A trip to the Post Office

Reception Bears made a card for Mother's day.

We walked down to the post office.

Stuck stamps on our envelopes and posted our messages.

 We even had a chat to a local Post Woman.

Love Stories by Hans Christian Andersen

After watching this story you might wish to make hearts 

to celebrate S. Valentine's.

The Little Tin Soldier

You might be surprised to see this as an Andersen story.

Reception Bears present: The Little Mermaid

Carnaval and a little street parade

Nian, colour red, noise and fireworks

There are many stories and legends in China,

but the story of Nian, the lion monster, is a popular one.

We made some rattles and wore red.

We had some mini fireworks

and made a lot of noise to scare Nian away.

Can you answer these questions about the story?

Who is Nian?

Where does Nian live?

When does Nian come to the villages?

Why are people frightened of Nian?

What do people do to frighten Nian?

Chinese New Year

Reception Bears prepared themselves for the Chinese New Year.

First we learnt how to say Happy New Year.

新年快乐

(sshin-nyen kwhy-ler)

We learnt about various Chinese traditions.

People visit one another and present their hosts with

 tangerines and oranges, which mean "luck" and "wealth."

Our first guest taught us how to make dumplings

and also steam a rice cake/pudding - nian gao.

We all had a go at making dumplings.

 The dumplings were delicious with the soya bean sauce.

Jing used a special pot to steam the nian gao.

We all had a taste of the rice pudding, but we did not all like it.

Our next guest taught us how to make pretty patterns with paper.

Paper was invented in China, they are very good at
making things from paper.

 We cut a monkey and a Chinese character

that means "double happiness."

See the story bellow to find out why this is the

year of the Fire Monkey.

Do you think the Jade Emperor was clever?

The New Year is also called the Spring Festival.

This is the character for Spring.

We folded and cut this intricate pattern.

Our third guest taught us how to draw some

Chinese characters.

We used brushes and special ink on red paper.

We followed instructions carefully.

We wrote numbers from 1 to 10.

Our last guest lived in Singapore and has celebrated

the Chinese New Year ever since.

Sarah makes cupcakes and decorates them with tangerines.

She helped us make the frosting and decorate our cupcakes.
Rodrigo's family provided some delicious tangerines.

We all had a taste and there were still plenty to take home.

The Chinese New Year was also a good excuse for a rickshaw ride.

It takes skill as well as strength to pull a rickshaw.

新年快乐

Wise Men - Dia de los Reyes

We wish Daniel a lovely "Dia de los Reyes."
We made some Wise Men out of recycled materials to take home.

Professora Maria do Céu taught the class this song:

In true Spanish tradition, on January 6th, the Wise Men bring children presents and there are parades in the streets.

This video shows what the parade looks like.

 

Calendar challenge

On the back, as you can see, there is a wheel with the order of the animals in the Chinese calendar.

Each month is decorated with an animal.

Well done, this is the first calendar in.

Well done. The months are in the correct order.

With this calendar the 4 seasons are shown. Can you name them?

 With this calendar ****** can cross out each day as we go along.
So far, we are 5 days into the New Year.
Each page has a photograph to celebrate each month. Can you guess what might be on the page for February?

Special family days are marked on this calendar.

**** will not forget any this year.

This calendar was made in a scrapbook style.

It has drawings and cut outs illustrating the various months. 

Special days are also marked. 

Can you guess where the family went on holidays last year?

This calendar is free standing.

Days can be marked off with a sticker.

It is another calendar illustrated with photographs to show the different months of the year.
What months are shown here?

This Little Bear has written the numbers to the 366 days of the year!
Mummy helped her hold the ruler while she drew the lines.
Each day has its own box and number. The names of the months are written at the top of each page.
Can you guess what day she brought the calendar to school on?

Fantastic work Little Bear!

A treat for all these Calendar makers.

One more calendar. Look at how many events and birthdays in May. 

Wonder how many more birthdays we could pencil in.

Yet another calendar. In this calendar, the months were decorated with phtographs and drawings.

Carol Concert

Reception classes took part in the Carol Concert for 2015 with 

Away in a Manger and An Angel appeared in the Sky.

Christmas parties

Food, Games and Fun

What a menu!

We were in great company

Our Creative Nativity - performance and crafts

Our stars

At the end of the show

Do you like our crafts? Can you identify the recycled materials?

Some shepherds looking after some curly sheep.

The Angels that appeared in the sky with beautiful voices

The stable where Jesus was born

Pyjama day

Reception Bears raised over 130 euros to sponsor foster families and children's homes for children who cannot live with their own family.

Pyjama day is a fun day at school to help celebrate children's right to live in a home with a family.
We wore our pyjamas to school and got ready for bed.

Before going to bed we got a little something

ready to eat with a warm cup of milk.

We went up to the kitchen and made some pumpkin jam tarts.

Yum, they were delicious.

Now before going to bed we need to brush our teeth.

 Up and down, up and down and all the way around.

We tried to get to sleep...

but that did not really work. So we decided to count sheep.

 We counted all the way to 100. 
We sorted the numbers in tens 
and then ordered the units.

 Excitement was certainly in the air and
jumping on the bed is always fun.
Follow this jump video and jump like us.

Talking of videos. We viewed a couple of episodes of 
Bananas in Pyjamas

Bananas in pyjamas, what a wonderful idea!

Bananas coated in chocolate and dipped
in hundreds and thousands.

If after all this the little children in pyjamas were not tired,
the teachers in pyjamas certainly were.