This week there has been lots of questions about Diwali at the writing table. The children have been interested in listening to stories about Diwali and we have discussed lots of new sparkle words such as “rangoli”, “diya lamp”, and “light”. We then made our own cards to take home. Some children decided to cut and glue pictures or words into their cards, and some wrote messages or drew pictures, opening up an opportunity to show the difference between words, letters and pictures.

Some children then shared their own experiences of celebrating Diwali at home and we discussed the importance of valuing different celebrations.

“We put decorations up for Diwali”

“We seen fireworks on Bonfire Night and they were different colours”

“I dressed up on Halloween”

This week at the sewing table we have been continuing our learning on Diwali and Bandi Shorr Divas. The children have been interested in creating transient art using bright colours to make fireworks and rangoli pictures, inspired by watching festival videos and looking at examples of rangoli art. There has been a big interest in peacocks and their beautiful colours as a result of these visual examples. The children have learned that they are India’s national bird and they believe they are a sign of good luck. Many of the children were excited to make peacocks and lucky cushions with sparkly and bright fabric to celebrate the festival.

Within the small world area, the celebrations continued and the children exercised their fine motor skills, as they manipulated pipe cleaners to replicate the shapes and lines in rangoli pattern. The children then used loose parts to create their own patterns and were keen to participate in this sensory experience.

 The block area was busy with budding architects as we explored silhouettes and cityscapes. We explored famous landmarks and used our problem-solving skills to tessellate the blocks on to the black paper. We have also been creating our own cities using a range of blocks to explore height, shape and different levels. The adults helped to develop comparative language within the children such as tall, taller, tallest as the children worked.

In the garden, the children were keen to use loose parts to build a car. They were very adventurous with where they would like their car to take them.

Some of the children went on a woodland walk to collect items to build their very own bug hotel. They had great fun looking for bugs to have a sleepover in the hotel and matching them to the photos in their books.

The boys and girls have been able to listen to stories and identify some of the rhyming words they can hear as the story is told  and identify pictures that rhyme. We have even tried to think of another word that rhymes with what we have found.

It certainly has been another busy week here in Crookfur but as always the children have had the best experiences and enjoyed learning through their play. Here is an extra wee snapshot from this week…

As always have a lovely weekend. We look forward to seeing you all next week.

Mrs Denholm

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