Gambia day

East Harling Primary School and Nursery is twinned with St Martins Basic Cycle School in The Gambia. Today we have been celebrating this by working in mixed ages groups to learn all about the country and culture, through the arts. In the words of the children, it has been a brilliant and fun day!

More photos and hopefully some videos will be added soon, so do come back and take a look. We thought it would be nice to give you a quick flavour of what has been happening in school today.

Story time

The children in nursery listened to and enjoyed an African story this morning with Mrs Simonds.

Mask makers

Miss Dennis has been creating Gambian masks with her groups. Don't they look wonderful?!

Gambia art

Mrs Sergeant has been creating a HUGE map of The Gambia with her groups. They have been working on the playground with lots of natural materials. The children could see the shape of the country and how it is a different landscape to the UK.

Gambia games

Mrs Hempsall has been showing all the groups some great Gambia games. Fleur said this was her favourite morning activity!

Clapping games

Mrs Pilmer has been teaching all the children some clapping games from The Gambia. Florrie said this was her favourite activity before lunch, she loved the rhymes and chants that went with the clapping and I think she will be showing all her family!

More pictures of the children clapping coming very soon.

Skipping!

Mrs Kelly has been showing some skipping games to her groups today. Jasmine said that it was her favourite activity of the morning! She said it was really good fun!

Sand painting

Mrs Good has been helping her groups create some Gambian art work through sand painting today. Aiden and Matti said the sand painting was their favourite activity. They have produced some lovely pieces of art work, inspired by The Gambia.

Story-telling

The children from Gambia sent us an audio story of The Selfish Crocodile, which we will all listen to in assembly next half term. So we thought we would have a go at story telling too. We used puppets and musical instruments. George thought it was going ok whilst they were practising and Joe liked the puppets. Evie said it was her favourite activity of the morning.

You can watch three parts of the story below. Excuse the poor cameraman skills!

The last part was a bit noisy because of change-over, so we shall endeavour to re-record it.

Drumming!

Miss Yates has been drumming with children in the hall. Macy said it was really good fun, even though it hurt her hands! Imagine how Miss Yate's hands will feel by the end of the day! Jayden thought it was really good and Lily really enjoyed it too. George said that it was very rhythmic. Bertie said it was his favourite activity of the morning.