Lest we forget.

11th November 2024Sarah Winkley

As part of our Remberance Day celebrations Nursery learned why we wear poppy’s around this time of year, as a mark of respect for the fallen and serving armed forces. The children explored remembrance through a simple story thinking of days we would like to remember and days we’d like to forget, titled Lest We Forget by Kerry Brown.

We learned some simple actions to help the children embed the story into their minds about what happened on the battle fields, imagining that the children were bunny rabbits at that time. The children pretended to be aeroplanes that flew over the bunnies and then bombs that dropped, exploding like fireworks. The children show empathy for the bunnies, understanding that they would “be hurt”, “die” or “be scared” and “frightened”.

The children then made poppies from creative materials, play dough and paint to show their thanks to our soldiers and service people. Wow!! Beautiful work in big moments.

Celebrations of tradition & light.

11th November 2024Sarah Winkley

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.

Celebrating Harvest Festival.

8th October 2024Sarah Winkley

Last week Nursery and EYFS celebrated a Christian tradition, Harvest Festival by being thankful for the food we eat, grown by farmers from all around the world. Nursery children were excited to join in a whole school assembly hosted by an expert visitor, our local pastor and volunteer/coordinator at Askern Food Bank, Mr West. Some of our children were even brave enough to stand at the front of the assembly and participate in the activities!

In Nursery we explored a little further about what Harvest actually is, by watching a short video about the celebration. The children learned that Harvest is when crops and vegetables are collected and sold to supermarkets. They also learned that a christian tradition is to gather food and donate it to others that maybe in need, through their local church. This fits in perfectly with our case study, “How do people show they care?” We were very grateful to all of our families who donated food, as the children collected the food and have made care packages to send to the local food bank with Mr West.

Another part of our beautiful work last week was also to create a “Corn Dolly”.

The children learned that the Corn Dollies are made from the strands of corn left over in the fields after the Farmers have collected their corn with their combine harvesters. They are made into dollies and then taken to the local church to wish farmers good luck for the year ahead’s crop! Just look at how amazing our corn dollies are!

Creating Beautiful Work

3rd October 2024Elouise Chadwick

The children in class 1 have been getting creative with fruit and vegetables this week. We have been learning all about the Harvest Festival and have been thinking about where our food comes from. We then created a piece of art work using a selection of fruit and vegetables. Take a look at our impressive creations…

We have also been thinking of everything we have and what we are thankful for. The children warmed my heart with the things they said.

Well done for working so hard this week Class 1!

Campsall Church Fieldwork

8th May 2024Laura Parsons

We have spent a beautiful morning completing fieldwork in the sunshine! We walked to Campsall Church and had a tour. We found out lots of historical information about the church and saw lots of the items we have been learning about in our RE lessons.

Mrs Parsons x