Today, Team CH have thought about the word ‘celebration’. What is a celebration? We decided on a few times that are special to us, times like; Christmas, Weddings, New Year, Christenings and Birthdays. We then introduced Eid as a very special celebration for Muslims.  We watched this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6OF4HEGNBRQ and talked about Eid being a celebration that occurs at the end of Ramadan. It is a joyful festival. It is a day of thanksgiving to Allah and also celebrates the fact that Muslims have completed the fourth pillar of Islam (sawm). Finally we made some cards to celebrate Eid! 

Thanks to the efforts of our amazing parents and children we have raised enough money to buy some much needed resources to enhance our children's experiences when learning about Judaism! 

Year 6 have thoroughly enjoyed learning more about the Buddhist religion. We have looked at why a range of words are special and considered some though provoking proverbs and quotes form key individuals such as the Dali Lama. We have also learnt about the 8 fold path and dharma. We also joined in with the whole school focus during Chinese/Lunar new year. We reflected on how celebrations for the festivals could promote community cohesion. As a year group we actively engaged in an act of kindness to promote community cohesion by creating birthday cards for Joan. Poor Joan is a resident at a local carehome who due to a Covid lockdown was unable to receive visitors on her 102nd birthday. Luckily our cards cheered her up on her special day.

Team CH have been thinking about how they have special places. Places like, school, the park, the swimming pool,  pizza hut and home. We understand that everyone has a special place and we can name a Mosque as a special place to Muslims, followers of Islam. 
We thought hard and long about the rules we have in our special places and then explored some rules of a Mosque. Rules like, removing shoes when entering to help keep the Musallah clean and performing the wudhu to clean all the badness from you and how men and women go to different parts of the Mosque, but when Muslims pray they all face the Ka'ba. In all Mosques there is a Mirhab and this let's Muslims know which way to face when praying.  

​To develop our understanding of the world, we enjoyed celebrating Chinese New Year today. The children were all invited to wear red and we learnt that this is the lucky colour. 

On entering nursery, we had a dragon dance parade playing on the screen and the children were fascinated by the sights and sounds! We answered the register by saying Ni Hao which we learnt means hello in Chinese. Following this, we watched a short clip where some children told us all about how they celebrate Chinese New Year. Then we had a go at our very own dragon dance! We played the music on the computer and the children moved in different ways with their ribbons to represent the dragon. Then we formed a long line and did our dragon dance up and down the school corridor. 

During provision time, the children all had a go at making their own paper dragon and they then made them dance to the music.
Whilst we were busy learning in our provision, we had a go at using tweezers to pick up noodles, some Chinese writing using black paint on red paper and making a Chinese meal in our home corner. 
Finally, we tasted some different food for our snack- noodles and prawn crackers with soy and sweet chili dipping sauces. Some children were surprised to find they liked the sauces and most children enjoyed the noodles and prawn crackers. 
​At home time, each child took home a fortune cookie!

Today the Children of Team JF have explored Chinese New Year. To begin with, we explored the range of animals used and discussed, from the cycle, how we knew it was the year of the ‘rabbit’. From this, we read the story of how animals became significant and gained a better understanding of this tradition. As it is the year of the rabbit we identified what this means and how it symbolises many things. After lots of discussion and finding out our own birth years, we created a poster in groups to secure our understanding of this belief.