We are focusing on one or two historical black figures to celebrate and recognise the important people that helped change and influence our lives!

We have learnt about Ella Fitzgerald, we read her story, listened to her music and talked about how it made us feel then tried to make our own jazz... Each morning and during mindfulness time we have continued to listen to her music, we have also attempted our own skitting.

We largely focused on Rosa Parks, we had a lot of good questions surrounding Rosa Parks' story. We spoke about how we can show kindness in our class and came up with our own class 'rules'. In the afternoon we read about a similar figure, Nelson Mandela. The children were most shocked that they both went to jail.

In our story time we have shared stories with emphasis on historical black figures and other stories. We especially enjoyed 'Coming to England' by Floella Benjamin and explored the long journey she took!

We also looked at a current figure, Marcus Rashford and explored how he helped those in need, especially during Covid. We spoke about the importance of our free hot school meals and how we can help others through things such as food banks. We shared that still today people can use unkind words and how we can reinforce kindness in our environments. 

In Art we focused on Alma Woodsey Thomas, the first ever solo African American woman to have work displayed in an art museum. Thomas' shows similar work to Kandisky who we learnt about last week.

The children were great at reminding one another of our three prime colours. We then looked at some examples of Thomas' work and made our own using different tools to make our prints, we used a paintbrush, PVA glue spreader and finger prints. The children really enjoyed mixing the colours to create new secondary colours.

This week we have explored how Black people were treated unfairly, in an EYFS friendly way. We have explored how still today people can say unkind things just because we look different and have spoken about what to do if we hear someone saying unkind things.