Over the past few weeks, we have been learning about Harvests from around the world, trying different foods that have been grown and harvested from many countries and continents.

We have also looked into how the Harvest is celebrated within another religion: Judaism! We learned the story of the Exodus, where Moses led the Jews from slavery in Egypt into the desert. Whilst in the desert, the Jewish people had to build their own shelters in order to survive the harsh climate- a tradition that has been carried on for all these years since. The children learned how the Jewish festival of Harvest (known as Sukkot) is celebrated using homemade Sukkah shelters which have a roof made of branches and leaves with gaps purposely left so the people can gaze up into the sky and remember that God is always with them. The Jewish people eat their meals and spend as much time as possible in their Sukkahs over a week to thank God for the Harvest and to remember what their ancestors went through in the desert after escaping Egypt. We decorated our Sukkahs with handmade flowers and stars of David, just like Jewish children all around the world do each year! 

We also learned about The Four Kinds where branches of myrtle, willow and palm are bunched together to form a lulav and are shaken in all directions alongside an etrog (yellow fruit similar to a lemon) to remind the Jewish people that God is all around them. We learned that myrtle represents the eyes and people who are wise and clever; willow symbolises the lips and people who are evil; palm represents the spine and people who are good and follow the Torah; and that the etrog symbolises the heart and people who are kind, caring and friendly. Jewish people use The Four Kinds as a reminder that they should love God with all their body, and that there are many different types of people in the world! We linked the meanings of these symbols to Bible quotes also, to compare the similarities between the two religions beliefs and teachings: "Accept one another, then, just as Christ accepted you, in order to bring praise to God."- Romans 15:7, and, "Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ." -Corinthians 12:12.

We shook the lulav whilst listening to a song all about Sukkot and compared these traditions to those that Christians have at Harvest time. We recognised that we sang songs at our school Harvest festival too, but we didn't shake any branches or build shelters.

This week, for our food tasting, we tried sweet and crunchy pomegranate seeds all the way from Peru and delicious strawberries grown locally in our very own county of Lancashire! The children used the globe to see where these foods originated from and described how they taste.

In previous weeks, the children have enjoyed trying foods from all over the globe and were particularly excited to try foods from where their families, and their school friends and their families were born! We loved the juicy watermelon from China and the mangoes from India! We can't wait to see which foods we try next week!