New Year and Clothes!

What a wonderful start to the new year we have had in upper pre-primary – making fireworks and our new year's resolution stars! We also had lots of fun celebrating the Chinese New Year. We decorated our class and made lovely Chinese drums, and Ying Ying helped us with the Chinese writing on them! The children looked great in their red clothes. They each made a little red envelope and received 10 cents to put in it! In China money is given during the new year celebration to bring fortune, luck and happiness. Our Chinese celebration also included delicious Chinese food made by Ying Ying’s Mum and Dad (a big thank you to you both).

We are well under way with our new IPC unit of work on ‘Clothes’. We had a fantastic entry point with our international clothes day, celebrated by all the children in pre-primary. The children looked gorgeous in their national costumes. They had to introduce themselves, say what country their clothes came from and then walk down the red carpet. We sang songs and enjoyed celebrating our different nationalities.

Once again with a new unit of work we had to rearrange our classroom; instead of a class café we now have a clothes shop! The children enjoyed setting it up and are having lots of fun buying clothes and dressing up. They have learnt to be good shopkeepers, keeping their shop tidy and giving good assistance to their customers!

The children have been very curious and interested to find out what clothes are worn around the world. They have enjoyed working in our international clothes sticker book which has led to many discussions about clothes. The children have enjoyed trying on our Mexican hat, Lederhosen from Germany and our Spanish dress. We had a lovely visit to our class from Davi’s Mum who showed us pictures of clothes worn in different parts of Brazil, so many kinds of beautiful clothes. We even got to learn some samba moves and play some of the instruments used for this type of music.

The children made beautiful paintings of their own clothes, making sure to fill in all the details and use the right colours. Through all this work the children are increasing their vocabulary and becoming more familiar with the names of different clothes and parts of clothes. The socks the children have brought to school have been very useful for counting exercises. Some children can even count in twos now! During our special odd sock day the children had to describe their two socks and the differences between the two!

The children have been learning about what clothes are made of. They have looked at samples of different materials. They have learnt how cotton threads come from the cotton plant, silk from the silk worm, wool from animals and fleece from plastic bottles. They understand how threads are woven in a loom to make the cloth which is then turned into clothes. The children are also trying out a new skill: knitting (a great challenge!).

Alongside our unit on clothes we have also met up with our buddy class (upper primary). They told us some stories using the Japanese theatre “Kamishibai”. Afterwards we watched a magic show performed by Romeo and then each child had a story read to him by his own special buddy! What a lovely time we spent together.

Last month we also celebrated Jeremy’s sixth birthday with delicious chocolate cake. Congratulations Jeremy!