Dosbarth Ash- Mrs James

Summer Term 2024

After our visit to Woodland Walk Garden Centre we have planted the 3 strawberry plants donated to us along with some mixed herbs including basil, rocket, parsley and coriander.  We will now need to take care of them, watch the changes and hopefully have some sweet strawberries to enjoy. 😊

Dosbarth Ash have enjoyed taking some of their maths learning outside this week. They have been making predictions of higher or lower while playing ‘Play your cards right’ and been practising number bonds and oral addition while trying to throw their beanbags into the hoops. Lots of fun and learning outdoors 😊

To launch our new topic ‘Sunflowers and Sunshine’ Dosbarth Ash went to visit Woodland Walk Garden Centre.
We had a lovely time wandering around learning about all the different plants, trees and garden essentials they sell. Scott and Megan showed us the different poly tunnels and the potting room where all the work goes on. We used our senses to look at 👀, smell 👃and touch 🖐 lots of different plants and Scott gave us 3 different varieties of strawberries to plant and grow back at school. We can’t wait to see them grow and then use our sense of taste 👅to see which we prefer. 

Woodland Walk is a lovely place to visit and just on our doorstep. How lucky are we? 🥰 @WalkWoodland

Dosbarth Ash enjoyed working with the parachute yesterday. 
They showed great teamwork, listening and problem solving skills to move the ball around the parachute without letting it roll off, bouncing the parachute to get all the balls off, swapping places under the parachute and crawling underneath in our crocodile game.
Lots of fun and laughter 😆😁🤣

Spring Term 2024

Dosbarth Ash have been learning about money, so this week they were given some pennies and invited to spend them in the Easter ‘toppings’ shop.  They had to work out how much they could buy  and swap their pennies for treats to decorate their cakes for Easter. 
Fun, maths and chocolate! Perfect combination 😁

As part of BSL week Dosbarth Ash have learnt to say and sign a poem about penguins 🐧. They did an amazing job 👌

We also used the poem to have a handwriting competition. 🏆
The children were encouraged to make sure their tall letters were tall and the short letters were short, to make sure they sat on the lines and to remember finger spaces. The concentration and effort was excellent and every one of them tried their best.  😊
It was a very difficult job to pick the winners but the 5 children chosen were rewarded with a pencil and rubber to keep up the good work at home. Da iawn Dosbarth Ash 👏👏

Dosbarth Ash are enjoying learning about penguins 🐧.
They have found out lots of facts about them, enjoyed playing with mini penguins in the ice, drawn step by step penguins and painted half a penguin to create symmetrical penguins. Busy, busy 😁

Dosbarth Ash have been talking about all the ‘jobs’ mothers do that they don’t actually get paid for but do simply because they love them 💕.
Have a listen to their thoughts 😊

We have been learning about Capacity in Dosbarth Ash. 
After lots of practical exploration using cubes, sand and lentils they were given 5 small containers and challenged to see which would hold the most. To begin they predicted which container would hold the most and lots picked the tall, thin cylinder. Then they discussed how they could find out whether their predictions were correct. Initially they decided to fill all the containers with water but soon discovered that didn’t really tell them anything. 🤷‍♀️After more discussions they realised they needed to fill one container and then pour the water from that one into another one to see if it held more or less. Some of the children were able to explain “If I pour this in and it runs over the top this one must hold more than the container I’m pouring into but if there’s still room when I’ve poured it all in this one must hold less.” 
By the end we discovered the tall, thin cylinder actually held the least amount of water. 😮
Very impressive observations Dosbarth Ash 👍.

Some of the children are getting super confident at spelling CVC words independently. They worked in groups to write as many cvc words as they could and some of them even tried to put them in simple sentences. Da iawn pawb 👏.

What a busy World Book Day 📚

The children had great fun picking out their new book from our book swap and then spent time looking through them. 🥰

They did a character and setting scavenger hunt where they were challenged to look through lots of different books to find characters in the stories. They also had a spot the flashcard challenge where they had to find some of their flashcard words in pages from one of our Penguin books and of course they listened to lots of lovely stories. Dydd arbennig! 👍

Dosbarth Ash enjoyed our celebrations for Dydd Gŵyl Dewi Sant and did a super job singing their two Welsh songs. Ardderchog! 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿

Dosbarth Ash were excited to receive a letter today from Pete the penguin 🐧 telling them he had visited the classroom. They were even more excited when they saw 2 videos of him in the classroom 😆.

They had a discussion about what they already know about penguins and a list of questions they’d like to find the answers to. They then enjoyed sliding the penguins over the blocks of ice and helping them swim in the water as the ice melted throughout the day. Lots of interesting vocabulary as they explored the penguins and the ice. 🥶Gwych!

What a creative bunch Dosbarth Ash and their families are!  Look at these wonderful penguins they made at home as part of a home task over half term. Gwych 🐧.

As part of Children’s Mental Health Week Dosbarth Ash were talking about how we can manage some of our emotions. We looked at breathing techniques, using music and created our own calm down sensory bottles. The children enjoyed choosing items, colours and liquids to create their own bottles and every one was different and unique. Check our the videos on the last page to see how they work. 
Hopefully the children will take on ideas when their emotions are heightened to help themselves calm down. 🤞

Dosbarth Ash have been finding out about weighing and mass this week. They have been learning to compare two objects, find objects that weigh more or less than an object and use non-standard measures to find out how heavy objects are. Lots of predicting and testing their ideas and using the correct vocabulary. Da iawn pawb 👍

As part of our topic ‘A Starry Night’ Dosbarth Ash looked at a famous painting of the same name by Vincent Van Goch.  They were challenged to create their own version by each completing one part of the painting and choosing any medium to fill it in.  They could choose between crayons, felt pens, pastels, paints or water colours to complete their section.
Then they had to work together to put it back together to complete the final picture. We think it looks pretty special. 👍💕Don’t you agree?

Dosbarth Ash have been learning about sequencing, ordering and routines and the language associated with it. They have been able to sequence their own routines and correct sequences that have been ordered incorrectly.
Gwaith da Dosbarth Ash 👏

Dosbarth Ash enjoyed some winter sunshine this week by getting outdoors to explore. As part of our topic we were delighted to spot both the sun ☀️ and the moon 🌙 in the sky at the same time. We talked about the importance of never looking directly at the sun but enjoyed the feel of it on our faces. We compared the trees to how they looked in the autumn and how they are no longer a good hiding place.
We also found the pond was frozen over and then found some ice inside the large tyres. Finally we looked at how the sun makes shadows and had fun trying to create different shaped shadows with our bodies 😊

Dosbarth Ash had a great start to their topic ‘A Starry Night’ today by coming to school dressed for bed. 🛏
They enjoyed showing their favourite bedtime story books 📚  and teddies 🧸 to their friends, acting out bedtime routines, learning a lullaby, comparing day ☀️and night 🌙 and snuggling down for a giant sleepover. 
What a great start 😊.

Autumn Term 2023

Welcome to Dosbarth Ash class page. We are delighted to welcome your children to our class and are looking forward to see how they grow and learn this year. 

Regular updates will be posted on here so you can keep up to date on what they are learning and what is happening in our classroom.

What a busy, enjoyable day we’ve had in Dosbarth Ash. 😁
Party food lunch followed by lots of fun and games including a boys vs girls snowball fight, pass the parcel, dancing, musical statues/bumps and corners game. 
Phew! No wonder Mrs Wood and I are so tired. 🤪

2 more days to go 🎉🎉

Dosbarth Ash were challenged to decorate 5 miniature Christmas trees today BUT ......... they could only use 2 colour baubles and each tree could only have 4 baubles. The children had to work together to work out all possible combinations. It took a lot of trial and error and discussions to figure out the different combinations but they got there in the end showing great resilience. 👏👏

After working up an appetite completing their Reindeer Run, Dosbarth Ash enjoyed a tasty Christmas Dinner today. Blasus iawn 🥰

Dosbarth Ash completed their sponsored Reindeer Run today.  
Da iawn pawb. 👏

Lots of fun and laughter with their friends and a visit from Santa 🎅🏼today. #Christmasiscoming 💕

After another amazing concert today Dosbarth Ash wrote a letter to Santa. They had to tick if they had been nice, naughty or both and it was great to see how many ticked both 🤣🤣.
They then walked down to the Post Office to buy a stamp to post it to the North Pole. Here’s hoping he brings all their requests.

Dosbarth Ash were simply amazing in their concert Nursery Rhyme Nativity today. They acted, spoke and sung their little hearts out and Mrs Wood and I were so proud of each and every one of them. Let’s hope tomorrow’s performance is just as good. What a great start to our Christmas celebrations 🎅🏼🎄.

Dosbarth Ash learnt how to make their own salt dough this week which they then used to roll out, cut and paint to create their own fabulous Pudsey Bears just in time for Children in Need day.
Gwaith arbennig! 😊

As part of ant-bullying week Dosbarth Ash looked at how mean words can make us feel. The children found Sad Simon and Grumpy Greta ☹️ in our class and were told they were looking sad because some children had been saying mean things to them. 
The children ‘pretended’ to be unkind and shouted mean things at them. Each time they said something mean we cut part of their body to show how those words can hurt. They then discussed how we could make Simon and Greta feel better and decided they could say kind words instead. We wrote those kind words on hearts 💕and used the hearts to cover the mean words and stick the body back together.
However, Simon and Greta still had sad faces so this is where the magic came in. 🥰 The children closed their eyes and chanted “Turn your frown upside down” three times and were amazed and delighted when they opened their eyes to find Smiling Simon and Grinning Greta looking very happy. 😁
What kind children we have in Dosbarth Ash 💖.

Today is World Kindness day so Dosbarth Ash discussed ways we could be kind to others. 💕
They had lots of great ideas so we decided to do 2 activities - one involving a little gift and one that was absolutely free but made people just as happy. 

First we visited all the classrooms and offices in the school wishing all the staff a Happy Kindness Day and offering them a little chocolate treat. 😁

Then we thought of nice things we could say to our friends and everyone had to pay their partner a compliment. We used those compliments to make and decorate a compliment bracelet that we presented to our friends to wear home.  What a lovely day - filled with lots of smiles and love 🥰x

Dosbarth Ash made some poppies for Remembrance Day. First they had to mix different shades of red, then they painted some coffee filters before cutting them into petals which they swapped with their friends to get a mix of colours. Finally they rearranged the petals back into a poppy shape. How beautiful do they look. 💕

As part of outdoor learning week Dosbarth Ash had fun making a Conker Man. They needed good hand eye coordination to thread their leaves on to the sticks and good reactions to run and shelter amongst the trees every time the heavens opened ☔️☔️🥴

Dosbarth Ash enjoyed some teamwork in the fresh air this afternoon when they worked as a group to create a large scale face made from bottle tops. They worked together to make some funny faces and did a great job of sorting them back into colours when it was time to pack away.
Gwaith gwych 👏👏

Dosbarth Ash have been split into 3 groups, hedgehogs🦔, owls 🦉and squirrels 🐿 to complete different activities. They have learnt lots of facts about them, learnt how to say their names in Welsh and how to use sign language to say the animal names. They’ve also looked at autumn 🍂🍁and the changes that take place and had lots of fun being creative to make our beautiful autumn display. What a busy 8 weeks we’ve had. 😊

After listening to the story Leaf Man Dosbarth Ash decided to create their own leaf people and animals. Can you spot a hedgehog, cat and lion amongst their marvellous creations? 😁

After our listening eggs and our feely balloons, today was all about our smelly pots! 👃
The children had to use their sense of smell to sniff the pots and guess the fruit inside. A bit difficult for some with their coughs and colds 🥴

Using our sense of sight to do some good looking 👀when going on a number hunt for the numbers 1-3.  Super spotting Dosbarth Ash 👏

This weeks senses work was our ‘feely balloon’ activity. The children used their sense of touch to work out what was inside each of the balloons. Lots of great words about what they could feel like spiky, soft, squishy, hard and ‘nothing’ for shampoo! Da iawn pawb! 😊

Dosbarth Ash enjoyed the autumn sunshine yesterday to collect some autumn treasures and experiment with the different sounds they could make by tapping, scraping and banging a stick on different materials around the school grounds. 😊

More work on our senses in Dosbarth Ash. The children thought about how lucky they are to be able to see all the beautiful things around us. We then discussed how blind people would find many things we take for granted difficult and did some activities blindfolded. First they drew a step by step picture of an owl while being able to see and then they tried the same drawing listening to the instructions but blindfolded. There was lots of laughter and discussion when they saw their ‘blind drawings’. 

Then they watched an animation about a puppy wanting to be a guide dog and how they are used to help blind people get around safely. After that an obstacle course was set up and they took it in turns to be both the ‘blind’ person and the guide dog leading them around safely and warning them of dangers in their way.  Great communication and trust formed and an appreciation of how lucky we all are to be able to see. 😊

More work on our senses in Dosbarth Ash. This time it was our sense of smell and sorting smells into nice smells 🥰 and ‘not so nice’ ones 🤢.
Luckily they were only pictures and not actual bad smells 😁

Dosbarth Ash are learning about their senses. 👀👂👃👅🤲
This week we’ve been doing lots of listening activities including matching the instrument sounds, sound lotto, Fred talking words and listening eggs.
In the listening eggs activity they had to shake the eggs, listen carefully and match the egg to the object they though was inside making the sounds. We’ll be checking the contents this week to see if their listening skills were correct. 😊

Getting those finger muscles working again today with lots of rollling, squashing, squeezing and pinching. We finished off by trying to form the initial letters of their names and what a great job they did of it. Gwych! 😊

Dosbarth Ash used their repeating pattern names to explore how many letters they have in their names and sort themselves into groups. They also looked at whose name started with the same sound and how many of them had certain letters in their names. They are getting great at recognising their names and the order of the letters in them. Bendegedig! 😊

Dosbarth Ash were challenged with recognising their own front doors and learning what number or name was on their doors. We then looked at who had the smallest and largest numbers on their doors and who lived in a house with the same number as their friend. Lots of good observation and practice at reading different numbers. 😊

Dosbarth Ash have been working on recognising and ordering the letters in their names. They also got their finger muscles going by peeling stickers to make a repeating pattern of colours to form their names. 😊

Dosbarth Ash have been talking about the beauty of autumn and all the wonderful colours it brings. They found lots of these autumn treasures and used them to create autumn rainbows. Don’t they look wonderful! 🥰

Our first day went well with not a tear in sight. Let’s hope that continues and we have lots of fun and learning this year. 😊

Summer Term 2023

And it’s summer term already! Where has the time gone? I bet you are seeing a difference in your child now and how much they have learnt and grown up.

This term our topic is called ‘Step back in time’ and we will be looking at ‘then’ and ‘now’ including the children themselves and looking at home, school, shopping and transport in the past. We will use the wonderful book ‘Peepo’ by Janet and Allan Ahlberg to inspire some of our written work.  We will be visiting St. Fagan’s to do a Beti Bwt Washday session as well as looking at the old houses, school and shops. We will continue to work on our reading and simple spelling skills and encourage the children to ‘have a go’ at writing simple sentences themselves. We will also continue with our number work and look at the value of bigger numbers and experiment with number bonds and patterns.

Dosbarth Ash enjoyed their Farm Party.
Here’s part one - animal photos 🐮🐴🐷

Part 2 of the Farm Party
Picnic lunch, 
Chicken race - don’t crack the egg
And Sheep shearing 😊

Dosbarth Ash started preparations for our Farm Party today by decorating cupcakes to look like farm animals.  The concentration and effort they took to roll out the icing, cut into shapes and decorate to look like cows 🐮 sheep  🐑 and pigs 🐷 was amazing. They are looking forward to eating them at our party tomorrow. 😁

Dosbarth Ash have been working very hard on learning their number bonds to 10.
They enjoyed using the Numicon to work out lots of different ways of making 10.
Gwaith gwych! 👍

When Dosbarth Ash took part in Beti Bwt’s Washday, Beti told them how long ago the children didn’t have many toys and used to use their mothers dolly pegs to create their own doll characters. Dosbarth Ash decided to create their own dolly peg characters and what a wonderful job they made of them. They researched, discussed and chose their own characters and as you can see we had  some mermaids 🧜‍♀️ angels 👼 fairies 🧚‍♀️ dancers 💃 superheroes 🦸‍♂️ ninja’s, 2 Santa’s🎅🏼 and a King’s Guard 💂‍♂️.

Dosbarth Ash have been learning about 3D shapes this week. They started by sorting a variety of boxes, containers and objects just by comparing them and looking for similarities. Then they learnt the names for these shapes  and matched objects to their names before trying to make 3D shapes of their own using various resources. Gwaith gwych Dosbarth Ash 👍

Hope you’ve all had a lovely break and made the most of the beautiful weather. 🌞

Can you believe we are in the last half term of their time in Reception! 😱
Where has the year gone?

Another busy half term, with lots of exciting things happening including sports day and our end of year trip as well as lots more learning and hopefully making the most of the good weather.

Talking of good weather here are some photos of the last day of term where we spent most of the day outdoors making flower vases, which unfortunately didn’t last long, making special potions with my left over birthday flowers and learning to build with a large scale construction kit which is not as easy as it looks.🥴
2 of my favourite comments from the afternoon were “I’m making a special potion that makes people fall in love 💖when they drink it.” And “building with these is all about good teamwork isn’t it?” 😁

What a lovely day I had today celebrating my special birthday. 💖
Obviously the badge was wrong. I think the shop must have sold out of 40 badges 🤣🤣

These brave children from Dosbarth Ash and Dosbarth Hazel stood up in assembly and told the rest of the infants all about the Beti Bwt washing workshop they took part in at St. Fagan’s. They explained what they had learnt and spoke confidently. Da iawn pawb! 😊

Dosbarth Ash had a great day at St. Fagan’s to help them understand what it was like to live a long time ago as part of their topic of ‘Step back in Time.’
They learned lots from their Washday workshop with Beti Bwt about how hard washing clothes used to be and got the chance to use the ‘yolk’, the scrubbing board, the dolly and the mangle. (See if they can tell you what these things are used for).
They also visited lots of buildings from the past including the farmhouse, the school, the Gwalia Stores (which is from the village where Mrs James grew up) as well as the Rhyd-y-car cottages which showed the row of cottages as they would have been between 1805 and 1985.
The children found lots of differences between these places and the ones we see nowadays.
To finish off they had a play in the park as a reward for their hard work and excellent behaviour.  For their first trip without their parents they did an amazing job. Da iawn Dosbarth Ash 👏🥰x

Dosbarth Ash enjoyed their Coronation celebrations with a special assembly where they could show off their wonderful outfit and coat of arms. They also  enjoyed their picnic lunch, despite the weather spoiling our plans to eat outdoors, and then joined up with Dosbarth Hazel for some dancing and games. They were also proud seeing their finished King Charles portraits and frames which have now been used to create our own Royal Gallery. Ardderchog! 🇬🇧

Dosbarth Ash enjoyed their PE session with Miss Akers today using the wall bars and apparatus. Lots of balancing, climbing, jumping and swinging. Gwych! 😁

Dosbarth Ash had great fun on their outdoor word hunt linked to their story What the Ladybird Heard.  They had to find word clues around Calon y Coed but the ladybird’s clues were written in writing as small as the Ladybird herself. Working in pairs the children had to use a magnifying glass to read the words on the clue cards and copy them next to the corresponding number on their answer sheet. When they had found all the clue words it read out a sentence from the story. Back in class the children drew a picture to match the finished sentence. Da iawn pawb! 👏👏 #WalesOutdoorLearningWeek @NatResWales

Dosbarth Ash had great fun with our baby quiz this morning to launch our topic ‘Step back in Time.’ Some of the baby pictures were easy to tell with lots of correct guesses, some were a little bit trickier and a few couldn’t even recognise themselves let along their friends!!!! 🤣🤣🤷‍♀️🤷‍♂️
But they all agreed everyone was a beautiful baby 🤱🏼and the oohs and aahs proved the point. 💖

Dosbarth Ash all brought in something special from when they were a baby including clothing, teddies, blankets and comforters, teething rings and first pairs of shoes. They talked about the items they brought and discussed whether they still used them and if not, why not. They found it hard to imagine some of the clothes and shoes ever fit them as they were soooooooo small. 🥰

Dosbarth Ash enjoyed their spring scavenger hunt today. Armed with iPads the children were challenged to take photos of different items that were soft, bumpy, straight etc and then resize and drag to the correct box. Good observation and IT skills and plenty of fresh air. Gwych! 😁

Spring Term 2023

Dosbarth Ash were challenged to decorate an Easter cupcake today. They had to make their own butter icing and were then given 5 pennies each to buy their own toppings working out what they could afford. Great cross curricular links and a delicious final product 😊

Dosbarth Ash have been very busy the last few weeks researching, designing, making and evaluating their own farm animal money boxes.🐄🐖
They began the project looking at examples of money boxes before deciding on a design for their own. Then they spent some time making their money box before looking at their finished product and evaluating how well they had done and what they could do to make it better if they did it again.
I think you’ll agree they did an amazing job. Da iawn pawb! 🥰

HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY! 🥰
We hope you like your cards, info sheets and animal watercolour pictures for Mother’s Day. The children worked very hard and all the answers in their info sheet are their own words so we take no responsibility for their answers 🤣🤣.
Enjoy your day ❤️

What a super World Book Day today 📚.
We started with our assembly where we looked at all the fantastic costumes and then Mrs Charles had the very difficult job of judging all the potato characters. Some of the ideas were incredible and a lot of work went into them. Well done to all who took part 👏👏

We also looked at all the books brought in for our book swap and enjoyed choosing a book one of our friends had brought in to exchange. 

Then we took part in a ‘Name that Story’ quiz where we read the clues to guess what story was being described. 

Lots of ways to develop a love ❤️of books and reading. 😁

Scholastic Schools Live put on events for World Book Day this week so at the start of the week we took part in a session called ‘Fairy Tales with Axel Scheffler and Julia Donaldson’. The children enjoyed listening to the stories and seeing how they illustrate the books before having a go at illustrating themselves with a step by step session on the board.

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿Lovely day in school to celebrate Dydd Gwŷl Dewi Hapus! 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿
We started with our Question of the Day asking if we liked Welsh Cakes, followed by a fabulous infant concert. We sang Penblwydd Hapus to 3 people who celebrate their birthday today. Then we ate some Welsh Cakes at snack time before colouring our Welsh Ladies and trying to follow a repeating AB pattern.

Today was all about eggs! 🍳🥚

We started with our question of the day ❓❔❓ asking if the children liked eggs. Then we cooked the eggs 3 ways, fried, boiled and scrambled, peeled the boiled eggs and compared how they all looked and tasted. We also played ‘pass the egg’  - first in its shell and then cracked into their hands. 🥴

We drew how each egg looked when cooked and chose our favourite.

Finally we reconsidered our question of the day and discovered quite a few of the children had changed their answer - with scrambled egg being the firm favourite 🥰.

Yesterday there was lots of activity at the pond area with plenty of frogspawn and quite a few frogs spotted. Dosbarth Ash went to check it out this afternoon but it seems that frogs don’t like the rain as there wasn’t a frog in sight ☹️.

Still, there was plenty of frogspawn to explore and every child was brave enough to feel the cold, squishy frogspawn in their hands before we returned it to the pond to hopefully turn into tadpoles and then frogs. We will return 😊.

The theme for Children’s Mental Health week 2023 is Let’s Connect.
Dosbarth Ash listened to a beautiful story called The Invisible String which tells how we are connected to those we love even when we are not with them with an unbreakable invisible string made of love. 💖 
The children used a white crayon to ‘draw’ their invisible string and painted a wash of colour to see their invisible string lead straight to someone they are connected to by love. 🥰

Today is Safer Internet Day and this years theme is “ Want to talk about it? Making space for conversations about life online.”

The children have taken part in a safer internet assembly, discussed where they use the Internet and what they should do if they see or hear something online which upsets them. They are also listening to a story a day about Digiduck which explains how to stay safe online. All very important lessons for them to learn in the age of technology they are growing up in. 👍

The infant department enjoyed taking part in a Sport RCT Virtual Rugby Themed HIIT session today to celebrate ‘Wear Red for Wales and Velindre. @SportRCT

Dosbarth Ash and Dosbarth Hazel warmed up before completing their section of our ‘Red Run’ to raise money for Wear Red for Wales and Velindre. Da iawn pawb. Great effort today 👍

Today Dosbarth Ash were looking at questioning skills. ❓❔❓
After our visit from Max’s daddy we decided to make a list of questions we’d like to ask him about being a farmer for his next visit to school.
What a great list of questions we came up with 😊- I can’t wait to hear the answers 👍.

As part of the Welsh Governments ‘Schools Love Reading’ campaign the Books Council of Wales sent all Primary schools in Wales a selection of books 📚for each child to have a book to take home. The children listened to the description of each book and then picked the one they would like to have. We hope they enjoy their new books 🥰.

Dosbarth Ash are learning that some farmers don’t just have animals but they plant and grow crops too. This week they planted their own bulbs - hopefully they will grow and turn into something special to us in Wales 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿.

Today is Dydd Santes Dwynwen. 🥰 The children learnt the story of St. Dwynwen and created love cards to give to someone they love. ❤️
 

Dosbarth Ash came up with lots of ideas of what they thought they’d see on a farm as well as some ideas about what they’d like to learn and do.
They also worked in small groups to design and create their own large scale farms. Great co-operation and discussion skills in action 👍 - gwych!

Dosbarth Ash and Dosbarth Hazel had fun in the snow before it melted away. ⛄️❄️

Today was our ‘launch day’ in school where we introduce our new topic for the term. This term we are basing lots of our work around ‘Life on the Farm’ and what a launch day we had. 😆

First of all we had a visit from a REAL farmer and his beautiful red Massey Ferguson Tractor. The children were so surprised and delighted to see both Max’s daddy and the tractor and couldn’t believe how big it was. We had so many questions that Max’s daddy has agreed to come back soon for a question and answer session. 😁
Thank you Mr Edwards - we can’t wait for you to come back and tell us more about your work.

When we got back to class Mrs Wood found a jug of milk and a letter from a cow with a challenge for them to complete. The children were super excited to watch a video of a cow and a hen ‘visiting’ our class on the weekend to deliver the fresh milk. The children then had a ‘blind’ taste test to see if they could guess the correct flavour milkshake before choosing their favourite flavour to complete a pictogram.

Autumn Term 2022

The start of a new year and a new class of children join our Reception Class, Dosbarth Ash. We are delighted to welcome your children to our class and can’t wait to start this next part of their journey with them.

We will keep you up to date with what’s going on in our learning and play through this page and if you ever have any questions please contact me via email, mrsjames@llwyncrwn.co.uk or telephone the school to make an appointment.

Here’s to a happy and enjoyable year with lots of lovely learning along the way.

Mrs James 😊

While the rest of the infants went to the Pantomime, Dosbarth Ash and Dosbarth Hazel had their own treat with a film afternoon in the hall watching The Grinch. As you can see they made themselves comfortable to enjoy the film 😁.

Dosbarth Ash and Dosbarth Hazel had a lovely time in their Christmas party today. 🎉🎅🏼🎉
Lots of tasty party food, dancing and games made for a very enjoyable afternoon for all. 🥰🥰

Dosbarth Ash and Dosbarth Hazel took part in a workshop with Size of Wales called Tremendous Trees with Elon.  The children learned about Rainforests, the animals that live there and how we can help protect them. They had fun trying to attract the termites and explored elephant poo 🥴.

Reception children performed A Snowman At Sunset this week for their Christmas concert. They did a wonderful job. Da iawn pawb! 🎅🏼⛄️

Nursery and Reception enjoyed their trip to have Breakfast with Santa today. They enjoyed playing with their friends, having breakfast and having a gift from Santa 🎅🏼.

After a fabulous concert this morning Dosbarth Ash walked to the Post Office to post their letters to Santa 🎅🏼.
The birthday boy had the important job of popping it in the post box. Let’s hope Santa is able to do his job for them all 🤞

Dosbarth Ash wrote a letter ✍🏻 to a special someone 🎅🏼today.
They are going to walk down to the Post Office next week to get them sent off and hope he brings them what they’ve asked for 🤞😁.

Dosbarth Ash had lots of fun for Children In Need when some of the Yr 6 children arranged a range of fun activities for them to take part in, including Pudsey Pong, Pudsey Hoopla, Feed Pudsey, Pin Pudsey’s Patch and Pudsey Obstacle Race. Diolch Blwyddyn 6 - llawer o hwyl! 😁

Dosbarth Ash learnt how to make their own salt dough this week, which they then used to roll out, cut and paint to create their own fabulous Pudsey Bears just in time for Children in Need day. Gwaith arbennig! 😊

As part of anti-bullying week Dosbarth Ash looked at how mean words can make us feel. The children found 2 sad looking children in our class, who they named Toby and Bob. They found out they were looking sad because some children had been saying mean things to them. The children ‘pretended’ to be mean and shouted unkind things at them. Each time they said something mean we cut part of their body to show how those words can hurt. They then discussed how we could make Bob and Toby feel better and they decided they could say kind words instead. We wrote those kind words on hearts and used plasters to attach the hearts to the body parts. The children then closed their eyes and chanted “Turn your frown upside down,” three times and were amazed when they opened their eyes and Toby and Bob had done exactly what they said and were now smiling. What kind children we have in Dosbarth Ash. Bendegedig! 🥰

After half term Dosbarth Ash were very keen to talk about their Bonfire Night celebrations so we went with their interests and encouraged them to create their own firework creations. We showed them pictures and talked about shapes and colours and let them choose their own materials to design their own pictures. Gwaith gwych 😁

Dosbarth Ash enjoyed making a collage of their names using various materials including glitter, sequins, feathers, buttons and matchsticks. How effective do they look? 🥰

Some budding actors in Dosbarth Ash as seen when acting out The 3 Little Pigs.  🐷🐷🐷🐺
Looking forward to starting rehearsals for our first Christmas Concert for 3 years after half term. 😁

This weeks senses work has been based on our sense of smell 👃. The children were challenged to sniff 4 different cups and work out which of the four fruits 🍏🍊🍌🍓were in each of the cups. A reveal at the end took place to allow the children to self evaluate their choices. Gwaith gwych! 😊

Dosbarth Ash have been trying hard to learn their flashcards and letter sounds. Group reading sessions and iPad games help reinforce their learning. Gwaith da 👏👏

Dosbarth Ash have been talking about places that are special to them and naturally their homes 🏠are one of these special places. The children were challenged to recognise their own front door 🚪and learn what number (or name) they lived in. They then had to find their home template and sit down next to their door and open their house to check if it was theirs by matching to their family they had drawn. 👨‍👩‍👧👩‍👧Finally they had to decorate the front of their houses by adding some windows and a roof. Great work Dosbarth Ash 😊

More senses work for Dosbarth Ash - this week looking at our senses of hearing 👂and smell 👃 .
Today we formed our own ‘orchestra’ - (new word for most of them) with myself as the ‘conductor’ - (another new word). We listened to the different sounds the instruments made and followed commands to play loud or quiet. Then we played a game where I played an instrument and they had to listen carefully and choose the matching instrument before I revealed if they had picked the correct one. 

We also talked about smells pleasant and not so pleasant and sorted them into the correct groups.
Lots of great discussion and listening skills 👍

Today was all about taste 👅.
The children found it quite tricky to match the crisp to the right packet but enjoyed the crisps all the same 😁.
Our 2 ‘Top Tasters’ managed to match all 4 flavours correctly 👍 as well as Mrs Wood who used her sense of taste to give the right answers to allow the children to self evaluate their guesses. 😊

More senses work.
Listening eggs - shake the egg, listen carefully and match with what you think is inside making the noise 👂.

Look and find activity. 👀Skim and scan to find the objects listed. Can you find them all?  🤔

Some more fabulous Gruffalo craft work from Dosbarth Ash last week. They will look great on our Gruffalo display wall. 😊

Dosbarth Ash are using one of my favourite books for some of our work this term - The Gruffalo. 😁

The children have made their own handprint Gruffalo’s. 
Careful painting, cutting and sticking involved to get those finger muscles moving and some cute Gruffalo pictures as a result. 👏
Gwaith da iawn!

More senses work from this week. This time considering our sense of sight 👀 again. We talked about how blind people cannot see and how difficult some things must be for them. We tried activities such as running/walking whilst being able to see and then blindfolded and tried balancing on the beam with our eyes open or closed. We also completed a blindfolded obstacle course (sorry forgot to take pictures of that one).
The children all agreed it’s much harder to do these things without the ability to see. Luckily their partners supported them and guided them. Next week we’ll talk about who or what helps blind people to get around safely.

Continuing our work on senses Dosbarth Ash have been exploring the sense of touch. We collected a selection of items and then tried to think of words to describe how they felt. 🖐 🤚 
Following this we had some coloured ‘feely’ balloons 🎈 which the children had to match to what they thought they contained inside. We all had a good squeeze and a feel before making our choices. Finally we cut open the balloons and self assessed whether we had matched correctly or not by colouring a smiley 😊 or sad ☹️ face.

Dosbarth Ash are learning about their senses 👀👂👅👃🤲.
Today they had to see how good their sense of sight was when they were challenged to find all the new tree name labels on the trees 🌲🌳in the school grounds ....... and most importantly, could they find our own class tree the Ash tree. There was lots of excitement while they searched high and low and ran amongst the trees using their ‘good looking eyes’ 👀
Da iawn Dosbarth Ash - good start to our senses topic. 👍

As part of our school topic Yma o Hyd, Dosbarth Ash are learning about themselves and people and places that are important to them.
Yesterday they were given a challenge by some toys who had a problem. 😊The toys couldn’t remember the names of their favourite places so the children had to solve clues and then find items related to the places to help them remember where their favourite places were. They did an amazing job solving the clues and at the end reported their findings back to the class. 🥰

Next week we will be discussing where their favourite places are. Please have a chat with your child over the weekend and talk about places they love to spend time. 

To get an idea of the children’s abilities at the start of the year we asked them to draw a person independently. As is often the case many children drew the head and then proceeded to draw the arms and legs straight from the head, minus any body. 😁
Next we talked about the ‘missing parts’ and tried again talking them through it step by step. Then we practised a selection of pre-writing patterns on coloured strips, which were stuck onto a sheet of card for the background before sticking their ‘person’ on top. How amazing do their pictures now look? 👏👏
It will be interesting to compare their drawings at the end of Reception. 😊

Week 1 over and a few pictures to show you that the morning tears didn’t last long.  😁
This week has been a chance for the children to explore their new environment and show us just how clever they are. 👍
Lots of fine motor activities to strengthen their finger muscles, sorting, matching, counting, partner work, painting, name recognition and letter ordering as well as lots of other things we were too busy to remember to take photos of.🥴

Every child in the school was also presented with a special Platinum Jubilee Celebration book which arrived at school just today. Incredible timing but a special keepsake to remember a remarkable Queen. 💖

Summer Term 2022

How is it our last term already? The year has simply flown and we are so proud of how the children have matured and grown and worked so hard.  Summer term is always my favourite as the weather is better (hopefully) and the children are more confident and excited to learn. 😊

Our topic for the summer term is ‘Iechyd da’ and has a focus of health and well being, a hugely important area for our children. We will be using the Disney film ‘Inside out’ to learn more about our emotions and strategies to deal with them.  We will also be looking at different activities people take part in to stay fit and healthy and will be having some taster sessions of different sports each week.  We will also look at healthy eating concentrating on fruit and vegetables using the books Oliver’s Fruit Salad and Oliver’s Vegetables to support our learning and the importance of looking after our teeth.

During this term we will also be celebrating the Queen’s Jubilee, having a Sports day for the first time in a few years 👌 and hopefully even get in a school trip to round off the year.

For now enjoy the photos each week where you can see what the children have been learning about and getting up to and you know where I am if you have any questions.

Thanks 

Mrs James, Mrs Wood and Miss Akers

What a lovely well being party we had today. 🥰
We began with a Dosbarth Ash spa session, which involved soaking their feet 🦶🦶in essential oils in water, a head, neck and shoulder massage and a scented lotion hand massage.🤲
We then did some mindfulness breathing exercises, followed by yoga 🧘‍♀️🧘‍♂️and then some mindfulness colouring 🖍to calming music.
We ended our day with a not so healthy treat of jelly, which the children helped make yesterday and a choice of different flavoured ice-cream.🍨

If they didn’t feel good and relaxed after today I don’t what to say. The classroom was calm, with lots of smiles and smelt amazing. I think I’m in the wrong job 😁

As part of our healthy eating topic we looked at some of our favourite drinks today and found out how much sugar was in each drink. We ordered the results and discussed our findings. The children knew water was the best choice and the other drinks should be drunk as a treat not every day. They could explain that too much sugar was bad for their teeth. We were surprised how much sugar was in some of them 😲

Continuing with our work on fruit and vegetables Dosbarth Ash looked at some of the work of Italian artist Giuseppe Arcimboldo. Arcimboldo created portraits from fruit and vegetables. The children used the iPads to create their own fruit and veg faces. How amazing and different do they all look! 

Today Dosbarth Ash talked about 2 different things we could eat for a snack, a doughnut or an apple. They came up with words to describe both and decided that although the doughnut may taste sweeter it wasn’t really the healthy option. They then created their own ‘apple doughnuts’ by cutting the apples into doughnut shapes, using yogurt instead of icing and fruit toppings instead of sprinkles. Delicious and healthy - perfect snack. 
🍏🍇🍓🍊🥝 #healthyandconfident

Another great 'taster session' in Dosbarth Ash - Karate with Sorcha from Welsh Karate Collective who run classes in Beddau. The children enjoyed the session and learnt more new techniques and terminology. Da iawn pawb 👍

The children enjoyed their visit to Beddau Bowling Green today to put into practice what they learned from their previous sessions at school.
A big thanks to Mrs Evans for allowing us to visit and giving the children tips and techniques to improve their bowling. 😊
And an extra thanks for the drinks and biscuits she provided, which was much appreciated on such a hot and sunny day. 😎

Criw Cymraeg came to teach Dosbarth Ash the Seren a Sbarc song and dance. Canu a dawnsio 🎶 💃 🕺🏼 

As part of Walk to School week Dosbarth Ash carried out a traffic survey of the traffic passing by the school. They counted how many of each different type of vehicle passed, 🚗🚌🚑🚛the colours of the cars, 🔴⚫️⚪️🔵the direction they were travelling ↔️and the number of people inside the vehicles. 👨‍👩‍👧‍👦
The children will be comparing their findings with each other next week but they all agreed the road past our school is a very busy one.

Dosbarth Ash had another ‘taster’ session on Friday - this time cricket with Tom, Gemma and Liz from Miskin Manor Cricket Team.  The children were taught the stance for bowling and how to hold the cricket bat correctly. They enjoyed practising the techniques and made a super effort to hit the ball. Gwaith gwych Dosbarth Ash. 🏏

🇬🇧🇬🇧For our Royal Jubilee Celebrations Dosbarth Ash created some artwork for our art gallery. 🇬🇧🇬🇧
The children drew a portrait of the Queen and used watercolours to paint her. They then decorated a frame with pasta and string and spray painted them gold or silver. #ethicalandinformed 
Gwaith gwych.

Dosbarth Ash had their football ‘taster’ session today with Cardiff City Football Club. ⚽️
The children listened carefully, learned new skills and most importantly had great fun in the fresh air. Another sport to tick off our ‘taster’ list.
#healthyandconfident

The children brought home their invites today to our Queen’s Jubilee celebrations on Friday May 27th.
Please cut off the slip on the back to let us know if you can make it. If you have more than 1 child in the school please put their names together on a slip so we don’t count you twice.

More information will be sent out over the next week and don’t forget those crowns. They need to be sent in by next Wednesday.
Thanks 👍

Dosbarth Ash had their first sports taster session today. Mrs Evans from Beddau Ladies Bowls came to show us how to play lawn bowls. She taught us the different names of the equipment and how to aim to get as close to the ‘jack’ as possible. The children had a great time and their bowling got better as the session progressed. We are having another practice session at school on Friday before walking up to the actual bowling green next week 👍

As an introduction to our new topic ‘Iechyd da’ Dosbarth Ash came up with ideas to create posters of things we can do to stay healthy for both our bodies and minds. 
They then tried to create an alphabet of sports and activities that they could do to keep fit. As a treat they will be having some taster sessions of activities over the next few weeks starting with lawn bowls next week. 😊

Following on from our alphabet of activities Dosbarth Ash had the chance to look at, handle and describe a variety of equipment including a selection of ‘bats’ and balls. The children were able to guess what sport most of them were used in and looked at how the ‘bats’ would be held.  Over the coming weeks the children will have lots of opportunities to try them out. #healthyandconfident 😊

Spring Term 2022

Let’s Explore Hot and Cold is our topic this term. The children will start by thinking of what those words mean to them, considering items which are hot or cold, animals and people that live in hot or cold places, things we can do in hot and cold places and what we wear or eat at these times.

This term we are putting a focus on Science and Technology so the children will be learning about materials and their uses and hot heat affects things as well as learning about different animal habitats and how the animals survive in these places. We will also be having a go at designing and making a penguin soft toy and trying our hand at a little bit of sewing.

Dosbarth Ash enjoyed taking part in some obstacle courses today. Lots of different skills involved from jumping to crawling, balancing to throwing while exercising their bodies and minds. Gwych!

Dosbarth Ash had a treat today when Miss Hughes came over from the juniors to teach them some African drumming. 😊
The children listened carefully and copied rhythm patterns, made a LOT of noise and had lots of fun.
Gwaith gwych! 👏

Dosbarth Ash were given a Spring Scavenger Hunt challenge using the iPads. The children had to look for different items, eg something soft, something colourful etc. When they found them they had to take a photo of it, resize the photo and drag it to the correct box. They all did a marvellous job showing just how independent and confident they can be 👍

Outdoor music percussion with Mr Drew today 🥁

More outdoor learning in our maths lessons this week. Great fun and active learning 👍

💕HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY to all you mums and nans who do a wonderful job looking after our children in Dosbarth Ash. 💕

The children thought about all the different jobs you do on a daily basis for them and realised how busy and important you all are.
Listen to our video and see how many jobs we thought of 😊

We hope all you mums and nans have had a lovely day and have managed to 
‘Take a seat and treat your feet’ today. 💕

The children worked together to create their own foot soak just for you. They used Epsom salts to soothe, dried milk to soften and chose their favourite smells from different flavoured tea leaves and essential oils to scent it. They then typed their own labels to attach to them and decorated the lids to make them look more attractive.

All you need to do now is add a few spoonfuls to a bowl of warm water and relax. We hope you enjoy the treat 💕.

Dosbarth Ash have had a wonderful morning at All Stars Gymnastics. The children behaved wonderfully and really enjoyed all the activities on offer. A big thank you to Miss Akers and her colleagues at the gym for taking the groups and giving the children a fabulous experience. We spotted some future gymnastic stars 🤸🏻‍♀️🤸🏽‍♂️⭐️ in our class today. 😁

🕰 The children are learning about time this week. ⏰ 
We looked at the clock on the yard and decided it was missing hands so we ordered ourselves by height to work out who would be a ‘long hand’ and who would be a ‘short hand’. The pairs were then told an o’clock time they needed to show on the clock. All was easy until the last pair were given the time of 12 o’clock!!! 🤔Mmmm .......they had to think carefully how to show this and the rest of the class found the result very amusing. Check their faces out on the last picture 🤣🤣🤣

Today is World Poetry Day so the children spent the morning listening to, discussing and learning some poems about ‘Spring.’ Then this afternoon they went outside exploring for signs of spring to help them come up with interesting words to create their own class poem about spring which they will finish during the week. 🌼 🦋 🌞🌱

Yesterday Dosbarth Ash carried on with their work on Handa’s Surprise by designing and making their own fruit kebabs. First they had to create a repeating pattern design in their books, then they had to independently peel and chop the fruit before threading them onto their kebab sticks. They finished off their kebabs by drizzling them with melted chocolate - yum yum 😋

A big thank you for supporting our fundraising for Ukraine 🇺🇦 day. As a school we have collected over £565 towards it and the children had plenty of fun dancing the day away 💃 🕺

Dosbarth Ash have been reading another African village story called Handa’s Surprise this week.  
They have had great fun exploring exotic fruits, 🥡🍊🍍🥑🥝🍌by doing observational drawings and descriptions, tasting them and choosing their favourites. There are some great expressions on their faces as they tried the passion fruit 🥴.
They also tried balancing baskets on their heads just like Handa carried her fruit basket in the story but they were lucky as their baskets were empty 😊

Dosbarth Ash have been reading stories about living in remote African villages this week and have noticed how the women often carrying things on their heads. They learnt how to create African line art, using black felt pens and pastels, which they had to smudge. I think you’d agree they did another amazing job. Gwaith ardderchog 👏👏

This week Scholastic have put on some live author and illustrator seesions for schools to join. On Monday the children enjoyed listening to songs by the amazing author Julia Donaldson, based on some of her well known stories, and on Friday they ended the week with a drawalong session with illustrator Onyinye Iwu. This fitted in really well with our topic this half term as we have moved from the cold of the North and South Poles to the heat of Africa and Onyinye is a Nigerian artist who focuses on the representation of people of the African background. The concentration of the children as they ‘drew along’ was fantastic and they were really proud of their end results. 
Gwaith da! ⭐️ 

A busy World Book Day in Dosbarth Ash today 📚.
We began with Mrs James, Mrs Wood and Miss Akers all reading us one of their favourite stories, The Enormous Crocodile, The Bears and the Great Big Storm and The Snail and the Whale. The children then made a physical bar graph with themselves all choosing their favourite book from the three to stand behind and finally they transferred their findings into a bar chart for their books. 
Then this afternoon we looked at all the books the children brought in for our book swap before choosing the one they’d like to take home. And to finish we had a Book Scavenger Hunt where the children were challenged to look through lots of books to find specific characters and objects like a book with a bear, or an aeroplane or even a pair of socks and record the titles and page numbers they found them on. What a great way to develop their love of books and reading. We hope they enjoy their book from the book swap. 😊

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿Dydd Gwŷl Dewi Hapus🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿

What a busy day in Dosbarth Ash - listening to the story of St. David, making a poster of Welsh emblems, tasting Welsh cakes, singing Welsh weather songs and learning a Welsh Folk Dance. It’s fun to learn about our country and it helps us become Ethical and Informed Citizens. 👍🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿

🐧Wow! Wow! Wow! 🐧
Look at the work that went into this terms Design Technology task. Dosbarth Ash were challenged with creating a soft toy penguin for a young child and just look at the finished results. 👏👏
First, they had to consider the design brief thinking about who it was for, what it needed to be and what they required to make it. They then made a prototype from card which they used as a template. For the making part they had to cut the felt to the correct size and shape, learn to thread a needle, sew the pieces together, decorate it and stuff it before closing it all up. When they finished they evaluated their penguin, looking at what they did well, what was tricky and any changes they would make to improve it if they did it again. We think they have done a marvellous job and each and every penguin is totally unique just like they are ❤️.
Gwaith arbennig! 😊

Llwyncrwn had a treat today with a visit from Glenda Clwyd and her wonderful harps. The children really enjoyed finding out about these beautiful instruments and listening to familiar songs and clapping along.
Plant lwcus iawn 💕

Dosbarth Ash were challenged to keep the teachers’ hot drinks warm for longer. They decided that we wear coats to keep warm so they would make a ‘coat’ for the cups too and find out which ‘material’ kept it warm longer. They made predictions about which would be the best ‘coat’ and then used thermometers to see the changes in temperature.

This week we have been learning lots of new words and phrases to help us grow and face our fears. We have talked about the ‘Power of Yet’ and stepping out of our ‘comfort zone’ and being resilient and brave. This week the children showed that by not giving up and giving things a go they can overcome their fears and be proud of their personal growth.
Da iawn Dosbarth Ash - you make us so proud! 🥰x

As part of Children’s Mental Health week Dosbarth Ash have been looking at emotions - how to recognise them, why we feel them and how to manage them. They have shown they recognise signs of different emotions and have been practising showing different emotions on their faces for their friends to guess. Can you tell what each child is feeling? 😁😢🥴😡😤😱

As part of Safer Internet Day Dosbarth Ash enjoyed listening to Buddy the Dog’s Internet Safety Story which helped to teach them how to use the Internet safely.  They also enjoyed learning a simple song which reminded them of what they should do to stay safe online.

Dosbarth Ash have been learning about Chinese New Year this week. They listened and retold the story of how the Years were named after the animals in the race, they have looked at how they prepare and celebrate the New Year and they independently created their own dragon masks and puppets.
Kung Hei Fat Choi!

💕St Dwynwen’s Day is celebrated in Wales on the 25th of January. 💕Yesterday the children listened to a story about St Dwynwen, learnt how to say ‘Rwy’n dy garu di’ (I love you in Welsh) 🥰 and thought about things they love including people, places, food and things they like to do). 
Can you guess which one was your child’s answers? My particular favourite was “I love .....washing dishes.” 😁 x

Dosbarth Ash have been working hard this week to learn about 3D shapes. Today they were given a range of equipment and challenged to make 3D shapes out of them. The determination and resilience involved, particularly with the lollipop sticks and play dough, was amazing. Da iawn Dosbarth Ash - some fabulous 3D shapes 😃

As an introduction to our work on 3D shapes the Year 1’s were challenged to sort various objects into their correct shapes and explore different ways to create towers that didn’t fall over.  After looking at the various 3D shapes they decided which shapes were best for stacking and worked out it was best to start with the biggest shapes at the bottom. After lots of ‘toppling towers’ they worked collaboratively to stop them falling over. Da iawn Blwyddyn un! 👍

Today Dosbarth Ash were learning about how animals in the polar regions stay warm in the freezing cold water🥶.
They carried out an experiment to see how a special layer of fat called ‘blubber’ helps to keep these animals warm. The children placed their bare hand in freezing water and timed how long they could keep it there. Then they put their hand inside a bag, which was inside another bag filled with lard. The lard acted like blubber and kept the children’s hands warm while in the freezing water.
Watch the videos of Finley to see his reactions to both experiences 😊

As well as exploring the frost today Dosbarth Ash also made their own snow ❄️to make a snowman ⛄️. The children worked in pairs to make their ‘snow’ from cornflower and conditioner. They described the changes that took place from light and powdery, to slimy and sticky and finally to soft and squishy. They then worked together to decide on the finishing touches their snowmen required.  ⛄️⛄️
And as a bonus ...... they won’t have melted by the morning. 😊
Gwaith gwych!

Dosbarth Ash made the most of the cold, frosty morning today to get out and explore the frost. ❄️ Roedd yn rhewi. 🥶
The children had great fun touching it, hearing it crunch under their feet, writing their names in it and seeing the beauty it created. 
They were glad to get back in the warm after and thought about interesting words to describe the frost they saw. Arddderchog!

Today while talking about how we keep warm we started talking about gloves 🧤🧤and how they protect our hands from the cold. We then looked at a variety of different types of gloves and found out what material they were made from and how they were used to protect our hands from different things. Lots of good discussion and sensible ideas. 👍

Dosbarth Ash loved their beautiful ice decorations they created yesterday. They used great vocabulary and descriptions to describe how they looked and felt before hanging them on the nursery yard. Throughout the day they went back to check on them and noticed the changes taking place until by this afternoon they were left with simply the string and their winter treasures they’d collected. 🥰

Dosbarth Ash were very excited and surprised 😲today when they saw a video of some penguins 🐧 in our classroom over the weekend. They are keen to learn more about them in our new topic “Let’s Explore Hot and Cold”. They also wrapped up warm to go outside 🥶 and explore the cold today and started by finding some winter treasures which they could use to create pretty ice decorations. They are in the freezer tonight ready for us to explore tomorrow.

Welcome to Dosbarth Ash Yr 1/2

Autumn Term 2021

A start of another year and we really hope this will be less disruptive to the last two!

Mrs Wood and I are delighted to be joined by Miss Akers for some of our sessions this year and are very pleased to welcome back children that we have taught in previous years.

After just the first week we can see huge differences in them all, they have matured and developed into fantastic little learners and we are excited to see this develop even more over the coming year.

To start the year the whole school has been given the Topic ‘This is me!’ which will give us the chance to look at ‘what makes me a me’ as well as appreciate what makes us different from our friends.  The children came up with a few ideas of where they’d like to go with this topic but the first thing they came up with was ‘names’ so we are going to use this as a starting point. Their first job was to ask at home why they were given the name they have and we will also find out the meaning of their names too.

Please keep working on their flashcards at home as we will be trying hard to develop their fluency and confidence in reading and knowing their flashcards is a big help when working on this.

If you have any questions during the year please don’t hesitate to contact me on mrsjames@llwyncrwn.co.uk.

Thanks for all your support and let’s hope for a great year.

Mrs James 😊

🎅🏼Last few Christmas photos from this week.🎅🏼
The children enjoyed making 🦌reindeer hot chocolate ☕️and are getting experts at making their own salt dough to create their 🌲tree decorations. We hope they’ll look back on them in a few years time and say “Remember when I made this when I was in Dosbarth Ash.” 💕

🎉🎅🏼🎄Lots of fun and laughter in our Class Party today.🎄🎅🏼🎉
The children enjoyed eating their food while listening to Christmas music. Then they had fun playing games and dancing before drawing our Christmas raffle and bringing home all their Christmas creations.
Not long now 🎅🏼

Dosbarth Ash enjoyed taking part in the Reindeer run.🦌
They completed their laps as required but are their noses red from the cold or because they wanted to be like the greatest reindeer of all ‘Rudolph’. 
 

Today Dosbarth Ash followed a step by step drawing lesson to create a snowman. ⛄️The children followed the instructions carefully and all created their own snowmen showing that although they all had the same instructions each snowman turned out unique just like them.
Look at their amazing finished drawings. Gwaith gwych! 👏👏

The big man himself 🎅🏼took time out of his busy schedule to call to Llwyncrwn this afternoon. 
The children in Dosbarth Ash were very excited to see him and have a quick chat. Let’s hope he’s added their names to his nice list 🥰x

Dosbarth Ash have been talking about paying compliments to other people. 😍
I challenged them to make a wall of compliments with one for each letter of the alphabet. The children came up with lots of great words and we learnt some new positive words to fill some of the gaps. It’s nice to be nice ❤️.

🎄🎅🏼1st of December 🎅🏼🎄and Christmas starts with Dosbarth Ash working together to create large bottle top Christmas 🎄 trees.
Excellent team work Dosbarth Ash and fabulous creations 😁

Lots of practical and online maths learning in Dosbarth Ash last week. 
Gwaith da 👍

Dosbarth Ash had a treat today when some of the Criw Cymraeg came over to teach them some Welsh games on the iPad. The Criw were ‘da iawn’ explaining what to do and Dosbarth Ash were ‘ardderchog’ playing them.
Gwych 👍

Dosbarth Ash have looked at their own homes and the types of houses they live in so today we decided to take a look at what sort of houses are in Beddau. The children had a list of things they needed to tick off their list on our village walk and they did a great job of spotting them all .......... except one - we failed to find a phone box in Beddau! 😃

Dosbarth Ash are becoming experts at making their own salt dough now so this week they used this new skill to make their own Pudsey Bears. They painted and decorated them carefully and we think they turned out just great. Gwaith da iawn 😊

As part of Anti-Bullying week Dosbarth Ash have been paying compliments to their friends.  Look at the lovely things they have said about their friends 💕. 
Gwaith bendegedig pawb 👍

The theme for Anti-Bullying week is ‘One Kind Word.’
Dosbarth Ash listened to the theme song and decided that “All it takes is one kind word,” and here are their choices. 💕x

Dosbarth Ash learnt the importance of using kind words as they found out bullying is not just about physical harm, cruel words can hurt too although we might not show it on the outside the hurt is there on the inside. 
Mrs James brought two similar apples 🍎🍎to class and told the children to be kind and gentle to one apple and say nice things about it as they passed it around the circle wrapped up carefully to protect it. ❤️
With the second apple the children had to be mean and say nasty things and give it a ‘poke’ as they passed it around. (They found this hard to do at first). 🤬
Afterwards we talked about how the apples still looked the same on the outside and you couldn’t tell which one we’d been mean to. Then we cut them open to find the one we’d been nasty to was all bruised under the skin but the one we’d been nice to looking juicy and crunchy. We realised that although we might not have been able to see any differences, on the inside the apple was battered and bruised and the damage had been done and couldn’t be taken back. 
We decided it’s important to think carefully of the words we use and ‘All it takes is one kind word 💕.

To start Anti-Bullying week we compared how we were the same and how we were different from our friends. We completed a venn diagram with a partner to see how our likes compared and of course we compared our fabulous odd socks! 😁

Dosbarth Ash talked about Kindness and how important it is to be kind to people. They talked about how it made them feel as well as the person they were being kind to. They then chose a person to write a kind note to and completed the sentences using the iPads. These notes were then put into envelopes to leave out for a special person the following day. We hope they put a smile on their faces when they read them.

Mrs James also sneakily put a note in Mrs Wood’s bag to find when she got home 😊

Dosbarth Ash Remember! 
Dosbarth Ash have painted and written significant words on stones to create a stone poppy which they laid in the peace garden today to celebrate Remembrance Day. They also wrote a short poem about poppies in their books and learnt it off by heart which they recited together after creating their stone poppy.
Gwaith da pawb!

Dosbarth Ash also made poppies by mixing different shades of red, painting coffee filters, cutting them into petals which they swapped with their friends to get a mix of colours and then rearranging back into a poppy shape.
How beautiful do they look ❤️

Whilst learning about Diwali Dosbarth Ash made their own Diva lamps. First they made their own salt dough, then they rolled out and created their lamp to fit their candle in and finally they decorated them. Tomorrow we will light their candles to show how beautiful they are and to finish our work on Diwali - the Festival of Lights.

Continuing with our work on Diwali, Dosbarth Ash used the natural resources they collected to create beautiful Rangoli patterns. They worked co-operatively and took great pride in their finished designs. 😊
Gwaith da iawn! 👏👏

Dosbarth Ash put their wellies on to explore the school grounds looking for signs of autumn 🍁🍂.
They also collected some natural materials ready for tomorrow’s lesson on making Rangoli patterns for our Diwali topic 😁

As part of our Diwali topic Dosbarth Ash made some traditional Barfi sweets. We hope they tasted delicious 😁

This week Dosbarth Ash are learning about the festival of Diwali. Today we signed up to a live event called “Celebrate The Best Diwali Ever” with the author and illustrator of the book of the same name, Sonali Shah and Chaaya Prabhat. The children enjoyed listening to the author read her book and the illustrator took them through step by step instructions of how to draw Rangoli patterns just like in the book.
This afternoon they also started to learn a Diwali dance which we will share with you later in the week - once they’ve had a bit more practice 😁

🎨Dosbarth Ash have been learning about the artist 🎨 
                               Romero Britto.
They have spent lots of time finding out about Romero, designing patterns, looking at pieces of his work on the computer to find their favourites and designing their own initial in his style using patterns, and bright and bold colours. 
How fabulous does our art gallery look! 
Ardderchog Dosbarth Ash 👏👏

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿The Criw Cymraeg came over from the juniors today to help Dosbarth Ash learn some Welsh songs and play some Welsh games for Diwrnod Shwmae.🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿
They did a fantastic job teaching the younger children, and Dosbarth Ash showed what great listeners they can be.
Bendegedig! 😁

Today was all about babies. We talked about how we have changed since we were babies, what we could or couldn’t do, what we needed and how we looked. Then we had fun trying to recognise the babies, some were easy to tell, some knew themselves and some didn’t have any idea if it was them or not 🤣🤣.  By a process of elimination we eventually matched the children to their baby photos 🥰

Today we had fun using our voices and facial expressions. First we played a game where we were blindfolded and a child was chosen to say a sentence while the rest listened carefully and guessed who it was.
Then we used the sentence ‘Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall’ and said this sentence over and over again in different voices - listen to our video and see if you can spot us saying it like we are 
* telling a secret 🤫
* in a hurry 🏃🏼‍♂️🏃‍♀️
* excited 🤩
* angry 😡 
* talking to a baby 👶 
* shocked 😮 
* telling someone off 😤
* like a superhero 🦸‍♂️ 🦸‍♀️

We’ve started using 10 frames in our question of the day which is a quicker and easier way to work out how many ‘yes’ and ‘no’ answers we have each day.  It also helps us recognise numbers quickly and see how numbers can be made. 😊

The Year 2 children had an interesting talk about fire safety from some firefighters who visited the school.
They listened carefully, asked sensible questions and learnt lots of important things. 😊

Huge well done to our first ⭐️‘Seren yr wythnos’ ⭐️Lilly-Mae who received her certificate and sticker off Mrs Charles.

Da iawn Lilly-Mae!

Dosbarth Ash went apple picking today to get some apples to try some printing techniques to create a carrot and apple printed autumn tree. It wasn’t as easy as it looked and it turned out messier than planned - but lots of fun all the same 😊

Dosbarth Ash were challenged to think of as many parts of the body as they could and label them on their friends. They started by labelling the obvious parts but then started to really think and came up with lots of extra parts by looking closely at themselves and their friends. Da iawn Dosbarth Ash!

Today it was all about our names! 😍
The children learnt to write their names in bubble writing, then they chose the correct number of squares for one square for each letter in their name and did a tally chart of how many letters were in each child’s names and finally they looked at the individual letters in each child’s name and sorted them to find out which letter was the most popular of all - the results showed the letter ‘a’ appears in all their names 14 times. They will use their findings to make some bar graphs in their maths lessons.

They finished off by telling their friends how they got their names.  There were some interesting reasons there ....... more to follow 😃x

Welcome to Reception!

Croeso i derbyn!

Summer Term 2021

How on earth is it our last term already? It feels like only yesterday we were starting our journey together and we are now nearing the end of your time in Reception. At least we are back in school for my favourite term - the Summer Term.

I love the summer term, as hopefully the weather will be better so we can spend lots of time outdoors and you all start to amaze me with how grown up and clever you have become. Plus I love our topic this term - life on the farm and the fabulous stories by Julia Donaldson based on the What the Ladybird Heard series.

I hope you enjoy your last term in Reception and we make lots more wonderful memories along the way. 

Let’s have lots of fun and learning this term

Mrs James 😊

To end our farm topic we had a fabulous farm day. The children dressed up as farmers and had fun ‘shearing the sheep’ 🐑, ‘milking the cow’ 🐄, taking care of the eggs 🐔 and pinning the tail on the pig 🐷. What a great end to the year! 😁

🇮🇹INTERNATIONAL WEEK 2021🇮🇹

What a busy week learning all about Italy.🇮🇹

Dosbarth Ash have learned where Italy and Wales are on a map, drawn and compared the two flags, made flag or pizza hats, talked about food Italy is famous for and then tasted different flavours of ‘gelato’ and chose their favourites to make and interpret a pictogram. 

They have also learned some key words and phrases and how to count to 10.

To end the week they came dressed in Italian colours or themes and were challenged to create two famous Italian landmarks out of large boxes - The Leaning Tower of Pisa and the Roman Colosseum. 

Whilst learning about 3d shapes we have done some 3d recycling sorting, made a 3d ‘city’ and worked together to create large scale cubes and cuboids.

As part of our topic work on farms the task challenge was to design and create our own scarecrows. 
Mr Furber helped the children make the frames and then it was time to choose their outfits before all the stuffing and decorating took place. How amazing were the end results? 😍
And no, ….before you ask the staff were not the inspiration for the finished models! 🤣🤣
Now the big question is where shall we put them? 🤔

As part of our farm topic Dosbarth Ash painted cows and pigs using watercolours. They followed step by step instructions to draw them carefully before mixing watercolours to paint them.  Some budding artists in the future no doubt.

So many skills in this paired activity. Subitising the dots on a dice, choosing the correct colour pen, practising spelling and forming the letters of some of our high frequency words and taking turns with our partners.

As part of Outdoors Week Dosbarth Ash had to solve a sentence problem written by the Ladybird from our current book ‘What the Ladybird Heard.’

Armed with magnifying glasses and a clipboard the children had to find and then read the ladybirds tiny clues and put them in the correct order to form a sentence. 
Great teamwork and reading all round! 

             Spring Term 2021

I am very sad that we are not starting this term back in class together but it is important that we stay safe and well.  While we are working at home we will carry on with RWI, Read Write Inc to learn our sounds and will continue to work on our understanding of numbers to 10 and beyond as well as starting a new topic all about cold places and looking at life in the polar regions.

I know it’s not going to be easy but I’m sure with the support of your family we will make the best of it.  We will be using Seesaw as our main platform for providing you with our online learning and for you to send back the completed tasks and activities for me to see. It is a great tool for the younger children in the school and I’m sure you’ll soon get used to it.

If you need to contact me for anything at all please either do so by email mrsjames@llwyncrwn.co.uk or via the Seesaw app or our private FB page.

Hopefully we will all be back in class soon and some sort of normality will resume. Until then please do your best but remember safety and happiness must always come first.

Mrs James 😊