Article 8

You have the right to an identity. This means we have a right to wear our own clothes and speak our own language. Through the story Handa’s Surprise written by Eileen Browne, we have been comparing life in Africa to our own lives. We have learnt so much!

Jo came to share her experiences of working in African schools. She explained that the area she worked in had 11 different languages but the main language was called Xhosa, pronounced Koah-suh.

Jo shared some extracts from her diary that she kept while out there.

She showed us her beautiful outfit that her African friends made for her.

We learnt how to do an African handshake.

We discovered there was no toilet and no running water in her African village. The only toilet was a long way away and was called a long drop.

Children in one school she visited had to learn in a cow shed! They had to clear away the cow poop before they started the day.

The people were very poor but extremely kind and generous. The family that Jo was staying with made her jewellery and a felt belt. The African ladies make jewellery from beads.

We asked some questions and Elsie wanted to know if the African children celebrate birthdays. Jo said that they celebrate Christmas and birthdays but they don’t celebrate bonfire night or halloween.

Thanks Jo for sharing your experience with us. It was so interesting!

The police officers helped teach the children about staying safe and how police help to protect them from harm as safe and trusted adults.

During their visit the police officers allowed the children to ask questions, share ideas and talk about their experiences encouraging respect for children’s views.

The children also got the opportunity to listen to the siren and watch the flashing lights, learning about how society works and what we have to do if we see the blue flashing lights when we’re travelling inthe car to help the police.

We went on the coach to our local swimming pool for swimming lessons which we really enjoyed. We had the chance to splash eachother, blow bubbles and relax by floating on the pool noodles.

We played with rubber ducks and balanced them on our heads as we kicked our legs to swim across the pool . What fun!

In Reception this week we have been learning all about China and Chinese New Year. We have been learning about people who live here in the UK and how they celebrate Chinese New Year. We have thought about what they do and how it is different or the same as how we celebrate Chinese New Year and how we can be respectful of these differences.

In Reception we have been learning about our right to rest and play. We are so fortunate to have a wonderful outdoor area to rest and play in as well as our classrooms. We enjoy playing and resting together and even though we can be independent and choose our own snack time and what we eat, recently for our harvest topic we have read the story of stone soup, so we decided to make our very own vegetable soup to share. We rested together for a break and shared the soup, dipping our toast in to try it. We enjoyed working as a team to cook the soup and sharing it together.

In Reception today we read a story about Elmer. We discovered that Elmer is special and that he is kind and funny and makes his own choices. Then we thought about how we are all different and what we are good at doing. We are all free to be ourselves and we are wonderful!

Then we told each other what things we are good at. Raven is good at taking care of people. Thea is good at making friends. Ollie is good at playing football. Ronnie is good at using the monkey bars and Alice is good at holding bugs.

We have been thinking about our rights this week as the children visit other classes as part of their transition. we know that every person has rights and moving up to year 1, we will still keep our rights and have access to ‘rest and play’ throughout our childhoods.

This made us think about our right of the term ‘we all have the right to play and rest’. We think we have certainly had lots of opportunities to put it into practice this term- We have been a trip to Plymouth Aquarium, been gardening and growing potatoes, made an obstacle course outside and designed African necklaces for our Handa’s surprise topic during our play, we also have plenty of opportunities to rest- we love to relax in our book corner, listen to stories in the library, make and eat pancakes for snack and eat lollies in our orchard sitting with friends on a sunny day.

Article 24 talks about how we have the right to safe water and nutritious food to help us stay well. In Reception we have been looking at how to stay healthy through the topics of Supertato and Handa. Look at the basket of healthy fruits we painted!

In Reception this week we went on an imaginary rocket ship to the future and thought about what our favourite job would be as an adult. We explored different occupations and discussed what we might need to learn to be able to do that job. We shared ideas in talk partners and as a class. Some of our favourite ideas were police officers, vets, doctors and an Olympic trampolinist. In our learning time we drew pictures of our dream job. We can’t wait to continue our good learning that will help us reach our goals!

We have a right to find out things.