what festivals do you celebrate in January ?

[Tily Bud]

hi

what festivals or activities do you do in january ?

i intend to do australia day and winter x


cheryl x

[Cammie Doodle]

Cheryl we celebrate Burns Day Jan 25th Lots of info on line . June

[sarah707]

Louis Braille's birthday - Guide dogs and braille alphabet...

Australia Day - indoor barbie, sand in the messy tray...

Burns night - Scottish stuff...

Tu B'Shevat is a nice one if we have time - talk about and draw trees, go to the garden centre and look at different kinds of trees, incorporate lots of discussion about shape and size of trees

Prepare for Chinese New Year by popping into China Town to update resources...

[Monkey1]

What day is australia day?

[sarah707]

It's a special day celebrated by Aussies the world over with barbecues, fireworks - and lots of alcohol from what I can gather from Australian friends...

Have a browse here - http://www.australiaday.gov.au/2007/

They celebrate why it's great to be an Australian

[miffy]

What day is australia day?

Think it's 26 January (Saturday)

Miffy x

[Tily Bud]

Gosh Sarah dont know where you find the time

I start off each moth with a long list of things I intenbd to do but we never complete it - mainly due to having lots of mindees all on different days I tend to have to do the same things twice etc.

Do you do this or just plan to do something once and if a certain child is not there they do not get to do it and do something else instead ?

Cheryl x

[sarah707]

I have planning sitting in the background for most of the stuff I do... if I can adapt what the children are enjoying to cover the learning and development they need to do, then so be it... if they need a certain area of learning enhancing, I'll steer them that way as well.

We do enjoy our special planned days though and they'll usually ask me what we're doing this week... so I try and have something up my sleeve most weeks, even if it's just a special lunch for a multicultural festival that we buy and cook together.

I've been doing this for years Cheryl and pulled together loads of ideas for my planning books, so it's easy enough for me to dig into those and get activities whenever we want to do something...

I don't bust a gut to make sure each child does each thing, unless it's a really nice craft activity or something. I think it's more important they all do a range of things over a week... and if that's mostly free play, then I steer that!

I've just read that back and not sure if it makes sense.... hmmm too much Baileys methinks

[Tily Bud]

It does make sense Sarah x

To be honest until i joined the forum i didnt do much planning just very informal planning ( in my head lol ) of what i would like to do from one week to the next x

Since ive joined the forum i have done a lot more planning and am in the process off putting to gether some files of different activities, colouring sheets, multicultural days, crafts etc so that in future my life will be easier as i will be able to go to my folders for ideas x

The forum has been a godsend with this as i have been able to use all the links that people have given , also i bought a copy of your multicultural cdrom from ebay which is great x

Cheryl x

[sarah707]

It's amazing how quickly it all builds up... I started putting some planning files together 2 years ago with the aim of getting together a few bits and pieces that would make my job easier.... it's amazing how much paper I now have... but at least if a child wants to do something particular, I can usually lay my hands on something - or know where to look...

It makes week-by-week planning easier as well, as I can look back at what we did last year (my filing system had a complete overhaul in the summer)... makes a big difference.

It's good you're finding multicultural activities easy to work with - it's my biggest resource and I use it every day I would say. I'm always tweaking it....

OOOO!! Just so you know - I'll be emailing out an updated month-by-month calendar for 2008 to all Multicultural Activities and Seasons customers soon - I worked on it last week and it's just passed the Pauline test

[Pauline]

Don't forget to add these dates to the events caldendar ladies, and if it's a set date each year you can add it as a recurring event and it will be there forever showing on that date!

[Tily Bud]

Thanks Sarah x

[manjay]

What day is australia day?

26th Jan each year. Lots of activities here

http://www.activityvillage.co.uk/australia_day.htm

amanda xx

[manjay]

Also Martin Luther King day 21st Jan

http://www.activityvillage.co.uk/mlk_day.htm

amanda xx

[Monkey1]

Thanks for the help ladies !

[manjay]

Lots of printables here for Australia day

http://www.australiaday.com.au/havin...itysheets.aspx

amanda xx

[miffy]

Thanks for that link Amanda - plenty there to keep the kids busy

Miffy xx

[LittleMissSparkles]

we'll be having a little tea party on friday as its c's 1st birthday tommorow xxx

[emler]

That link is brilliant Amanda - thanks for that

Emler x

[Monkey1]

Thanks Amanda! Great site