On
Sunday, many Hindu and Sikh families celebrated Diwali- this festival lasts for five days. You might have seen or heard lots of fireworks this weekend! Diwali is the festival
of lights, which celebrates the triumph of good over evil. You may have heard the story of Rama and Sita- click the link below if you can't remember it!
One
of the special traditions is the drawing or painting of Rangoli patterns. Rangoli patterns are created on the floor of homes and
other buildings to welcome in visitors.They
are also thought to welcome the Goddess of Wealth.
They are usually brightly coloured, with repeated shapes, often in flower or
petal designs. Sometimes the patterns are made with coloured rice, grains or petals.
There are many fascinating traditions for celebrating Diwali from around the world- take a look at this Newsround page to find out more!
A little late, but here is our report on St. Anthony's Day!
Two weeks ago, we celebrated St. Anthony's Day at school with a special day to reflect on our faith. In Upper School, we had the whole day off-timetable. We spent one hour in each classroom with a different teacher.
In each class, we learned about a different parable of mercy. This year is the Year of Mercy, so we combined our celebration of St. Anthony's Day with our celebrations for the Year of Mercy.
With Miss Bower, we learned the Parable of the Lost Sheep- and made some very cute clay sheep!
With Ms Doyle, we learned the Parable of the Labourers in the Vineyard. We created some fantastic story maps.
With Miss Checker, we learned the Parable of the Yeast. We drew some beautiful and imaginative seed pictures, with the seeds growing into marvellous and creative new things. Each class in the school contributed to each picture, so by the end of the day the pictures had been created by four children from the different classes in Year 5 and 6.
With me, you learned the Parable of the Lost Coin. We discussed the story, then made some beautiful Mexican coins. One side of each coin was made by a child in Year 5 and the other side by a child in Year 6. You can see them all hanging in the window above the stairs to Upper School now.
It was a wonderful day, completed by a special reflection service in the afternoon. Some children read prayers and led our reflection, as a child from each class offered a piece of art/work that had been completed during the day.
On Friday, we were very lucky to have a special visitor in St. Clare's Class. Kyoko came to visit us from the Japan Foundation and we had a wonderful morning together!
Kyoko is from Japan and teaches Japanese to children and adults in London. We were very fortunate that she could come and help us to learn some Japanese too!
We began the morning by learning how to greet one another in Japanese and how to introduce ourselves. We learned how to say 'hello', 'good morning', 'thank you', 'my name is...', 'I am 9/10 years old' and 'it's nice to meet you'. Kyoko also taught us the importance of bowing and how to bow appropriately. Before the end of this session, we were able to have a short conversation with a partner and sing a song to the tune of 'Row Row Row Your Boat' with all of the new phrases we had learned.
Excitingly, Kyoko told us that a very special Japanese festival is coming up soon, on 7th July. She told us the story of Tanabata (see the video below):
It's a beautiful story and it was very interesting to hear how Tanabata is celebrated in Japan. Kyoko told us that on this day, people write their wishes on colourful strips of paper called 'tanzaku'.
Source: thejapanguy
Source: nihonsun
She kindly brought some along for us, so that we could write some wishes of our own! We wrote our wishes in English, but Kyoko helped us to write some of the key words in Japanese too. Once we had written and decorated our wishes on the tanzaku, we had a moment of quiet reflection as we placed them onto the branches of our special 'tree'.
After play, we learned how to say and write numbers in Japanese, using the kanji characters. We loved reciting the numbers and learning the actions to go with them! Once we had a good understanding of the numbers, Kyoko thought we were ready to learn how to write dates. We were fascinated to learn how the months are written in kanji and we were all trying to say our birthday dates at lunchtime and in the afternoon!
We learned more greetings too and Kyoko helped us to say 'My favourite thing is...' and worked with each of us, one at a time, to tell us how to say our favourite things! We learned how to say 'skateboarding', 'art', 'science', 'football' and all sorts of other hobbies in Japanese!
What a wonderful opportunity- arigato gozaimasu, Kyoko!
Happy New Year from St. Clare's Class! Have a wonderful New Year's Eve tonight and we wish you a year of fun, success, happiness and good health in 2016!
This week, you are researching the Jewish festival of Sukkot for your homework. We have already had some wonderful homework handed in- some of you have even made models of sukkahs!
If you are still working on your homework, here are some useful links. Remember- do not copy and paste information from websites- your teachers are very clever and we can always tell!
Click here to watch a BBC video clip called 'A Jewish Boy's Sukkot' to see how Adam celebrates Sukkot:
Happy St. Patrick's Day! In my assembly tomorrow morning you will be learning all about Saint Patrick's life and about how this special occasion is celebrated all around the world!
