It is not quite Summer but the weather is certainly heating up so we had our first waterfall sprinkler. The Ninja course was set up so it was a great challenge to complete it under a water fall. The children showed great determination and had a lot of fun!
On Tuesday 25th October we celebrated Diwali at Uxbridge. This was such a culturally rich experience for us all.
We were lucky to have Riya’s Mum, Shruti in to help us with her expertise in cooking, dance and art. We feel so lucky and our children’s programme today was so enriched because she gave up her day to teach us.
First up was samosa’s that we had for lunch! It was a social time to
converse around the table and share stories of our own cooking with families,
exploring what we know about cooking concepts and exploring the term “a half”.
We put all our playdough rolling practise into place as we rolled circles of
dough flat. Before cutting and filling with potato and pea mixture. The
teachers were surprised and very lucky to have a beautifully cooked curry to enjoy
too. Delicious!!
At Mat time, Shruti performed a beautiful dance that we all loved. She
showed us some typical dance moves and even balanced candles as she danced on
her palms and her forehead, ever so delicately she swirled around with her dress
creating a rainbow behind her. We all had a go at copying these moves and some
of our children danced into the afternoon practising these. What was equally as
impressive as Shruti’s dance was Rita’s gigantic smile as she exuded the pride
she felt having her Mum up the front of the class. So very special. 💗
Our hands were adorned with henna patterns that we can continue to
enjoy over the next week as it lasts a long time. The children picked their
pattern and practised waiting patiently for their turn and also for the henna
to dry. We were very impressed with the tamariki as they sat and listened to
stories and chatted to one another to pass the time while they waited.
After that it was time for Rangoli chalk art, this is a typical thing
to do to celebrate Diwali , with powder, sand , chalk in bright colours outside
the home.
We also made clay 🪔 diya and paper craft diya- traditionally lamps are lit to
celebrate and triumph light of darkness, good over evil. Children enjoyed
moulding their own clay and selecting special beads to decorate their clay diya
and they looked beautiful.
From the bottom of our hearts Shruti, thank you for always putting up
your hand to help not only the children to learn and celebrate your culture but
also the teachers. Xx
We got the farm house out today along with three wooden characters that represented the little old woman , the little old man and the gingerbread man . We found corresponding animals from our farm set that were in the story . We then listened to the story and we’re are to role play the various parts of the story with our props . Teacher Lori played three different versions of the story to the children and through listening to these different versions the children picked up in one of the stories that the little old woman was called Dorothy . It was wonderful to see how creative the children were and they were also able to make the gingerbread man out of dough and other parts of the story such as the river.
Following the story of the gingerbread man We used the water pallet paints and pastels and drew pictures of the characters of the story . We concentrated on mixing the colours to make a similar colour to make the characters look similar to the ones that were printed out .
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| Lucy's fox |
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| Oliver's Cow |
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| Eliza chose the horse |
