At the beginning of May, the Juniors looked at The Netherlands for their European country project in preparation for Europe Day. They have used their Geography lessons in SESE to learn about where The Netherlands is in the world, the language they speak, the currency they use, the geography of the land such as rivers, hills and man-made pools, different cities and famous people from the country. We also thought about its place in the European Union and what benefits there are to being a part of the organisation through whole-school assemblies.
The children tried their hand at some abstract Art that challenged how they thought about painting. They learnt a bit about the Dutch artist Vincent Van Gough and looked at some of his most famous paintings, noticing the dark colours, repetitive lines and perspective he created. As a class, they followed steps from Lauren to spread paint that had been poured directly onto their page to create a dark and moody background, mixing blue, black and yellow. They then used the same paintbrush to create swirls of white and yellow, and a fork to create texture. Once the painting had dried, the children used chalk and glitter to highlight some stars in their Starry Night picture. We love how they turned out.
By the time Europe Day arrived, the children in the Junior Room were very excited to share all they had learnt about The Netherlands with their visitors and tuck into some delicious food from the region including Stroopwaffles, Gouda cheese, apple pie and liquorice sweets. The Juniors really enjoyed walking around the Senior Room to taste Europe and learned some new facts as they went. A few favourites were Turbo chewing gum from Poland, Choux buns from Luxembourg, Tayto crisps from Ireland and chocolates from Italy. A new addition to this year’s celebrations was the children singing the EU Anthem which they worked very hard to learn. I think all of the parents will agree that it was a real highlight of the day and that the children sang so well!
Thank you to all of our visitors who took the time to spend the afternoon with us, learning about different EU countries. Thank you also to all of the parents who helped their children to source and make some delicious food for us to try – we think it was the best year yet!
