Good Morning everybody! I hope you’ve all had a relaxing weekend. I know that I have had a lovely weekend of cooking and baking following your inspiration and the amazing recipes that I needed to try out following last week’s assembly!
In our assembly this week, I’d like to explore a word that we often talk about in our assemblies in school – Diversity. Particularly thinking about the diversity that exists within our families and how important it is to celebrate this at this time.
I know if we were in school and I was to ask you ‘What colour is a leaf?’ you would all show me that you recognise that this is a silly question to ask as leaves aren’t all the same colour! If I were to ask you ‘How do families have fun during lockdown?’, I am sure that you would tell me that not all families are the same and that everyone has fun in different ways.
So as a starting point, I’d like us to think about the beautiful things that can happen when we all work together in harmony. In school this could be the music that is created when we all sing our hearts out together, the artwork that emerges when we all share our creative talents or maybe just the friendships that form when we play exciting games with our favourite classmates.
I’ve included a few clips below which show the awe and wonder that can be created when shared talents are celebrated together, or in the case of the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra’s performance of Beethoven’s ‘Ode to Joy’, when shared talents come together virtually during lockdown.
I have been thinking a lot about what it must feel like for you at home at the moment, and what I am really interested in is what you are doing to have fun in your relaxation time. In school, we are usually in classes with lots of children, all different and all with our own individual interests and passions. Sometimes we share the same interests with our friends and have fun together and sometimes we simply don’t. You now have new ‘classmates’ at home for a while and I’m sure that similar things are happening.
I know that if you were to ask my family about the best things to do in relaxation time, they would probably give you 5 very different answers as their first choice but I’d hope that they’d also tell you about how great a family walk in the countryside actually feels when your mum has convinced you that you need to see daylight, experience nature, talk and laugh!
Mrs Goldsack was telling me the other day about all of the very different things that her children are doing at home now and that one of her children has been appointed as ‘Head of Entertainment’ during lockdown. Mrs Scott and Mrs Godfrey have been using technology to ensure that they are able to read stories to their grandchildren in the evenings and Mrs Campbell has been keeping all of the grown-ups in school laughing with tales of the many new and diverse activities that she has been enjoying during her relaxation time.
So – what happens in your family when you just need to relax and sometimes have a really good giggle?
Card games, puzzles, dancing together, sharing a story together, creating art, cleaning together, learning a new skill together (such as juggling / speaking a new language), cooking, gardening, board games, camping in the garden … ?
This week I would really love to hear about all the ways that you are learning to have fun with your new classmates and how you are celebrating all the diverse interests and passions that exist within your own homes. I think the final clip below is a beautiful illustration of what is happening in our homes at this point in time and I am sure that you will be able to explain to your grown ups how we celebrate the many diverse butterflies that emerge throughout our lives at Damers.
So – let’s get playing together this week Team Damers. I am excited to hear from you again and to see all the fun activities that you get up to with your new classmates (your grown-up will help you to share pictures and stories with me). I will reply to any messages that come in and I will share all the highlights in our Celebration Assembly on Friday.
I also can’t wait for the day when your unique, much loved giggles and diverse interests and passions are filling the playgrounds and corridors of Damers again!
Mrs Smith 🦋