Weekly Activities. Book of the week - The Nativity.

Book of the week: The Nativity by Fiona Watt.

Synopsis: Charming illustrations by Rachel Wells accompany a delightful, tactile retelling of the Christmas story, complete with fluffy donkeys, woolly sheep, a glittering angel and, of course, the baby Jesus sleeping in his soft blanket.

Activity: In the weeks leading up to Christmas 2020, we decided to do the our various activities stretched across two weeks as we had rather a lot of exciting things to fit in!

After reading our book of the week 'The Nativity' at base camp, we talked about the meaning of Christmas and Christian beliefs, how other faiths celebrate Christmas and how Christmas is a good time to think about our families, friends and other people in general.

Our main practitioner led activity was making Christmas wreaths that the children could take home to hang up. To make the wreaths we used some thick wire and bent it into a circle. We then attached fir branches to it using thin florists wire which gave the wreath its main shape and look. We tied some cotton on so it could be hung. From there the children decided what else they would like to decorate them with including: beads, ribbon, baubles, pom poms, leaves, cinnamon sticks, bows, wool and berries. The wreaths came out brilliantly and the children were very proud of their creations as you can see from the pictures below.

Next we made some Christmas tree decorations. We had several different types the children could make including:-

- Cutting a small round disc of wood using a saw. Drilling a hole towards the top of the disc using either a palm or hand drill. Threading some wool through the hole and tying a knot in it so it could be hung and then decorated it by painting, colouring or sticking things to it such as colourful pom poms or beads...

- Next we made mini Christmas trees by taking a lollipop stick and sticking some double sided tape along it. We then stuck either increasing shorter plain twigs or fir tree twigs to it that the children cut to size using secateurs. This gave the trees their familiar shape. Finally we stuck some small colourful beads on it that (hopefully!) resembled Christmas tree bauballs...

- We then made colourful hanging beads and bells using some string that we tied to a small bell/large bead. We then threaded increasing smaller beads onto the string and finally tied it at the top so it could be hung from a Christmas tree...

- We created some very imaginative air drying clay decorations which could be any shape the children wished. They decorated them using small fir tree twigs (for arms or spines in some cases), pipe cleaners, wool, beads and pom poms...

- Lastly we had some ceramic snowmen that the children could paint and then decorate with colourful pipe cleaners which resembled a scarf...

Our last, but certainly not least, activity was putting up our Forest School Christmas tree! The children helped to bring in the tree by carrying it in a wheelbarrow into the nursery. Once they had decided where to put it (next to our fish pond) they needed to dig a hole to put it in. We then got a bucket and filled it with dirt and gravel into which we put our tree. We put the bucket and tree into the freshly dug hole and patted down the dirt to keep it stable. We decorated it with solar lights and some of the tree decorations the children made throughout the week...