We started our morning with a rose and a thorn check in followed by a talk about why World Religion Day is important. We decided to test our knowledge with a game of dominoes made up with lots of religious symbols. Our check out was what skills we needed to be successful this morning at our game.
It was a lovely crew start to our week,
Mrs Parsons xx
Nursery were very busy over the festive period and created some beautiful work to close our Autumn Expedition; “Be Kind, How do we show we care?” Our final two texts we stories that were centred around love and kindness.
Our first festive text “Little Robin Red Vest” by Jan Fearnley told us of a main character, a little robin who wore knitted vests each day of winter to keep him warm. However, whenever he encountered a friend along his journey, suffering from the cold or snow, he gave them his vest to keep them warm. Nursery designed their own vests for Little Robin Red Vest as he eventually ran out of vests for himself. We decorated them with repeating patterns as the children had been learning all about these in maths. Here is some of our beautiful work.
Our second festive text was the traditional Christian nativity story, titled “The First Christmas” by Rod Campbell. The children explored the journey of Mary and Joseph, who fell upon the kindness of an Inn Keeper, who allowed them to shelter in his warm stable. The children enjoyed learning about the birth of baby Jesus and the important role which the Angels played in delivering God’s messages to the world. They also learned the difference between a fairy (something which lives in woodlands or at the bottom of your garden) and an angel (someone who lives in heaven with God), as many of the children at first sight called the angels, fairies, associating them from their experience, with what some people use to decorate their Christmas tree. As a celebration of the peace and joy the story brings, Nursery crafted their own angels, using a photo of their faces and their own handprints for the wings. These beautiful Christmas decorations will be enjoyed for years to come and serve as a legacy of the first time that the majority of the Nursery children heard the story and God’s message from Reverend Andy (our expert visitor who came into school to share and teach the children about the celebration also). Just look how beautiful our little angels are!
In our message centre the children retold the story using a cut and stick stable. They thought hard about the characters from the story and worked hard to colour and place them in the stable. Most of the children were able to recount the story and name key characters with confidence.
Our final week reflected how many of us celebrate Christmas now with a modern text “Dear Santa” from the same author Rod Campbell. This text explored the perfect Christmas present wished for by boys and girls. We were lucky enough to have a visit from Santa during our Christmas parties! He brought us all gifts…. How kind of him.
Finally we partied and celebrated with a lovely Christmas buffet and traditional party games. We were all kind and compassionate about winning and losing and played nicely with our friends, like the Crew we are. Such a beautiful Christmas time!
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.
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.
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!
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!
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
