Willowbank School, KilmarnockThe Beech class had really good fun this week celebrating Diwali! We were successful learners as we explored the religious festival of Diwali by making traditional Hindu items.
We made Diva lamps out of salt dough, rangoli patterns out of spiced play-dough and dyed rice and we also made special lanterns as it is a ‘Festival of Light. ‘
Responsible Citizens Effective Contributors
The Snowdrops showed lots of interest in eco pumpkin activities. Everyone contributed to scooping and exploring pumpkin textures with our fingers. Once our pumpkins were empty, we filled them with bird seed to help feed the birds when the weather gets colder. We are going to hang and place our pumpkins in our school garden.
* SUCCESSFUL LEARNERS, EFFECTIVE CONTRIBUTORS, RESPONSIBLE CITIZENS, CONFIDENT INDIVIDUALS *
The Daisies class enjoyed creating erupting pumpkins this afternoon. We used baking soda, food colouring and vinegar to make eruptions which looked like our pumpkins were feeling a bit sick! We loved observing these changes!
Confident Individuals and Effective Contributors
The Sunflower class celebrated Diwali yesterday by listening to the story of Rama and Sita. Each child practiced pencil control by following the maze to get Sita home. We then made our own Rangoli patterns using rice and matched numbers to complete patterns too.
*Successful Learners* *Confident Individuals*
As part of the Snowdrops outdoor learning, we have been exploring and having fun with kites. Everyone has had the opportunity to observe a kite flying and feel the tension on the strings. Some pupils have also been able to fly the kite independently as well.
In class we also enjoyed designing our own kites to make a lovely class display.
*Confident Individuals* *Successful Learners* *Responsible Citizens* *Effective Contributors*
This term, the Snowdrops have been discussing what make a good friend. They enjoy identifying their class friends through photographs and written names labels. During choosing times, pupils are given the opportunity to choose a friend to play with and enjoy an activity together. This has encouraged good friendship skills such as sharing and turn taking.
We have also made lovely posters with pictures of what makes a good friend.
The Asteroids did a super job of using potatoes to make and mash and create a potato autumnal hedgehog.
We all tried peeling our potatoes and chopping them into small pieces ready to cook. We also helped peel a carrot and then the teachers chopped them into small pieces to make eyes and noses. Next job was to chop our sausages into small pieces to make hedgehog prickles. We all enjoyed this job the best and some of us couldn’t resist a wee taste! 
We used our mashers to mash the potato and enjoyed seeing the potato squeeze through the different shapes in the mashers!
When the mash was ready, we helped make a hedgehog shape then began to arrange our sausage slices to make prickles. Last job was to pop on the chopped carrot eyes and noses. Job done!
Don’t they look great?
Some of us were confident individuals and tried them. Yum! The sausages were by far the favourite part.
*Responsible Citizens* *Effective Contributors* *Successful Learners*
As part of our Eco targets and Globals Goals this year, we took on the challenge of making Eco friendly pumpkins. We had great fun carving our pumpkins and creating autumnal artwork with them. We then decided to turn our pumkins into bird feeders.
It is good fun carving pumpkins but we are really wasting food if they are just left to rot. By filling them with bird seed we are helping to reduce our food waste footprint whilst also feeding the birds that visit our sensory garden.
*Successful Learners* *Confident Individuals*
The Sungazers have enjoyed listening to a variety of stories outdoors over the last couple of months. The have experienced story time in the summer sun whilst sitting together on the grass as well as story time sitting on our picnic benches during the nicer autumnal weather.
They have also explored stories using props such as sensory materials and puppets and enjoyed sharing books with their friends. 
*Successful Learners* *Effective Contributors*
The Sungazers enjoyed carving pumpkins as part of our Halloween activities this week. They then enjoyed exploring the sensory garden, collecting lots of autumnal materials to decorate their pumpkins. Everyone was really engaged in this activity and designed wonderful autumnal pumpkin creations!
