Celebrating Diwali

A busy week celebrating Diwali.

We have had a very busy week learning about how Diwali is celebrated.

We had to clean our house and make rangoli patterns on our doorstep.

We made thrones for Rama and Sita.

We also had a Diwali celebration of our own.

We enjoyed tasting a range of  Indian foods.

Space adventures!

The group were clearly excited after discussing their space mission and couldn't wait for blast off. The adventure to the Moon, Mars and back to Earth was planned. Before building their rocket using the large shapes they put their space boots on, Scarlett reminded them about having enough rocket petrol. Albert drew a blue rocket using the chalk and Isobel drew the Earth. She used the green and blue chalk. “The blue is the water and the green is the grass.”

As blast off approached they chatted and giggled. “We might see some naughty Aliens.” Shouted Harry. Countdown began 10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1-0 BLAST OFF!

Leah steered the rocket into space. Within seconds they'd arrived on the moon.

“Let's be naughty Aliens.” Laughed Harry.

Bentley smiled and said, “okay.”

The children jumped off the rocket and pretended to space walk across the grass. When they reached the bark area they jumped up and down.

“We’re on the moon.” Laughed Ruby.

Harry and Bentley hid in the wooden box. The rest of the group crept into the other one. James, Ruby and Isobel wanted to get the Aliens some food. “I think they'll eat this” Isobel held up some bark and James held up a leaf. Harry wanted to know how they were going to get back to school. Problem sorted, “We can count backwards to blast off.” he said. No time to visit Mars, we’ll save that for another day. They boarded the rocket and landed safely at 2.30pm just in time for snack.

A great session with some very enthusiastic Astronauts.

Panto Fun!

We had a fantastic time watching

 'Puss in Boots' pantomime by LADA ltd.

Stuck in the mud!

On a cold Autumn morning Henry, Sienna, Jack, Joel and Nevaeh wanted to get the tractors stuck in the sticky mud. The first challenge of the day was finding our wellies, unfortunately Sienna was upset as her wellies were “cold” Jack came to the rescue and said “put them on the radiator”.  Whilst Sienna wellies warmed up we put our suits on ready to get muddy!

Running to the mud pit they each selected their tractor. “my tractor is red” Henry shouted excitedly “mines yellow” replied Jack. Soon the tractors were digging in the mud but the mud was too dry so we made it rain!

Nevaeh said the water was “cold” when filling up her watering can. Joel found it difficult to carry his watering can “its too heavy!!!!” The leader of the group Henry set to work, making two tractors work together to dig. He filled up the “tipper truck” using the “tractor”. Jack soon spotted a problem !! The tractor has a flat tyre, let's fix it” Jack agreed. Henry and Jack turned the tractor over and changed the tyre.

Meanwhile Joel spent time observing his work friends taking on the role as manager. He spent time telling Nevaeh, ‘turn off the tap!” Joel was quick to help Jack when he tripped over and lost his water out of his can.

To finish off a long morning of work they all worked together to wash the tractor and enjoyed a long tea break! 

Celebration

Here in Nursery we like to celebrate children's achievements outside of school as well as in school. At the weekend Amy took part in her first show. She came into school telling us all about dancing on the stage!  Well done Amy and thank you to Amy's mum for sending in the fab photos.

If your child has something you would like us to celebrate in school please send in some photos, we can't wait to hear all about them.

Diwali Dinner

While learning about Diwali, we took part in a tasting activity. We tried all kinds of Indian food like raita dip, mango chutney, coriander naan, poppadoms and pilau rice. Some of us have already eaten Indian food but some of us had never tried it before.

I was really proud of the children because everyone tried a bit of everything and we really enjoyed trying new things.

Making Bread

After reading The Little Red Hen, we decided to make some bread, just like the hen did.

                      

   

                             We took turns to sieve the flour, salt, sugar and yeast. 

                        Then we stirred in some warm water to make a dough.   

                                                                                                                                                                          

We really enjoyed kneading the dough!

But our favourite part was smelling the freshly cooked bread.

    

AND eating it, of course!

How many times have you read this week?

This half term  Fred Fox, Spotty Dog and Marvin will be going home with the children who are reading lots at home. 

Remember even reading a bedtime counts! 

All you need to do is make sure the diary is signed every time you look at a book or read together.

Diwali

Fireworks!

This week we are learning about Diwali. One way Hindu's celebrate Diwali is by setting off big fireworks! Last week the children were fascinated with the colours in fireworks so this week we have focused on colour. We decided to make some HUGE fireworks in the outside classroom, we made the floor really wet using the water from our water butt and then attacked it with different colours of powder paint! The children loved throwing different colours on and talking about what happened when they mixed together! This learning was then taken back inside with some of our indoor colour mixing activities. 

Autumn

We went on an adventure, hunting for signs of autumn.

Our detectives looked around our school grounds to see what they could find.

A great time was had by all!

Bonfire Night Fun!

We had lots of fun celebrating Bonfire Night. We used our imaginations to create firework images.

We also enjoyed making firework numbers using streamers.

Our Hunt for Signs of Autumn

The Gun Powder Plot

In Reception, we have been learning about the story of Guy Fawkes. The children have been using masks to act out the story in the outside classroom. Here, Guy and his gang have just been caught by the kings soldiers hiding barrels of gunpowder in the basement of the Houses of Parliament. Off to prison!

Fire engines to the rescue!

During our Bonfire Night topic this week red group decided that they needed a fire engine to put the fire out otherwise it would be dangerous! What a brilliant idea! So everyone worked very hard to plan what the fire engine would look like, they used their nip nip skills to draw their ideal fire engines. With all the resources at the ready they worked really hard to make their fire engine in the outside classroom. The climbing frame became their base and with material, tubes and cones a fire engine was born! Some of the boys then got very creative and decided to use the orange and red cones as the fire so they had something to put out! They were so engaged for the whole afternoon and we loved watching their ideas flow!

 In review time they decided they wanted to make a real fire to see what happens and toast marshmallows on it, so that's exactly what we are going to do tomorrow! 

Baking at home!

Last term I posted about the children's love for our new baking area! This love is still going strong as I'm sure your aware from the cakes coming home!! I posted the recipe on our blog for you to have a go at home and to my delight I received an email over the holiday from Jake and his Mummy who had followed our recipe and made some delicious fairy cakes! They added vanilla buttercream and sprinkles to make them even better! They looked delicious and apparently tasted "very yummy indeed".
Thank you to Jake and his Mummy for sending the photos in. 
I would love to see other baking photos from home so please do email them to me! 

Happy baking!