Kits News - 10th November 2023

The Kits had a great week this week and we loved learning about the festival of Diwali. The children learnt about the festival’s traditions and history and that it is known as the ‘Festival of Light’.

In Art we continued our focus on celebrations and the children made firework paintings using different methods such as printing with cardboard tubes, straws and most fun of all using a salad spinner! They used small bottles to squeeze paint onto the paper inside the spinner and then placed the lid on top before turning the handle to spin it quickly round and round, leaving a firework pattern behind. The activity developed the children’s gross motor skills as well as introducing them to a new, exciting way to create art. 

During the week we have been developing the children’s vocabulary as we learnt new words associated with the festival such as ‘diva’, ‘rangoli’ and ‘sari’ and looked at the different objects in our ‘Story Basket’. They have also been learning about Indian food as they engaged in imaginative play in our Role-Play Area which has been set up as an Indian Restaurant for the week, making curries and bhajis with ‘loose parts’ such as tinsel and pieces of wood.

We have also enjoyed looking at patterns as the children have been learning about rangolis and they have made their own patterns with the ‘loose parts’. ‘Loose parts play’ enables the children to use their imagination and explore different objects as they make arrangements with everyday items such as beads, wood, tinsel and curtain loops. 

The highlight of the week however was our Cookery Focus Time where we made our own vegetable samosas. The children shared the resources well as they mashed pre-cooked potato and carrot with curry powder, onions and sweetcorn to make their samosa filling. They then used a brush to spread butter onto the filo pastry before carefully folding it into a triangle with their hands. The samosas smelt delicious while cooking and the children were very excited to take them home to show their parents and eat them for tea!