In the first week of our project, we learned the word ‘celebrations’ and discovered that we all celebrate lots of different special times with our families. We looked together at a calendar and noticed that the celebrations of Diwali and Christmas fall during the Autumn term so we decided that we wanted to learn more about those times and the special stories that link to them.
At the beginning of our project, some of us were quite shy at speaking and we weren't able to look at the camera!
IMG_1726.MOVIMG_5829.MOVIMG_5832.MOVMy Movie 2.mov
"I celebrate Halloween with my family.
I decorated my house and had a big pumpkin!" - Lia
"I like Christmas. This is Santa!" - Ethan
"I celebrated my birthday with my family. I had a big cake and candles!" - Serra
"I celebrate Easter. We have food and we pray" - Pola
This week we learnt the oral story of The Ramayana. We mapped the story and had lots of fun retelling it using masks and props. This week we filmed our first story videos, practising speaking clearly and trying to ‘act’ out the stories as best as we can.
In English and for homework, we drew our favourite parts of the story and used our new phonics skills to label our pictures.
Asher's Ramayana
Nancy's Ramayana
Sophia's Ramayana
Ravana!
Zlata's Ramayana
Pola's Ramayana
Annabelle's Ramayana
Alex's Ramayana
Newton Ramayana.movParks Ramayana Final.movDeCoubertin Ramayana.mp4
After learning about The Ramayana we wanted to find out about how people celebrate Diwali. We read non-fiction books and watched children telling their accounts of how they celebrate. Then we had a go at making our own Diva lamps, rangoli patterns, and mehndi. We really enjoyed taking part in the celebration of Diwali!
How I celebrate Diwali .movShiv explains how he celebrates Diwali.
Diva lamps .movKamsi explains the importantce of Diva lamps.
IMG_1727.MOVFalgun tells us all about Rangoli patterns.
Diwali dancing.MOVNewton Class dancing to traditional music
Aiden's Rangoli Patterns
Leo's Diva Lamp
Nancy's Diwali Cards
Jayden's Firework Pictures
This week we learnt the oral story of The Nativity. We mapped the story and had lots of fun retelling it using masks and props. We continued developing our writing skills by writing speech bubbles and labelling the different characters from the story.
Leo and Ye-Mun used different objects from around the room to tell the story of the Nativty.
Friends helped make a stable in our shed.
Building the stable for Mary and Joseph!
Lia drew out a story map of the Nativity at home.
Zlata used paint and glitter to decorate a star.
Naoto used his sounds to write a speech bubble for the angel.
Arla independently wrote what the three wisemen would say.
Mame Diarra independently wrote what the three wisemen would say.
Ella independently wrote what she thought the angel and Mary would say.
Sara used her sounds to write a speech bubble for the angel.
Eden-Rose wrote and drew all of the things she would give to baby Jesus.
This week we continued deepening our understanding of The Nativity story through art and drama. We watched our Ramayana videos, looking at “3 star speaking” as a way to critique them. We worked very hard this week to improve our storytelling and acting skills this week!
Newton Nativity.movFinal final parks nThe Nativity .mp4
After learning the story of the Nativity we wanted to know more about how people celebrate Christmas. We virtually visited a church to see what it is like at this time of year. We found out about the different ways of celebrating, such as lighting candles and eating special food with our friends. We started making links between Christmas and Diwali, noticing the similarities between the different celebrations.
IMG_1729.MOVKaia tells us how she celebrates Christmas at home.
IMG_1731.MOVAlex tells us all about his Christmas celebrations.
medium.movArlind and Sami read our shared poem: The stars
IMG_4334.MOVNewton class read our shared song: The bells
medium.movRobbie describes his model of a church to us.
Ozan sorted pictures for Christmas and labelled them using his sounds.
Emily labelled Christmas pictures using her sounds.
Stella sorted pictures for Christmas and labelled them using her sounds.
After we learnt all about Diwali and Christmas we wanted to learn more about what other members of our community celebrate. Throughout the project we read stories about different celebrations and in the last week we spoke about all the different celebrations, comparing them and noticing that celebrations are a happy time for everyone to be with their families and enjoy traditions together. We ended our project with a class party so that we could all celebrate together!
For our class party Tanzila wrote a shopping list.
For our class party Amelia wrote a shopping list.
Eden Rose's shopping list for the party.MOVFor our class party Eden-Rose wrote a shopping list and explains what she put on it.
We have been cutting and decorating paper Christmas trees.
We used different loose parts to create our own Christmas tree designs.
We worked together to decorate a christmas tree with red words!