Celebrating Diwali

This week we are learning all about the Hindu and Sikh festival of Diwali, the festival of lights, which began today and is being celebrated by some people in Britain and all over the world.

We have learnt the story of Rama and Sita and made some role play masks to help us retell the story.

We also made some Diya lamps using clay. We are waiting for the clay to harden in the air so we can decorate them. Diya lamps have candles put in them and are lit during Diwali time.

Today we learnt about Rangoli patterns. We used lots of different materials to make Rangoli patterns of our own including chalks, colouring pencils, beans and seeds and coloured sand. We made some indoors and then took our chalks outside to make beautiful Rangoli patterns on the playground for the rest of the school to see!

This afternoon we followed a recipe to make some delicious Diwali sweets.

We have also been making decorations this week to make our classroom look colourful. We are looking forward to Friday, when we are going to have a Diwali party and teach year 5 and 6 all we have learnt about this festival of lights!

Our learning this week

This week we are going to be learning about...

• the Hindu festival of lights called Diwali

We will be learning...

• what Diwali means and how it is celebrated
• the story of Rama and Sita and why stories are important in different religions
• how to make and decorate Diwa lamps and understand why they are lit during Diwali
• to follow a recipe and weigh ingredients carefully as we make Diwali sweets
• to use different materials to make cards and decorations for a Diwali celebration
• what Rangoli patterns are and why they are made during Diwali, and will be making some Rangoli patterns of our own using different materials

You can help me at home by...

• talking to me about things that we celebrate in our family or religion
• talking to me about food we eat at different times of the year or for special occasions
• helping me to understand that different people may think or believe different things but everyone's ideas should be treated with respect

Reminders:

Please bring Library books back into school on Wednesday

On Thursday our sound of the week will be 'i'
We would appreciate any contributions of mark making or writing from outside school for our 'Learning outside school' board
We would also appreciate any examples of children showing this month's value of 'tolerance'

Staying safe in the dark

This afternoon Reception have been learning how to stay safe in the dark.

We talked about how day and night are different and how some things might be more dangerous when it is dark, like crossing a road or walking because you can't see as well in the dark.

We watched a film clip where some hedgehogs taught us to stay safe at night, singing "When it's not light, wear something bright."

We talked about what bright things we could wear and why it's important to be seen when you are out at night.

Then we explored lots of different materials and used some of them to decorate a T shirt so it could make someone really safe at night. We tested some of the materials by shining a torch on them to see if they were reflective and chose things that were bright and shiny, not dark or dull.

Dexter also made a reflective jacket of his own using paper and glittery, coloured card. We shone a torch on it to see how reflective it was!

After we had all worked together to make our super bright T shirt we went into Miss Groves' class to explain to Year 1 and 2 what we had been learning. We told them about staying safe when it's dark and how you have to wear bright clothes so you can be seen. Then we showed them the T shirt we had made, modelled by this week's star of the week, Jack. We turned the lights off in the classroom and shone a light at the T shirt to see how bright it was - it looked great!

Now we know that when we are out in the dark it's important to wear bright clothes and carry a torch so we can see where we're going and other people can see us. That way we can make sure we're safe!

Solving problems to save Funky Monkey!

Today in maths we received a letter from Funky Monkey asking for our help! His letter said:

Dear Reception,

Please help me! A nasty sea monster says I have to give him half my treasure or he’ll eat me! I don’t know what half of these numbers are – can you help me?

I have:   6 glittering red rubies

              14 gold coins

              10 pieces of silver

              8 sparkling diamonds

              12 shiny pearls

Please let me know how much I need to give the sea monster!

Love from Funky Monkey

We talked about what 'half' meant and agreed that if you split something in half you are splitting it into two. We then went further by discussing how we would know the two groups were really both half the amount. Dexter said "they're even." We talked about the words 'equal' and 'same'.

Then we discussed what we could use to help us work out half of these amounts for Funky Monkey, and decided to use counters.

We used the counters to help us find half the amount. First, we had to check the amount on the letter. Then we counted out that number of counters. Then we had to share them into two groups. To make sure they had been shared evenly we had to count both groups to make sure they were the same. If we had done it right, both groups had the same amount in. However many counters were in each group was our answer. Then we just had to write the numbers down on the letter so Funky Monkey could know how much treasure to give the nasty sea monster!

Hopefully now Funky Monkey will be okay!

Exploring shadows

Today we have been continuing our learning on light and dark by exploring shadows.

First of all Hannah shared her learning with us from during the half term holiday. She explained how she had learnt that a shadow is made when something, like your hand, blocks the light. The light can't reach part of the wall and that's why it is dark.

We used a torch and shone it on the board. Then we looked at what happened when we put our hand in front of the torch and why the shadow was created. We then discussed whether only our hand could make a shadow, or anything. We tried some toys to see if they could make a shadow too. Reece did some excellent scientific thinking when he was holding the toy to make a shadow. "If you move the toy nearer the light the shadow gets bigger, and if you move it further away the shadow's smaller," he said. Great scientific work Reece!

We explored an activity on the interactive whiteboard that helped us understand how shadows can change, for example, when the light is moved or it becomes stronger or weaker. We saw a torch shining on some things inside and discovered that the biggest source of light is the sun.

We also used torches to explore light and shadows around the classroom. We used our hands to make different shadow shapes and explored how shadows could be made with different objects, such as toys, and on different surfaces, such as the floor, wall or ceiling.

We couldn't go out onto the playground today to see our shadows - why do you think that was?

This afternoon Reception also made some shadow puppets, practising their skills in drawing, cutting and sticking. They then used the puppets to develop their scientific knowledge as they explored them using torches, finding out whether details of the puppets could be seen in the shadow, how to make the puppet move and what would happen if the light and the puppet were moved closer together or further apart.

Super Science Day!

Today was a whole school super science day and we came into school dressed as mad scientists!

Ann from Sam's Simple Science came in and did lots of exciting experiments with us. First we poured red cabbage water onto three different liquids to see what would happen...

Each one changed a different colour!

Then we did an experiment with milk. We added drops of food colouring to our plate of milk. Then we added some washing up liquid...

When the washing up liquid touched the milk, all the colours whooshed to the side of the plate!

Then we looked at what happens when you mix cornflour and water and how it can change from being a solid to a liquid. We put our cornflour and water mix on a speaker to see what would happen...

It made very strange shapes as it moved around on the speaker!

Then we made some silly putty to take home using glue. We had to keep stirring the ingredients and then use our hands to shape it. The more we handled it the more rubbery and bouncy it became!

During the rest of the day we have begun to explore our new science topic, light and dark, as well as looking at some more experiments with colour.

Exploring how colours can change with the colour paddles

Exploring concave and convex mirrors - our faces are upside down!

Exploring materials and using torches as we learnt the words transparent, translucent and opaque

Exploring optical illusions like these spinners. We started to make our own coloured spinners this afternoon and will finish them tomorrow!

Using icing sugar and water paste and food colouring to make colourful frost patterns