Understanding Community

Understanding the community within which they live is import for developing children in order for them to make sense of their identity and relate to the world around them. Over the past week we have looked at age related activities that enable children to understand both Armistice Day and Bonfire Night. 

In preparation for Armistice Day the children initially watched a short CBeebies film about the relevance of the poppy. We talked about the war, the poppies and the 2 minutes silence. Having watched how poppies are made in the factory we thought it would be fun to create our own. Using egg cartons the children used red paint to make poppies and then stuck lolly sticks on for the stems. 

Plymouth Hoe currently has a display consisting of a wave of poppies cascading up the naval memorial and we though it would be nice for the children to see and relate to the poppies they had made. We were lucky enough to have a beautiful sunny day for our visit. 

Also this week one of the children was telling us about the firework display they had seen. We talked a bit about the colours and shapes of the fireworks she had seen together with the shapes and sounds they made. The children decided they would like to create some pictures of fireworks so we called upon one of our favourite art methods for bonfire night of combining glue and glitter on black paper. 

The children absolutely love choosing colours and shaking the glitter pots although glitter can be found for weeks after the art work has dried!

Bonfire Night 2016

With safety being an important factor of educating children about bonfire night, older children engaged in a powerpoint quiz that tested their knowledge about firework safety and prompted some discussions on how the children could stay safe if they were going to see fireworks. The children really enjoyed this and became very vocal as well as taking it in turns to move the mouse. 

This year we also decided to do some activities relating to bonfire night after the children had been out to see some fireworks enabling us to use the knowledge they had gained to prompt use of language to describe fireworks as well as engaging their artistic talents to enable them to design their own fireworks. 

For younger children I used this opportunity to enhance their sensory skills and their motor skills. They used cardboard tubes to move paint around paper, creating explosion patterns. Some of the children chose to explore the paint with their fingers while others looked at the resulting colours and also enjoyed shaking glitter shakers over the wet paint. 

Bonfire Night 2015

The children were very excited about the possibility of seeing some fireworks this evening so we sat and talked a little about fire safety and never picking anything from the ground in case it was hot. We then set about creating some pictures of the things we might see.

The children made firework pictures, choosing the colours they wanted and then using straws taped together as stamps. They stamped around and swished it several times to depict the matters of fireworks within the sky. The gold glitter paint gave a lovely sparkle to the pictures. Our one year old thought this was fantastic and really got into the stamping motion!

We also used our hands to make some bonfire pictures - a lovely sensory activity for all the children. To add to the sensory experience we stuck on logs made from samples of material differing in textures.

Bonfire Night

This week we have been busy learning about bonfire night. We have talked about the shapes, colours and noises of fireworks as well as learning some basic fire safety.

After talking about what we might see at a firework display it was time to get creative. I always look for ideas that enable children to create their own work without me guiding and taking away their creativity and I loved the idea of the cutting the toilet roll to make fireworks for this reason. Some of the children kept their colours completely separate, others piled the paint all over the paper and one child created one large circular firework!

We then set about making our bonfires. We lined some fire colours up on some black paper and the children used their sponges to make a fire pattern all over their paper. We then discussed how the fire needed wood to burn and the children collected some sticks that they then stuck onto their pictures to make the fire base.