Step 1. Research and learn about different winter festivals around the world.

We have decided that this step will be completed throughout the term rather than in one week as is tradition for completing steps. This will allow us to be fully immersed in learning about a range of festivals.

First, we identified the different winter festivals that we would like to learn about, we used our prior knowledge, brainstorm from last week and we also took inspiration from some new project books. We have decided to explore Christmas, Diwali, Hanukkah and Saint Martins Day. We will be lucky enough in coming weeks to have some parents throughout the school volunteer to come and talk to us about these different winter festivals they celebrate in their house.

Then, we reflected on our learning from last week about the festival Diwali. We discussed the story of Rama and Sita and the goddess Lakshmi. We remembered about the celebration of lights using diva lamps and were especially fond of the colourful Rangoli patterns.

Eagerly we then learnt about the Winter holiday/festival of Hanukkah. Using our knowledge about how we researched for Diwali we again looked at pictures, watched videos and read stories. These taught us not only the story of Hanukkah but also how people celebrate with lighting eight candles on a menorah, giving gifts, eating special food like latkes and playing games with dreidels. Many of us actually have a version of a dreidel at home!

Next, we learnt how to document the information learnt from our research sources. This time we had a go at sequencing events. Using images we sequenced the events of the story of Hanukkah retelling the story as we went. We added these images in order into our project book, starting our project collection. We cannot wait to try new documenting and note taking techniques as we learn about more winter festivals throughout the coming weeks.

We can't wait to share our complete learning for this step with you at our Winter Festival!

Step 2. Decide on a performance and practice it until we are confident.

Last week we were introduced to a game called melting snowman which excitedly confirmed the name of our performance. We will be performing the story One Snowy Night by Nick Butterfield.

First, we read the story. Chloe performed the story in a variety of voice tones and accents to help us differentiate characters and their feelings. We watched the book in animation for to help us visualise how the characters moved and acted. We spend time describing the personality, thoughts, actions and feelings of each character in the story.

Then, we decided on which character we wanted to be for the performance. Prior making our decisions we reflected about our current confidence level. We talked about how this could feel overwhelming right now, you might not feel very confident or even like you want to perform or you might be super excited and just wish we were performing tomorrow and how all of these feelings are ok! We discovered there are a range of characters within the story some with lots of lines, some with one or two lines, some characters perform alone or some perform in groups. We realised that there was a character for every comfort level. This discussion allowed the character choosing to unfold naturally and it all happened significantly quicker than anticipated.

Next, we began to practice the script. For our first read we were prompted for what to say by Anna and Chloe while also experimenting with different sound effects like knocking at the door or scratching under the floor. We held up paper characters so everyone could see who we were. In the lead up to the Winter Festival Performance we will be excitedly making character masks with Leia. For our second read some of us had already retained our lines and needed no prompting at all. We began to talk in character adding interesting voices while saying our lines and even some gesturing. We decided that we would like to take our lines home to practice to increase our confidence level, so these went home in our Thursday book bags.

We had such fun rehearsing our lines and we cannot wait to keep practising until we feel confident. We are so looking forward to performing this to our families at the winter festival!

Step 3. Try making different foods and decide which ones we should sell and who we should give the money to.

First, we voted on the charity we would like to donate our earnings to looking back on our initial brainstorm, Anna and Chloe narrowed it down to three charities to choose from. A charity that gives toys to children (Little Village), a charity that gives warm clothes to people (Spear London & Coats for Calias) or a charity that provides food to those who need it (Earlsfield & Wimbeldon Foodbank). To make our decision we held a blind vote where everyone closed their eyes so we could vote for what we truly wanted rather than what our friends wanted, we learnt in order to make it a fair vote you can only vote once. We learnt how to create a tally chart to document the results. In the end the majority voted for the charity that donates warm clothes to people after some discussion around why they voted for the charity they did, the general consensus was that you don't need toys to be able to play, you can play with sticks, leaves and pallets or use your imagination. Food is really important but actually you need to be warm before you can eat because when we get cold we can barely think let alone eat! All very logical reasons for a group of 18, five & six year olds.

Then, we took another vote, this time learning another way of recording our information in the form of a pictogram (also known as a pictograph). We learnt that our votes are represented by a picture of our choice, using a key to show that a picture of a muffin for example is equal to one vote for the muffins. We had another three choices this time, biscuits, muffins or warm drink. Interpreting our pictogram once all votes were cast the muffins had the most votes at 9 votes.

Next, we needed to bake, we sound a lovely looking gluten & dairy free spiced carrot muffin recipe to follow. Splitting into two groups we measured out flour, beginning to learn the foundations of fractions using wholes, halves, quarters and thirds. We decided to double our recipe so each time needing to work out the equation with some keen bakers eagerly and easily working this out in no time. Calmly we worked away, measuring, mixing, cracking and pouring. Fresh out of the oven we tasted our hard work deciding that, YUM! We would love to sell these at the winter festival!

During one of our parent visits this week we were also able to taste a delicious spiced apple drink which might also make an appearance at the winter festival either in the form of a recipe or a warm treat.

Step 4. Create a festival feel with lights, stalls and decoration.

First, we had a visit from Kalle's mum, Barbel to learn about how their family celebrates St Martins Day. Barbel shared the story of St Martin, baked some delicious treats for us to taste and brought along Kalle's and his sister Lottie's lanterns. These lanterns help lead the way through the darkness of these winter months. We were fascinated by these beautiful colourful lantern and decided that these would make a fantastic decoration to create a festival feel.

Then, we looked a pictures of a variety of lantern patterns and designs taking mental note of the ones we enjoyed and would like to put on our lantern. We drew and labelled a design for our lantern including colours, shapes and the tools we would need to use. We were inspired by those around us, sharing and borrowing ideas from friends like the wonderous team we are.

Next, came the best part, we began to make our lanterns. We ever so carefully and thoughtfully joined our pieces of kite paper. Cutting our shapes with precision and gluing onto the delicate paper. We took so much care that we will need to continue to finish our lanterns next week.