Exploring India and Diwali

Today we have received a postcard from The Gingerbread Man who has travelled all the way to India. He has been experiencing some very rainy weather in the form of Monsoon. We discussed how it is also rainy here but it definately not as much as a Monsoon! The temperature in India is also a lot warmer than where we live too.  We really enjoyed looking at Indian money- we talked about the pictures on the notes and how they compared to British money.

we found out that a festival called Diwali is celebrated by Hindus in India. We saw how Hindu families prepared for the celebration by drawing mehndi on each others' hands, wearing beautiful, bright clothing such as saris, cooking curries, crackers and special sweets and how they decorated their houses with signs and marigold garlands.

Today we have been busy using our fine motor skills to create marigold garlands with real needles, designing and making Rangoli patterns, using construction materials to build temple like structures, designing Diwali themed fashion and lots more.

In Maths we are exploring the number four. We can create and represent the number using lots of resources. We will move onto composing the number four and use our addition and subtraction skills to talk about the combinations we create. We will be number four master before you know it!

In Phonics, we are revising the phonemes:

                                            g     o     c     k     and     ck

                                            Our Learning in OUR Words

"We have been learning about Diwali" - Ethan

"We was making flowers. Cut them and thread them" - Renesmee

"I made a pattern" - Jessica

"I seen fireworks." Fletcher said this after seeing fireworks in a Diwali celebration.

"I celebrated before, we put nice signs on the house and decorated it." - Hattie

"I liked making my Rangoli (mehndi) hand. I had to draw things I wanted to draw." - Paddy

"I had to put decorations on my dough (clay)." - Lilly-Jane

"Because they were just celebrating. They put up decorations all over there." - Matilda

"I was counting the cars and numbers over there." - Harry

"My mummy and daddy put paint on my hands before." - Amy (after watching people do mehndi designs).

"They were holding a staff and they were sparkly." - Cooper is commenting on the beautiful clothing and objects used in a traditional Diwali celebration.

"They had dresses. Pink dresses." - Jack B after seeing a traditional Diwali celebration.

"I enjoyed playing in the Maths area. We did number four. I put it on the maths table and took a picture of it with my name." - Aiden

"Well, when they were celebrating with candles and when they were decorating the Diwali tree. We put chocolate on our tree." - Jack H

"I there (The Travel Agents). We did 'Where do you want to go?'" - Freddie

"I liked doing the crocodile thing in PE because he was trying to bite my legs so I had to jump over the river" - Paddy

"I liked the bean game cus I had to stand like a broad bean and a jumping bean and a French bean. That's my favourite one because I have to say Ooh La La" - Cooper

"I liked working outside in the building site and building a house with a friend" - Lochlain