On Thursday, we spent some time considering the 80th anniversary of VE day. Isaac explained to us that VE stands for ‘Victory in Europe’. We looked at a map to find the United Kingdom and chatted about what we mean by ‘united’. We noticed that the flags for England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Island come together to form the Union Flag. Our map illustrated how the UK is a part of Europe. We thought back to what we had learned on Remembrance Day and discussed, again, how we might feel if there was a war going on in the UK now. The idea of leaving our families as evacuees seemed very daunting but we agreed it was better to escape to the safety of the countryside. It is always enlightening to listen to Reception children drawing on their own lived experiences/discussions from home and how they relate to our topic of discussion. Isaac recalled visiting a war time shelter in Northumberland and Leon wondered if the beams in people’s houses might protect them from bombs.
Deaf awareness week
By placing fingers in our ears, we developed a sense of how challenging it might be for people who have hearing loss. We appreciate that some of our friends might need equipment to help them to hear more effectively and Luke told us that his grandad has a hearing aid. We learned that some Christians believe that Jesus performed a miracle when he enabled a deaf man to hear. If we cannot hear properly, we might need to find other ways to communicate and we practised signing a few words. Can they children recall what they were?
Preparing for sports day
Only two weeks to go! We are practising for our team relay races in our Tuesday PE lessons and out on the field. We are considering our tactics, such as holding our arm close to our bodies so that the egg does not fall off the spoon. What is really lovely to witness is the growing camaraderie within the house teams: cheering for our friends is, arguably, the most rewarding part of sports day. If you are out enjoying the (promised) fine weather this weekend, why not make up some races of your own?
