Phew!!! That was H O T! (written with the children)

Last week, Year 1 had a real taste of India! We tasted Indian food. There was no meat in the food because most Indian people are vegetarians and all Hindu people are too. We tasted mango ("which was yummy!), poppadoms ("which were salty"), samosas ("which were spicey") bhajis ("which had vegetables in") and bombay mix - which was H O T!!!!! It had so much chilli in that we had to rush to the sink for a cool drink of water! Here we are, gulping the water down!

We finished our Indian paintings and writing. This week, we have a class assembly and some of the parents are coming to look at all the things that we have learnt about India.

We all had a fantastic time at the Valentine Disco.

It's going to be a busy week this week in preparation for our performances but then we can all relax over half term.

"One day, I'm going to India!"

This week, we have been learning more about India.

Gareth from our school, came into the classroom to talk about her childhood growing up in India. She brought in some Indian objects and one of them was made from ivory, an elephants tusk. Elephants are looked after now and no one should hunt them.

Using Google Earth, we have compared maps of both India and the UK and looked at the different regions of India. We have learnt that the Himalayas are the biggest mountains in THE WORLD! and that The Ganges river begins in the Himalayas and flows into the rest of the country. We have compared the Ganges to The Thames river, in London.

On Tuesday, we went for a walk around the local area, looking at the attractive and unattractive features and comparing them to a small village in South India, Chembakoli. We then made our own map of the area, creating our own map symbols.

We have enjoyed spending some 'chill - out' time in the Indian role-play area. Here we are, dressing up in the many colourful Saris and Indian costumes that some of the parents have been kind enough to supply.

We have made our own Indian Rangoli designs from coloured rice, lentils, sand, glitter and chalks. Miss Welton was so pleased with our work and the way that we work so carefully and tidily, that she asked Mrs Roberts to come into the classroom and look at the Rangoli patterns and at some of the paintings of India that we had created.We also wrote some sentences about one of our favorite things about India. Some of us wrote about the Peacock, the National bird of India, some of us wrote about the Taj Mahal, a temple of love. There were lots of different things to learn about the country and we are going to invite the parents into the classroom so that we can share what we have learnt.

Because we had got all of the 'sweets' in our jar, on Friday we had a pyjama party during Golden Time. We put on our pyjamas and dressing gowns and sat cuddling our toys while we sipped hot chocolate and ate delicious cookies. Miss Welton put on her dressing gown and read us a story by one of our favorite authors, Roald Dahl. As the story is read, there are no pictures to look at so we have to sit quietly and use our imaginations, which we all really love to do! 'It's like disappearing into a different world!'

Next week, we are looking forward to trying some Indian foods and doing some Indian dancing and singing.