Samira's Eid

This week we have immersed ourselves in learning about Ramadan and Eid. We read the book Samira's Eid, about a family's preparations for the upcoming Eid celebrations and how Samira learnt that helping others is not just about giving money to a charity but is also about doing things for people, such as tidying a garden when a neighbour has a broken arm, or making food to take to a community centre to help feed people less fortunate than she is. We were lucky enough to have a prayer mat in each class to look at closely. The children saw pictures of mats being used to pray and they practised themselves. We made crescent moon shaped  sun catchers using petals and leaves, because the crescent moon is a symbol of Islam and the sighting of the New Moon at the end of Ramadan is important for the start of Eid, as well as for the start of Ramadan itself. We were so lucky to have some Muslim families who brought gifts for the children to celebrate and one Mummy came in to show us a few different ways to wear a hijab. We have a some scarves in the classroom and the children practised themselves. On Wednesday we made cookies in many different shapes associated with Islam or the countries where it is widely practised. We had shapes such as a crescent moon, a star, a camel and mosque. We also learnt that the meal that breaks the daily fast is called Iftar and that many families break the fast by eating dates, just as the Prophet Muhammad did when he broke the fast a thousand years ago. It has been an exciting week and the children and staff learnt a lot together.

In maths we have been learning about numbers bigger than 10. We have been making numbers 11-20 using a variety of resources that helped to show that 10 is a part of all those numbers. We will be investigating that further next week. 

In phonics we are continuing to learn how to use all the sounds we know both in our reading and writing.