Heathrow Primary School
Heathrow Primary School
Week 6 - Diwali & fireworks
This week we based our learning around the story ‘Sparks in the Sky.’ The children were learning all about Bonfire Night and how and why we celebrate it. We also learnt about the festival of Diwali and how people celebrate it. We made our own divas using salt dough. The children selected their favourite colour and used their motor skills to press and squeeze and roll the dough into a ball. They used the end of a rolling pin to press down to make space for our candles. The children then added shiny gems.
The children were building up their vocabulary and were using describing words such as colours, size and onomatopoeias such as: ‘boom, ‘crash’, ‘bang, ‘fizz’, ‘pop.’
We talked about how to stay safe when around bonfires, fireworks and sparklers. The children created their own posters to remind people of the rules.
We put these rules into practice when we lit sparklers in the nursery garden. We made sure we were safe, but always standing behind the line, having one go at a time, always wearing gloves and putting the used sparkler in a bucket of cold water to cool it down.
The children made their own sparklers using tissue paper and pipe cleaners. They practised their cutting skills by cutting straight lines and then used their fine motor skills to curl the pipe cleaner around a pencil to make it curly. They were all so excited to see how they had changed it. They had fun pulling the tissue sheets apart and twirling it around in the air, just like they did with the real sparklers.
The children were learning about shapes this week. They made some rocket fireworks using rectangular lollypop sticks and then cut along lines to create triangles. The enjoyed cutting the tissue paper to add flames at the bottom.
We learnt about Rangoli patterns whilst learning about Diwali. The children made their own Rangoli patterns using coloured pasta.
We went outside and used our motor skills to draw fireworks on the ground using large chalks. We used different techniques to make them look like fireworks, such as drawing dots, straight lines, wavy lines, and circles to make our fireworks.
As part of our Healthy Living Days, we made a healthy snack linked towards Diwali and Bonfire Night. The children used fruit to make their own ‘rocket fireworks.’ They were improving their fine motor skills by accurately pushing the fruit onto the skewer. They knew to place the strawberry on top because it looks like a triangle, like the top of a rocket. We discussed the importance of washing our hands before touching food and that fruit is a healthy choice.
Our physical Healthy Living activity was hockey. The children all had a go at controlling their balls using a hockey stick, knowing to push it along using their stick. This was broken down by first doing this with our hands and our feet, then rolling the balls to partners and then finally we tried it with the hockey stick. Their skills were impressive for their first time using hockey sticks!
- Attitude
- Achievement
- Aspiration