Criw have been working hard to promote the Welsh language across the school. They invited the Urdd to attend the school to play Welsh games with every class. They also arranged a visit from the Siarter Iaith mascots, Seren a Sbarc. It was lots of fun watching them dancing in our assembly and singing along with the Welsh songs we had learnt!

Criw continue to plan and organise weekly assemblies to promote the ‘Patrwm yr Wythnos’. They have recently been arranging quizzes during their assemblies to encourage the development of Welsh vocabulary. This term we have been focussing on ‘Food’. They also award tokens to those who are heard using Welsh with their friends. During the assemblies this term, Year 6 showed videos of them taking part in Welsh discussions; Year 3 showed us how they do the dinner register in Welsh every day and Year 4 sang a beautiful Welsh song they had learnt as part of their work on Santes Dwynwen.

To highlight the importance of ‘Welsh Language Rights Day’, Criw held an assembly to promote the work of the Welsh Language Commissioner and the target to get one million Welsh Speakers by 2050. They set a competition for classes to design a poster to promote the use of the Welsh Language in businesses and around the locality.

With the help of Mr Probert, we celebrated Dydd Miwsig Cymru with a whole school Welsh disco/dance off! There were some specular moves from all classes! Every class listened to Welsh music and some classes completed music appraisals.

Criw are currently working hard, thinking about ways we can make good use of Apps and websites to enhance learning and enjoyment of Welsh. Watch this space!

We have had a busy few weeks in Nursery learning all about looking after our planet!

We’ve studied worms in our wormery to see how they mix the soil, and we’ve planted flowers to please the bees in our outdoor area. We’ve explored important topics such as littering and recycling. We have sorted our classroom waste into the correct bins and have made new things from old things e.g. we made bird feeders from our plastic milk bottles. Reading the story ‘Somebody Swallowed Stanley’ made us realise how litter can hurt animals and it inspired us to look after injured animals in our vet role-play area.

We have been making patterns both inside and outside, and we’ve begun a weekly session of ‘Squiggle while you wiggle’ to develop our early writing skills.

During this month we have focussed our learning on a mystery object, a lightbulb. The questions generated by the children have led the learning experiences planned and undertaken.

Electrifying Science and Technology

In this Area of Learning we have focussed on learning about electricity. The children had the opportunity at the start of the learning process to generate questions that they wanted to find out about electricity. There was a wide range of questions created and we prioritised what we wanted to discover as a class. As a result, we decided to start by learning how electricity works.

We started by thinking of as many things as we could that use electricity. The children were surprised by the volume of items that use electricity. We discovered that although all the items look different, the way electricity works in them is identical. There is a circuit that starts with a power source, such as a battery, that flows through wires to the device being powered and then back to the power source.

One of our favourite aspects of learning was using the resources to make our own circuits, using batteries, bulbs, wires, motors and buzzers. After having the opportunity to create our own circuits, the children were challenged to make predictions about given circuits. They had a picture of a circuit and had to decide whether the bulb or motor would work or not and to give a reason for their response. We then made the circuit with the resources to check our predictions.

Conductors and insulators were our next focus. The former is materials that conduct electricity and the latter are materials that don’t allow electricity to pass through it. We discussed why it was important, especially, that some materials were insulators. All children were able to reason that it was really important for safety reasons otherwise we would all get lots of electric shocks. We moved our learning on by planning our own science investigation. The children chose 10 different materials that they wanted to test to see whether they would be an electrical conductor or insulator. The children completed this task independently and it was great to watch the collaboration, exploration and enthusiasm for their learning. The materials tested carried from shoes to tables to sharpeners.

Now that the children have a secure understanding of how electricity works, we will be moving on the explore how electricity gets to our homes. Focussing on the children’s questions of where does electricity come from?

I would like to take this opportunity to thank you for being so welcoming to me as the new Reception teacher looking after your lovely children whilst Mrs Thomas is enjoying time with her new baby. The children have all continued to work with enthusiasm and with big smiles on their faces. We have had a busy few weeks so far!

We have loved reading ‘Kate and the Starry Night’ and learning more about Vincent Van Gogh and enjoyed painting our own mini canvases. We also read ‘How to Catch a Star’ and ‘Night Monkey Day Monkey’ continuing our work on the stars and night sky. We thoroughly enjoyed our week of Chinese New Year celebrations and tasting the Chinese food. We have learnt many new things and have had lots of fun trying out new activities, which I hope they have shared with you each day.

The children have revised Phase 2 of the Letters and Sounds programme and continue to practice using sound-talk to blend the letters together in order to read words, (for example c, a, t = cat). We are also learning to read and spell some of the tricky words, e.g. to, go, no, the and I. Words that cannot be sounded out. Please continue to use the sound boxes you have at home to reinforce their phonic knowledge and continue to work hard at recognising (and spelling if they are ready) the high frequency words that we have sent home, please ask if you require another copy of this list.

We have exciting plans for this half term, continuing our topic about Space following the ‘alien space ship crash’ that happened in the forest. The children have decided what they would like to find out about this topic so we will be busy finding out the answers to their questions and lots more.

Forest sessions will continue to take place on a Monday afternoon – waterproofs and warm layers are essential please, and PE will continue in the hall on a Thursday afternoon. Snack money for this half term, and any outstanding from last term, is also due. If you would like us to be able to provide your child with a healthy snack we can do this with a contribution of £1 a week. Ideally, we would like the payment to cover the half term if possible, (£6). Please send any money to school in a sealed envelope labelled with your child’s name. Thank you very much.

I have learnt how to use Twitter since becoming part of this team and hope you are enjoying seeing what we are doing!

If you have any questions please don’t hesitate to ask me in the morning or after school and I will do my best to help.

Thank you very much!

Mrs Bowen and the Reception team