If we thought last week was busy, this week was even busier!
December is always a busy month for me. As well as all the preparations that come with celebrating Christmas, the shopping, the wrapping, the arrangements to be made, I also have three family birthdays to squeeze in and this week both my children had music exams to throw into the mix. Most importantly, there is the all important Navtivity production to rehearse and perfect. Oh yes, it is busy busy busy.
This week we celebrated – St. Andrew’s day. We learnt that St Andrew was a fisherman and was the first of Jesus’s disciples, we watched a short video of two brothers celebrating St Andrew’s day, they wore traditional kilts, enjoyed traditional music and dance (ceilidh) made some shortbread and enjoyed some warm and delicious porridge. We then made our way into the hall where we found a large piece of paper with a white cross - the St Andrew's Cross or Saltire. It is a school tradition that on St Andrew’s day we bring in silver coins and decorate the flag of Scotland with the coins, we then donate the money to Great Ormond Street Hospital.
As we waved goodbye to November and said hello to December what a surprise we had on Thursday morning. It would appear that Santa’s Elves had been in school overnight and had transformed our Rainforest area into a Christmas living room scene / Elf workshop, complete with a call centre….hotline to the elves workshop and present wrapping station. We were all very very excited!
Almost as soon as we arrived in the setting the phone started ringing and orders were coming in thick and fast, they were quickly passed onto the wrapping station where paper was measured, cut, stuck and presents wrapped and bagged! Playdough gingerbread men were made infront of the fireplace backdrop whilst others checked the snow falling through the window scene, and of course the Nativity story was being retold- easy to see why this is such a magical time of year.
We finished off the week in a similar way to how we started it - with another celebration, Christingle. Every class held a Make your own Christingle in readiness for the whole school collective worship led by Rev. Miri. During the service, all Christingles were lit and all the lights went off - the hall was filled only with candlelight and lots of oooohhhhhssss and aaaahhhhhsssss - it was a beautiful moment.
Take a look at the video below to see just some of the moments from our week
What a fantastic Chrismassy way to end the week. Please rest well over the weekend and save all your energy for the Nativity performance next week.
Have a lovely weekend – see you all on Monday.