As part of our learning this week we have been busy learning about Diwali, the Festival of Light that is celebrated by people who are of Sikh or Hindu faith.

We watched a short film about how children prepare for and celebrate Diwali and we made some fantastic links noticing that lots of the things that they do to celebrate are the same or similar to our celebrations for example giving gifts, wearing special clothes, eating special food, decorating the house and spending time with family and friends.

We have did lots of exciting activities in nursery to help us with our learning.

Our activities are very important and it helps the children to gain an awareness of other cultures and beliefs and helps them to understand the similarities and differences between themselves and others and understand their place in the wider community.

When learning about other cultures and beliefs we are supporting the children to enjoy their right to find things out about the world and other people (UNCRC Article 13) and we are also able to reinforce about every child right to choose their own religion and belief (UNCRC Article 14)

We have a new friend in nursery called Smartie the Penguin and this week he helped us to learn a very important lesson about being safe when we use the computer.

In our story, when Smartie’s laptop went wrong and something came on the screen that he didn’t recognise, he was unsure what to do…the bees came up with some fantastic ideas and knew that he should ‘tell a grown up’ to help to make the computer safe again.

We talked about grown ups job to keep children safe at nursery and at home and that if we saw something on our computers or tablets that we didn’t recognise we should tell a grown up to help to make it safe.

This learning helped our children to be aware of their right to find out information on the computer and internet (UNCRC A13. A17) and also their right to be kept safe  (UNCRC A19)

Smartie taught us a song to help up to help us to remember to ‘think before we click and tell a grown up’ and he’s going to sit on all the computers around nursery to remind us to keep safe.

We continued to practise our counting both inside and out this week using conkers, bears and marbles as well as each other to count by moving the objects, saying the numbers in the right order and remembering to stop when we’d counted all the objects.

Outside we extended our physical skills on a different climbing frame. We had to do lots of problem solving, cooperating and talking to work out how to use it and help to keep each other safe..it was fantastic!

At the very end of the week we had a final chat about half term and Halloween before the children broke up, especially to remind them to keep safe if they are taking part in any activities with their grown ups over the holidays.

You can help our child to reinforce their learning at home. Talking about the things that you celebrate, reminding your child to ‘Think before they click’ if they use a computer or tablet at home and ‘tell a grown up’ if they see anything that they don’t recognise.

Now we're all ready for a restful break...so that we're fresh and ready for the next term.