In Reception our topic for this half term has been “What do you celebrate?”.
We have been very busy looking at different celebrations from around the world and within different faiths. We started our topic with a special celebration day. Each classroom was set up to focus on a festival, Apple class looked at Eid, Plums looked at Bonfire Night, Cherry class looked at Christmas and the Pears looked at Diwali. We then all moved around each class to learn about that celebration, listening to the music, watching videos and making art creations in each classroom.
When learning about Eid we learnt that it is a Muslim festival that comes at the end of the month of Ramadan. Muslims decorate their homes with beautiful colours and lanterns and have a feast to celebrate the end of the fasting. We made some beautiful moon and star pictures, to symbolise the fact that during Ramadan Muslims can only eat at night time.
When we learnt about Bonfire Night, we talked about Guy Fawkes, a man who made a plot to kill the king, nearly 400 years ago. We saw some super videos of fireworks and how some people make a Guy to put on their bonfire to represent that his terrible plot. We used black paper to look like the night sky, and used brightly coloured paints and chalk to make some great firework pictures.
Next we learnt about Diwali. Diwali is a special celebration for the Hindu Religion. It is known as ‘The festival of light’ and lasts for a whole 5 days. They also celebrate by decorating their houses and having a huge feast. We loved looking at the colours that are used to make some great Rangoli patterns. Diva lamps are also made to hold tea lights, these are placed in the windows of their houses to get rid of the darkness from their homes. We made some of our own paper lanterns, to decorate our classroom.
The last celebration on our special day was Christmas – one that we already knew lots about.
We talked about how Christians celebrate Christmas by going to church, singing songs and praying to God. We listened to the Christmas story and how Mary and Joseph had to travel to Bethlehem to have the baby Jesus in a stable. We all talked about whether we celebrate Christmas in our own homes, talking about how Christians give gifts to their loved ones. We made some brightly coloured Christmas trees and added a star on top to represent the angels coming to meet the baby Jesus.