Free Range Education : Chinese New Year, St Brigid and Candlemas

Now if i was extremely well organised i would have sat and blogged on three separate occasions , but as I'm not, you will have to make do with a three crammed in to one sort of muddle.

Last Monday we had our Chinese New Year celebrations.I made Chicken Chow Main for our dinner and The children baked Some cup cakes decorated with Chinese symbol rice paper.They also finished of there Chinese new year Mini block.

Here's Gypsie wearing her dragon mask!

Wednesday we devoted our day to learning about St Brigid.

We baked Oaty Bread.

We watched a silent animation telling the story of St Brigid's Cloak .I also read the same story aloud and then Gypsie and Jasmine retold the story in there own words in there Main lesson books.I liked Gypsies beautiful illustration.

As you can see we made some butter by shaking some whipping cream in a jar until it separated........dead easy and delicious.

The girls did some copy work ..Saint Brigid was known to travel the countryside, blessing households as she went.

St. Brigid's Blessing

May Brigid bless the house where you dwell,
every fireside door and every wall;
every heart that beats beneath its roof,
every hand that toils to bring it joy,
every foot that walks its portals through.
may Brigid bless the house that shelters you!

We went to a lovely shop just down the road from us. Each of the children chose a candle. ( Charlie ended up with 9 tea lights) We lit the candles while we ate lunch and after they blew out their candle they made a wish for this new year.

The children planted 5 varieties of chili pepper and we spoke about the coming of spring.

We are hoping they will germinate upon the bright kitchen windowsill.

We also made this beautiful candle shade/ stain glass window. I printed off some images to correspond with the christian meaning behind candlemas ( the purification of Mary and the presentation of Jesus in the temple)