We have had the most amazing two weeks learning about Diwali. This is one of our Early Years Aspirations: to compare my life with others leading to an understanding of other faiths, cultures and celebrations.

After Mrs Bertacchini's blog last week we welcomed Mrs Webster in to talk about the Hindu faith and how they celebrate Diwali in Aniya's family. The children loved it; especially making a diya lamp from tealights, dressing up in beautiful clothes  and seeing Mrs Bertacchini dressed in a beautiful green saree.

This week we shared photos of Aniya's Diwali celebrations and decorated our home corner to reflect a Hindu home ready to celebrate. The children have loved dressing up, wearing bangles and making making playdough chappati. Thank you Mrs Webster for the donation of amazing clothes and resources for the children to use.

We designed beautiful Mendhi patterns and then had these face painted onto our hands to look like henna. The children made clay diyas decorated with sequins and filled with pretty tealights. We have loved sharing stories about Diwali too.

We have been strengthening our core muscles with our kinetic letters programme and learning the correct way to hold our pencils. The children used our new whiteboards and pens to write their numbers - fantastic job!

In Funky Fingers the children have used real hammers to knock golf tees into pumpkins and then used pliers to pull them out. Most day there has been a queue for this as the children have loved the real tools!

In our creative areas we painted pumpkins carefully using fine paint brushes. We have one more week of using our pumpkins before we put them in the compost.

There have been lots more Rangoli patterns inside and outside using chalks. Great collaborative work too!

Today we have made chapattis (flatbread) with all of the children. There was a little mango chutney for dipping too. We lit our clay diyas and everyone tried the chapattis this afternoon. What a lovely way to round off this part of our learning.