The festival of Diwali was celebrated on Sunday, 27 October. Last week the classroom was a sea of colour as we learnt about Diwali and how Hindus celebrate the festival.

We began by reading the story, Dipal's Diwali.

We talked about the preparations made beforehand such as cleaning the house, buying and decorating the home, buying new clothes and preparing many different foods. The children were fascinated by the beautiful Rangoli patterns. This enspired them to create their own using chalks, coloured rice and coloured pencils.

The children listened to the story of Rama & Sita. Meeting Ravana, the 10 headed demon King was a highlight for many children as they thought it would be very strange to have ten heads! You can watch an animated version of the story by clicking the link below;

https://www.bbc.co.uk/teach/class-clips-video/religious-studies-ks1-the-hindu-story-of-rama-and-sita/zdtmnrd

The children explored clay for the first time this week when they made clay diva lamps. They watched carefully as Mrs Baldock demonstrated how to create a simple pinch pot which was just the right size to hold a tea light, before setting to work to make their own. Some children used the clay tools to make patterns around the top and sides of their lamp. The lamps took the rest of the week to dry out fully, so we painted them this week. Here are some of our diva lamps looking very sparkly with their bright colours and glitter!

We used Purple Mash to create our own digital diva lamps, Rangoli patterns and mendhi patterns. Mrs Baldock had set this for us as a 'To-Do'. This meant we had to login to our own account and then select the task. Once completed, we learnt how to save our work and 'Hand it in' to Mrs Baldock. Some of us were extremely quick to learn this and then were able to show our friends what to do when they wanted to have a go later in the day!

 

This week we turned our attention to Bonfire Night and Fireworks. The week started with a discussion about fireworks we had seen over the weekend. Lots of us had either been to a display or peeked out of the windows to watch them! We watched a short video clip of a firework display then talked about the pretty colours seen and the sounds we heard.

 

In literacy we wrote words to describe the sounds made by the fireworks such as Bang, Whoosh, Fizz, Crackle.

We used Purple Mash again this week to create a fireworks scene. The 'splash' tool is great for fireworks. We learnt how to change the size of the splash as well as how to flick the paint in different directions across the screen!

We have also been busy using different junk modelling materials to create our own rockets, Catherine wheels and fireworks. We have been learning how to join materials together. First we learnt how to use the scissors to cut the right amount of sticky tape. Then we tried glue sticks and PVA glue. We talked about how the different glues work and when it is best to use each type. We have put examples of our work onto display in the classroom as we are very proud of our learning!

Click here to see lots more photos in our gallery.