Posted on: November 8th 2013
In Reception this half term, our topic is Cultural Festivals. Miss Joyce and Mrs. Crawford were both delighted (and a little bit frightened) by the homework that emerged from the folders on Monday morning. Over the weekend the children had clearly been incredibly busy creating Calavera (skull) masks, after learning about ‘The Day of the Dead’ in Mexico last week. The masks were very impressive - highly decorated in garish colours true to the Mexican tradition.
This week the children were learning about the Gunpowder Plot and a firework theme is running throughout our activities. The children were riveted by the origins of bonfire night and after expressing some strong views about the morals of King James I and Guy Fawkes, engaged in some impressive philosophy role-play. Sam was keen to argue the side of King James saying that “countries have to have rules” whereas Jacob felt that Guy Fawkes was right to stand up for his way of thinking “it’s not fair if you can’t go to your church, because you need to learn things”. Zara was eager to express how much she favoured King James’ actions, “people can’t just decide to blow up other people”; however, Zoe said that “Guy Fawkes was upset because he wanted to go to church with his family.”In Maths the children have been counting backwards to launch rockets and develop their understanding of subtraction. Some children have even shown that they confidently recognise the minus and equals symbols at this early stage of the year.
Delicious chocolate bonfire cakes with glittering mango flames have been cooked up by some of the children, whilst others have made model fireworks bedecked with sparkles, or painted firework displays, with explosions of colour, using graphics software on the laptops. For homework the children have arranged firework sounds into poems and designed their own firework displays.
On Wednesday morning Reception was super busy. Under a really exciting Super Hero theme, the children started to think about all the things that they are really good at and over the next few weeks they will be developing the theme to consider ways in which they can help people. Later that morning the children composed their own firework symphony, using voices, percussion instruments and anything else that they found to make appropriate whizzy or booming noises. They worked in small groups to create individual firework sounds and then came together to orchestrate and perform a whole firework display soundscape. The teachers were very impressed with the children’s representational skills and have a wonderful selection of recordings to share with you soon.
These are just some of the fun things we have done in bonfire week – next week Diwali so watch out in the playground for some colourful Rangoli creations…
