On Monday, the children were very surprised to find that our dinosaurs had made their way to the swimming pool! The children discovered them right next to the pool as they arrived for their lesson. The children put them safely to the side and let them watch the lesson. They then took them to the showers for a wash and dried them off in the changing room.The children carried the dinosaurs back to the minibus, holding on to them tightly so they didn’t escape! 

This week the children have been learning about the celebration of Diwali. They loved hearing the exciting story of Prince Rama, Princess Sita, the monkey king Hanuman and the demon king, Ravana. After watching a shadow puppet retelling of this story and doing a little bit of roleplay, the children wrote a speech bubble for one of the characters. The children were brilliant at imagining what the characters might be saying and they shared their ideas with one another well. 

We have also learnt about all the various ways Diwali is celebrated around the world and the traditions that people follow. The children discovered that fireworks and lights play an important part of Diwali and watched a clip following a little girl celebrating with her family. We had fun making rangoli patterns on the floor using chalk and made a large whole class rangoli pattern using coloured sad, lentils and gems.  Some children enjoyed drawing mehndi designs on card hands and writing Diwali cards. All the children have loved playing in the roleplay house that is decorated for Diwali with fairy lights, garlands, tinsel and photographs. The children pretended to clean the house (as this is traditional to do during Diwali) and had Diwali parties.

On Wednesday the children learned about Remembrance Day. We looked through a PowerPoint and discussed the importance of remembering all the people and animals who were very brave during times of war. We spoke about the symbol of the poppy and how the money we give helps people who are still impacted by conflict. We held a Pre-Prep remembrance assembly and the children took part in a 2 minute silence. Later that day the children made their own poppies using lollypop sticks and paper and we made some lovely poppyfield pictures in the afternoon, using chalk pastels and fingerprints. 

In maths this week the children have continued with subtraction and they were fantastic at understanding written number sentences and what steps were needed to solve these. The children first added the correct amount of gems to their tens frame and then subtracted the second number. We are working on number formation when the children record their answers and trying to use what we know about number composition to solve some of the questions.

Linking with Diwali, the children explored the idea that good triumphs over evil, as it does in the story of Rama and Sita. The children also know that this celebration is known asthe  festival of light. The children were asked how they could bring ‘light’ into the world and brighten other people’s day through their actions and words. The children shared ways that they could make others happy, such as smiling and saying hello, sharing our games and toys, giving a hug to a friend or helping others when they are hurt or upset. The children realised that small acts of kindness help make our school a happy place and can ‘light up’ another person’s day. The children each made a little paper diva light using a paper plate and decorated it with tissue paper, paint and glitter. We have created a lovely display in our cloakroom and added all the children’s brilliant ideas to remind us of this important lesson. 

The children have loved making their own Diwali clay divas this week. We learnt a simple technique to do this and watched a demonstration on a video clip. The children first made their clay into a ball, then using their thumbs, they pressed down to create a dip big enough for a tealight. They then pinched the clay to make one side pointed and smoothes down the clay using their fingertips. Tools were used to add details and the children pressed little gems into the clay to add a finishing touch. 

Once they were dry, we sat on the carpet and carefully lit our tealights. It felt magical when we turned the classroom lights off and we were surrounded by twinkly candle light. We watched the story of Rama and Sita one more time and put a fireworks display on the CTouch.

The children have also enjoyed making paper lanterns to decorate the classroom and they learned how to cut along the lines and then join the top and bottom of the card together to create a lantern. They decorated their lanterns in any way they wished and made handles for them to hang.

What a creative week we have had in Form 1!