Last week Nursery were learning all about the traditions around celebrations of light. The children focused on Bonfire Night and Guy Fawkes as part of our own heritage and traditions in England. They learnt who Guy Fawkes was and what him and his catholic friends were planning to do as part of the “Gunpowder Plot” against King James 1. The children sequenced the events in the story during a Crew session and then created their own Guy Fawkes sock puppets during time in provision. This activity took lots of fine and gross motor skills to draw on Guy Fawkes features but to also stuff the sock with straw and then use their cutting skills to make him a hat. Just look at the beautiful work the children produced.

The children thought of ways in which we celebrate bonfire night and created firework scenes in the play dough and also used their painting skills to paint fireworks, which they had experienced at bonfire celebrations that they had attended. We also learnt a fabulous firework song, using actions to mimic the fireworks and our voices to imitate the sounds that they make.

At the later stages of the week the children compared the Hindu celebration of Diwali with our own experiences of Bonfire Night. The children investigated the traditions of Diwali through the story of Rama and Sita. They learned how the community of Rama and Sita celebrated their return by lighting Diva Lamps to help guide the couple home. The children also compared the demon king Ravana (a ten headed and twenty armed monster) to Guy Fawkes as the children recognised that that they were both “unkind” and “baddies” with “moustaches” who had “nasty plans” (Guy Fawkes to blow up the Houses of Parliament and Ravana to kidnap the Sita, the beautiful wife of the Rama the renowned warrior).

The children used collage to recreate their own Ravana, observing his skin colour and traditional dress, along with his jewellery.

Nursery also attempted to make Rangoli patterns using loose parts, to decorate our space.