SAFE, HAPPY, LEARNING, RESPECTFUL

25.11.24 - 13.12.24

We brought our learning about Scotland to a fantastic point with a St Andrews day party! 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 We wore tartan and Scotland tops, danced to some highland music including our favorite 'show us your haggis', used some Gaelic words and Scots language and we had some Haggis,neeps and tatties with oatcakes for snack!

Christmas has begun in the ELC......

The children have started to explore Christmas through activities, discussions, play and practising Christmas songs .... look out for Christmas coming your way🎄

Starting off strong with a classic Christmas craft... Saltdough decorations for the Christmas tree! The children had lots of fun choosing their shape and cutting out their dough.....then of course comes the paint and the sparkles!!! We hope these will be kept for years to come!!!

More Christmas craft as we make a BIG Christmas tree for the school hall.......where would we be without glitter in December!!

🎄We have put up and decorated our Christmas trees, the children are welcome to bring a bauble in from home to add to our tree, this is a lovely tradition started years ago and some of our younger siblings had great fun seeing the baubles their older brothers and sisters have brought in over the years.🎄

We have also created our elves workshop.... we have filled this area with literature, construction, imagination and progression tools so our littlest holmies are learning so many skills while having so much fun in Santas' workshop! 🧑‍🎄

and even time for some outdoor tree decoration

We have also been keeping busy in the polytunnel as Mrs Christie brought some new plants that we had to dig into pots

As promised we now have 2 vines......

which we helped to plant.....

......now we just need to wait for our first crop of grapes before bottling up a nice Pinot Grigio and Merlot!!

But why do we celebrate Christmas?

We listened to the story of the first Christmas and found out that an angel had told Mary that she had to go to Bethlehem with Joseph and that she would have a baby there. Mary and Joseph had to travel on their donkey because it was "a long, long, long time ago and there wasn't any cars"....."or helicopters".........."or bikes!"

Unfortunately there was no room at any of the inns in Bethlehem ("or the hotels!")

So they had to stay in a stable where the baby was born (the angel told Mary he was to be called Jesus), the shepherds visited.......

........followed by the 3 wise men, who brought some gifts.

So now we know that we celebrate Christmas because

"the angel told Mary"

"the baby Jesus was born"

"the shepherds and kings went to see him"

"the kings gave baby Jesus presents"

"we have Santa because baby Jesus was born"

then after all of that excitment Mary nipped over to the playdough table to make a couple of festive shapes!

The children also had time to dress up as Mary, Joseph and the Shepherds, look at the first Christmas story books and play with the Nativity scene, ensuring that they were reinforcing their learning through play.

Our nativity advent calendar will also tell the Christmas story throughout the month whilst also giving the children the an opportunity to develop their numeracy skills as they look for the number for each day, think of what number might come next and even figuring out how many days it is until Christmas.