It's Christmas!!!

We have been very busy during the last couple of weeks.  We have learnt about Advent and  the Christmas story and thought carefully about what Christmas means to Christians.Not only have we learnt all the songs for the nativity and performed it brilliantly but we have also been busy making cards and calendars and lots of decorations - its very glittery in our classroom now!!
Today we enjoyed a super party day - we all came to school in our party clothes and  Christmas jumpers, we made party hats and decorated the Christmas biscuits that we baked yesterday, we sang Christmas songs and played games too. During the afternoon we had a  very special visitor  who delivered some presents bought for us by Friends of School. We were very excited by our presents and can't wait to play with them tomorrow- thank you very much.
Thank you to everyone who sent in food - the children enjoyed a super party lunch.

                      Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas  and Happy New Year !!!

 

 

Diwali

On November 11th  Diwali which is a five day festival of lights is celebrated around the world by millions of Hindus, Sikhs and Jains. 

Diwali is perhaps the most well-known of the Hindu festivals.

The word Diwali means 'rows of lighted lamps'. Diwali is known as the 'festival of lights' because houses, shops and public places are decorated with small earthenware oil lamps called diyas

Celebrating Diwali

For many Indians this five day festival honours Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth.

People start the new business year at Diwali, and some Hindus will say prayers to the goddess for a successful year.

Lamps are lit to help Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth, find her way into people's homes.

They also celebrate one of the Diwali legends, which tells of the return of Rama and Sita to Rama's kingdom after fourteen years of exile.

In Britain, as in India, the festival is a time for:

• spring-cleaning the home,
• wearing new clothes
• exchanging gifts (often sweets and dried fruits) and preparing festive meals
• decorating buildings with fancy lights.
• huge firework displays often celebrate Divali.

In India Hindus will leave the windows and doors of their houses open so that Lakshmi can come in. Rangoli are drawn on the floors - rangoli are patterns and the most popular subject is the lotus flower.

The meaning of Diwali

The festival celebrates the victory of good over evil, light over darkness and knowledge over ignorance, although the actual legends that go with the festival are different in different parts of India:

• In northern India and elsewhere, Diwali celebrates Rama's return from fourteen years of exile to Ayodhya after the defeat of Ravana and his subsequent coronation as king;
• In Gujarat, the festival honours Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth;
• In Nepal Diwali commemorates the victory of Lord Krishna over the demon king Narakaasura;
• In Bengal, it is associated with the goddess Kali.

We are going to be finding out more about Diwali and the story of Rama and Sita.

Remembrance

This week started with us talking and thinking about why we have been buying poppies and why people wear them. We watched this short film about what happens in London on Remembrance Sunday click on the link to watch the film too.

http://bbc.in/
  We talked about why it is important to remember and we each made a poppy for our class poppy poster.

Run, run as fast as you can...

This term we have started learning a new story for storymaking it is the Gingerbread Man. We have made some  gingerbread man pictures and written speech bubbles for the gingerbread man too. Now we are becoming more expert at telling the story- have you seen the storymap in our classroom?
Lots of us had the idea to change our role play area into  a cake shop so we are busy making things to sell there!!

Book Week

During Book Week we listened to this fantastic story...

We decided to find out a bit more about crocodiles  using the Ipads to look at photographs and information.

 We worked very hard all week to make some fantastic crocodile puppets - they are very big and some of them have lots of teeth!! We hope to share these with you in our class assembly after half term.

We also listened to other crocodile stories during the week and enjoyed our 'mystery readers'

Autumn

We enjoyed talking about Autumn and looking for changes happening in the natural world around us.We have talked about what different animals do during autumn and have made some super clay hedgehogs  which you can see  on display in our classroom.
We have looked carefully at the beautiful autumn leaves , drawn them and painted them with autumn colours.
As part of our autumn work we went for a walk  around our school grounds and to Bryanston woods to see what was happening there...

Where are the bears??

We had a bit of a surprise last week when we got to school because ALL of our bears had gone missing!! Puff the dragon told us that he had seen them disappearing into Room 2 but where were they going and what were they doing??
We found some clues - the bears had left a trail of muddy footprints for us to follow...

WE'RE GOING ON A BEAR HUNT , WE'RE GOING TO CATCH A BIG ONE , WHAT A BEAUTIFUL DAY, WE'RE NOT SCARED..
UH-OH A DOOR , A BIG CLOSED DOOR , WE CAN'T GO OVER IT, WE CAN'T GO UNDER IT WE'LL HAVE TO GO THROUGH IT
STAMP, STAMP, STAMP, STAMP

 WE'RE GOING ON A BEAR HUNT , WE'RE GOING TO CATCH A BIG ONE , WHAT A BEAUTIFUL DAY, WE'RE NOT SCARED..
UH-OH A DOOR , A BIG CLOSED DOOR , WE CAN'T GO OVER IT, WE CAN'T GO UNDER IT WE'LL HAVE TO GO THROUGH IT
STAMP, STAMP, STAMP, STAMP

WE'RE GOING ON A BEAR HUNT , WE'RE GOING TO CATCH A BIG ONE , WHAT A BEAUTIFUL DAY, WE'RE NOT SCARED..
UH-OH A PATH , A LONG STRAIGHT PATH , WE CAN'T GO OVER IT, WE CAN'T GO UNDER IT WE'LL HAVE TO GO ALONG IT
MARCH. MARCH, MARCH,MARCH

WE'RE GOING ON A BEAR HUNT , WE'RE GOING TO CATCH A BIG ONE , WHAT A BEAUTIFUL DAY, WE'RE NOT SCARED..
UH-OH A GRASS , LONG GREEN GRASS , WE CAN'T GO OVER IT, WE CAN'T GO UNDER IT WE'LL HAVE TO GO THROUGH IT
SWISHY SWASHY, SWISHY SWASHY, SWISHY SWASHY

WE'RE GOING ON A BEAR HUNT , WE'RE GOING TO CATCH A BIG ONE , WHAT A BEAUTIFUL DAY, WE'RE NOT SCARED..
UH-OH A PATH , LONG WINDY PATH , WE CAN'T GO OVER IT, WE CAN'T GO UNDER IT WE'LL HAVE TO GO ALONG IT
STUMBLE TRIP, STUMBLE TRIP, STUMBLE TRIP

WE'RE GOING ON A BEAR HUNT , WE'RE GOING TO CATCH A BIG ONE , WHAT A BEAUTIFUL DAY, WE'RE NOT SCARED..
UH-OH A WOOD , A DARK QUIET WOOD , WE CAN'T GO OVER IT, WE CAN'T GO UNDER IT WE'LL HAVE TO GO THROUGH IT
TIPTOE, TIPTOE,TIPTOE

 LOOK WHAT WE FOUND IN THE WOODS!! THE BEARS HAD BEEN OFF FOR A TEDDY BEAR'S PICNIC...

THEY WERE HAVING A LOVELY TIME TOGETHER BUT  WE WERE GLAD TO HAVE THEM BACK SAFE  AND SOUND IN OUR CLASSROOM.

Starting school

Wow!! What a great start we have had at school. the children in Reception have been busy finding their way around their new classroom, getting to know each other and becoming familiar with the routines of school. We have talked about our School Charter and what our responsibilities are within our classroom.
 Here are some pictures of us playing and learning.

We have been very busy and we are really enjoying school!!