Milepost 1 – Let’s Celebrate

This unit has been rich and engaging for all of the children and teachers. It has perfectly encapsulated why people celebrate, what they celebrate and how they celebrate all around the world. We all have broadened our understanding of different cultures…while having buckets of fun!

Over the course of the unit the children ultimately understood that celebrations are a big part of everybody’s life. They can now name a range of different celebrations from many countries and tell you about their traditions. Each class spent the second half of Michaelmas Term exploring this topic through History, Design and Technology, Art, Music and Dance. Here are some of our highlights:

Year 1 Kingfishers really enjoyed dancing to different Christmas songs. They learned and listed all the Christmas traditions before then acting them out in their own choreography. They set this to the famous song ‘Walking in the air’, from ‘The Snowman’. Then they had a wiggle and a jive to ‘Rocking Around the Christmas Tree’, where they imagined they were at a Christmas party with their families having fun. As you can see from the pictures, the children were really engaged in this activity, as they were throughout the whole topic.

Year 1 Ospreys enjoyed looking into each other’s lives through photographs and artefacts brought in by the children. From baby pictures, to birthday invitations and wedding photos we were able to see how different and similar we all are, no matter what our heritage. We created a timeline of celebrations to see what has been celebrated in their lives over their first 5 or 6 years.

A highlight for Year 2 Eagles was applying their minds to the various technology and design tasks, namely conceptualising, planning, designing and evaluating a Diya lamp and a Carnival mask. The children researched and made notes about Diwali and turned these into an information text during their literacy lessons. Another Literacy highlight was investigating how students at Wellington College celebrate success. Here, children took on the role of journalists seeking out celebratory evidence around campus. Their findings were honed and resulted in short ‘journalistic’ articles. Children really got to see the links between the Inquiry and Literacy components of our curriculum.

In Year 2, in The Owl class, the children had some wonderful, colourful ideas when creating carnival masks- adding shiny sequins and fluffy feathers to complete their creations. They also really enjoyed it when they looked at different kinds of body art and then they came up with some designs for henna hand patterns. They worked in pairs to paint the henna designs onto each other’s hands.

From our humble beginning of celebrating a teacher’s birthday until the indulgent ending as we shared a fantastic Christmas afternoon at the St Regis, the children of Milepost 1 have immersed themselves in all things celebratory. From all these instances it is easy to see that the IPC really allows children to learn in more informal and fun ways, no wonder they love it so much!