World Week

This week has been World Week! The theme of World Week has been ‘Connected’.

Nursery have been lucky enough to partake in many activities this week, and we have had so many fun experiences. This week has helped us so much in our Understanding the World area of learning, as we have learnt and thought about how we can interact in our world, that we all come from different places around the world, and how we are all connected via the internet, our love, and our faith.

Monday was Spiritualty Day

As part of World Week, today we took part in Spirituality Day! We went into the Hall with Reception, and explored three different activities. First we came together to pray, and thought about the theme for this week – Staying Connected to God, by singing ‘He’s got the whole world in His hands’. Then we took turns to explore three different activities, the Pupil Chaplaincy Team (pupils in Class 5 and 6) helped us complete all of these activities.

1. Floating Prayer.
Writing who we are thankful for in this world, and then floating our prayer cards that read ‘Dear God, I am thankful for…’ into water. Once everyone’s card was in the water we said a prayer to God to thank Him for all of these wonderful people.

2. Loving the World
Drawing and writing what we love about the world onto love hearts, and pining them to a special display board.

3. The World
Thinking about the special world we live in, created by God. We worked in a group to cut and stick blue and green tissue paper onto a large world, to remind us of the power and beauty in the lands, seas and skies.

Nursery were fantastic during these activities, everyone tried so hard and worked well with our Reception friends. We will continue to think and reflect on our theme of ‘Staying Connected’ throughout this week.

Tuesday was Safer Internet Day

Continuing with our World Week theme of ‘Connected’ today we were thinking about how we can connect with others online, and the safety tips and tools we need to do this in a fun way whilst also being safe.
Miss Carruthers led an assembly for Early Years and KS1, that looked at the story ‘Ruby’s Worry’. This story showed us the importance of talking about things that make us worry, and how we may all have worries about different things but if we ignore them they can get bigger and bigger. If we share them with a friend, an adult at home or an adult at school, then this worry will get smaller and something can be done to help.

After our assembly, we then had time in class to think a bit more about the importance of sharing our worries with adults at home or at school. These worries can be things we have seen or experienced online, but also worries from other times. We looked at the story Hanni and the Magic Window (www.childnet.com).  The story follows a girl called Hanni, who has a magic window in her house, the window shows her anything she wants to see and it fills her with joy. One day Hanni sees something that makes her feel sad and worried. Hanni is unsure about what to do with this worry, but she told an adult at school, who helped her to speak to her mum. The adults at home and school helped her to talk about her worry and made her feel better.

The Magic Window is a great metaphor for a tablet, phone or computer that children may access at home. Technology allows us to see wonderful things from all around the world, but sometimes things that are not very nice can appear on these devices. Our focus for this activity was to create our own magic windows, and think about the things we would love to see the most if we had our own. The class then shared with an adult, what they would do or who they would speak too if they saw something that made them feel unhappy or worried, just like Hanni.

Wednesday and Thursday was focused on Children’s Mental Health Week

We came together as a class to think about what mental health means. We learn lots about keeping our bodies healthy with exercise, fruits and vegetables, but how do we keep our brain and mind healthy? The children had some lovely ideas such as listening to music, being with our family, playing with friends and eating yummy snacks. All these things do keep our kids healthy and happy! As the theme for World Week is being connected, we thought more about the people we love to enjoy these fun things with, who we like to play with and share our time with.

We listened to a lovely book being read called The Invisible String, by Patrice Karst. It follows the story of a brother and sister, who want to spend more time with their mum, but it is their bedtime! Their mum told them about the invisible thread that connect them with her all the time, because it is a thread of love that comes from the heart. We have lots of invisible threads, that connect us to all of our family and friends that we love, even if they are far away, or in heaven. As an activity we thought about all of the people we love, and how we are connected to them with our own invisible threads. We made a picture of ourselves, and drew the threads to the people we love. The children made such lovely pictures for this activity that were thoughtful, bright and colourful.

We also worked hard to create some lovely cards for people in a local care home. We had a circle time about why we are doing this, and how special this is to do. We spoke about how the people may be feeling being away from their friends and family. Nursery decided to try their best to make the most the beautiful cards to make other happy. We had three stations for the cards, a glitter station, a colouring station and a sticking station! We hope that the people who receive their personalised card are happy and know that they are connected to our school.

Friday we celebrated how we are connected around the World! 

Today we all came into school dressed in colours or traditional clothes that represent all or one of the countries we come from! This is such a fun way to show our diversity, and pride in where we come from. Nursery were so happy and excited to show their outfits and see their friends dressed up to represent their families.
We were then lucky to watch a whole school assembly, where children from each year group could perform a special song, dance, poem or presentation about the countries their families are from. We thought about how we are connected through our varying cultures and differences. We came together as a school, being connected through our love of each other as a school family, and how we support everyone around us.

This week has has been so much fun, such a fantastic way to celebrate God’s amazing World, and embrace and celebrate the different cultures and ethnicities within our school family.