shepherd’ which yet again was an amazing performance. All the children were superstars!

We have had such great fun and look forward to more learning adventures in the New Year!