Advent

Why is light important in everyday life?
We found out what happens during advent and that it is a time for Christians to prepare for Jesus' birth.

Lots of us said that we use advent calendars to count down to Christmas day.  Churches and many families use an advent wreath to count down the 4 weeks of advent.

The Sunday closest to 30th November, is the first Sunday of advent.  The first candle on the advent wreath is lit, another candle is lit over the following 3 weeks with a fifth one (a white candle) being lit on Christmas day.  Each candle has it's own meaning.

Candles:
1: Hope “Hope is like a light shining in a dark place.  As we look at this candle we celebrate the hope we have in Jesus Christ”.
2: Peace “Peace is like a light shining in a dark place.  As we look at the candle we celebrate the peace we find in Jesus Christ”.
3: Love “Love is like a candle shining in a dark place.  As we look at the light of this candle we celebrate the love we have in Christ”.
4: Joy “Joy is like a light shining in a dark place.  As we look at the candle we celebrate the joy we find in Jesus Christ”.
5: Jesus “The flame of this candle reminds us of that He is the light of the world and that if we follow Him, we will never walk in darkness, but will have the true light of life”.

We collected greenery from our outside area, used florist oasis, 4 red candles and 1 white candle to work in groups to make some advent wreaths.

At Hickling, pre-school came over to join us, it was great to see them working with everyone.

Christmas Lights

Why is light important in everyday life?
This week we talked about lights that we see at Christmas, we talked in our learning partners and then made a class list of all the lights that we see and where.

Here is the list from Orange class at Sutton:

Tuesday 20^th November 2018                                                                       Orange Class

Christmas Lights

On Christmas trees

In gardens

On houses

On fences

Santa’s sleigh

Posts in the street

In shops

Outside houses

Church

Wrapped around houses

Outside shops

In Stalham

On walls

Porches

Cars

School

Doors

Wreaths

We thought carefully about lights at Christmas and then designed our own Christmas light.

In year 1 we designed our light and labelled it, we talked about our design too.

In year 2 we designed our light, labelled it and gave reasons for why we designed it in the way we did.

The children gave some amazing reasons for their designs.

Starting our new enquiry

Why is light important in everyday life?

This week we have started looking at our new big question.  We began by sitting quietly with only a candle flame alight.  We talked about how we feel in the dark, how the flame made us feel and what light does to the dark.

Some of the words that we used about the light were:
Relaxing,
Calm,
Happy,
Warm.
Some of the words that we used about the dark were:
Scary,
I see shadows,
I think there are monsters under the bed,
Sleepy.

The children talked to each other about being scared in the dark, one child in year 2 said "We don't need to be scared in the dark because God is always with us.  He looks after us."

Bringing things together

How and why are different celebrations, ceremonies and festivals important?

This has been the final week for our first big question of the year.

We spent our time talking about what we have discovered about four festivals/celebrations.

In year 1 we drew pictures related to each one and thought about why they are important.

In year 2 we wrote about the main points of each one and identified similarities and differences between them.

The children have remembered so much about their learning and have made me extremely proud of them, it is always difficult when starting a new year group.