Dosbarth Lime- Mrs Powell | Llwyncrwn Primary School

Welcome to Reception Class

A big warm welcome to the children who will be in Dosbarth Lime this year. We hope you are all ready to work hard and ready to have lots of fun in our happy, caring class!

We look forward to working closely with parents in order to support every pupil to reach their full potential.

Please don't hesitate to contact me by email if you have any questions/concerns or positive feedback - Mrspowell@llwyncrwn.co.uk

Thank you

Mrs Powell and Mrs Riley 😊

Spring Term 2026

⭐️⭐️This is not “just playing!” ⭐️⭐️ Today, I observed high-quality child-led play that demonstrated a wide range of skills, including collaboration, literacy, problem-solving, testing ideas, and planning. While I was working with another group, I was fortunate to capture this learning as it unfolded independently. The children invented a game, refined it as they progressed, and made predictions about outcomes, highlighting the value of trusting the learning process and enabling child-led exploration within the construction area. Seeing this made me so happy - learning through play is so important! This level of learning could not have happened if they were only ever asked to sit and work in a book! ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Look how fabulous their handwriting is already!

The children explored addition through play. They practiced one-to-one counting, carefully matching one number to each object, and used their fingers and manipulatives to solve simple addition problems.

Today, the children were once again engaged, curious, and independent in the continuous provision. We are encouraging them to explore, make choices, and develop their creativity and problem-solving skills through play and hands-on activities.

Launch Day 🚀

Today we launched our new topic, Me and My Community. The children were enthusiastic and enjoyed sharing their home tasks with each other. They talked about the places they made in Beddau and listened respectfully to their peers.

Autumn Term 2025 🎃

How amazing is this!!🧱🧱🧱🧱

It was wonderful to watch their constructions taking shape — the teamwork, decision-making and deep concentration were amazing. Their creativity and curiosity really came alive as they planned, built and problem-solved together. Can you spot the Dino World, houses, bridges and rockets the children decided to make?

We are confident, curious and creative thinkers who learn by exploring, doing and reflecting.

🍃 🍁🍂 We kicked off Outdoor Learning Week by exploring our Calon y Coed! The children used their senses to notice the colours, sounds, and textures of autumn. They collected natural treasures like leaves, sticks, and conkers to use in our creative activities throughout the week. We loved being curious, working together, and feeling connected to our beautiful environment. 🌿🍁🍂🍃🍀

COOL TIME The children enjoyed some child-led time where they chose their own activities, explored interests, and practised independence. It gave the children space to be in the moment, make decisions, and apply what they’ve learned through play. 👏👏

Independent, curious learners!

Week 4

‘COOL’ Time

We’ve been learning about our senses! Today we investigated touch by identifying hot, medium, and cold—just like Goldilocks’ porridge. We then used our knowledge of letter sounds to label what we found.

This week we started our Read Write Inc. sessions! We learned the sounds m and a, practised writing them, and used the mnemonics to help us remember. The children did really well! By the end of the week, most could recognise the letters and the sounds they make, and they had a good go at forming them in sand, rice, talc and on the chalkboard. Fantastic! 👏👏

Week 3

This week we introduced COOL time – Choose Our Own Learning. It encourages independence, decision-making, and curiosity as children explore their own ideas through play and discovery. 🌱⭐️

As part of our This is Me topic, the children used mirrors to look closely at their facial features before creating beautiful self-portraits. How wonderful are they? 🖌️🪞🎨” ✨

Week 2

Independent learning in action – children follow their own play interests, exploring problems and developing curiosity through self-led problem solving.

Mrs Riley and I have started to improve our outdoor provision. Children are enjoying our new building zone – developing problem-solving skills, collaboration and independent learning through play.

Today we launched our new topic, This is Me! The children loved sharing their special things and really enjoyed sitting in the teacher’s chair to explain all about themselves. The other children were curious to find out about each other and tried hard to be a good audience, demonstrating great listening skills.

A very busy start to week 2 in Reception class!

Week 1

Day 1 in Reception ✅

All of the children have settled in really well today and have adapted beautifully to their new class, teachers, and routines. We are so proud of how confidently they started their Reception journey.

Each child had their “first day in Reception” photo taken today like ours below. If you would like to purchase a copy, please send £1 in a clearly labelled envelope with your child’s name.

Thank you for your support – we are looking forward to a wonderful year ahead!

END OF YEAR 2

Yellow Yellow Daffodil 🌼

We looked at the strongest bridges from last week and identified what made them stronger than the other ones. We then made design alterations and made our final bridge. Fantastic enthusiasm shown by all pupils and great counting skills too! Da iawn!

Week 6

Dosbarth Lime completed a fun STEM challenge where they designed and built the strongest bridge using only one sheet of A4 paper, with the goal of holding the most coins. Before they began constructing their bridges, each student designed four different bridges, made predictions about how many coins their bridge would be able to support, which encouraged them to think critically about their designs. As they tested their bridges, they recorded the results in a table, noting the number of coins each bridge successfully held before it collapsed. This activity not only sparked their creativity but also helped them learn about engineering concepts and the importance of testing and improving their designs. Next week Dosbarth Lime will look at the most successful bridges, identify what they had in common and and use this knowledge to further develop their ideas.

The children planned an information leaflet with a rainbow🌈 partner and wrote them independently. Great independent extended writing!

Week 5

This week we have been celebrating Children’s mental health week.

This year’s theme is ‘know more, grow more’.

Dosbarth Lime discussed what makes them happy and made a happy flower. They thought of things they could do to make them happy if they were feeling sad and they wrote their ideas on the petals.
We also discussed ways of feeling calm and explored some yoga moves too!

Mrs Powell modelled how to write an information leaflet and we used our plans to help us write our own.

We used ICT to collect data and to make a block graph to show which landmarks we liked on our trip to Pontypridd.

We celebrated Dydd Miwsig Gymru today by listening to our National Anthem and trying to join in with some of it. We are particularly interested in this as we have being learning about two important Welsh people - Evan James and James James. 🎵🎵

Some of our fabulous work on Pontypridd!

Week 4

Visit to Pontypridd

First we visited Pontypridd museum where we talked about the building of the Old Pontypridd Bridge and went out onto the museum terrace to draw the Old Bridge. We also saw various exhibitions that showcased local history and culture. After exploring the exhibits, we took part in a bridge building challenge, which was both fun and educational. It was a great way to apply what we learned and work together as a team!

We stood on top of the Old Bridge and completed a sign post map activity. We drew what we could see in-front, behind, left and to the right of us. We then enjoyed the sunshine and sat on the Old Bridge to eat our lunch!

After lunch, we headed into Town to find the fountain. We read the writing on the fountain, looked carefully at the shape of the fountain and the patterns on it before drawing it.

Finally we had a quick look at some of the market stalls but we sadly ran out of time!! So ..... we plan to revisit soon as we have so much left to explore!! A huge thank you to Edward’s buses for being so kind allowing us to travel free of charge and to their fabulous drivers too!

We looked at a collection of leaflets to identify their features before planning our own leaflet. We will use our plan to help us write our own leaflets next week

We looked at images of Ponty landmarks and used a drawing app to recreate them.

Completing independent rainbow challenges in our areas of provision.

Week 3

Community Litter Pick

Following their work on identifying dislikes in our local area last term, Dosbarth Lime came up with creative ways to help improve their community. Before Christmas, they designed informative posters that were displayed around Beddau to encourage local residents to take care of their surroundings. Today, they took action by organising a litter pick with the help of members from the Litter-Free Beddau and Tynant group, which not only helped clean up the area but also demonstrated their commitment to making a difference. This initiative aligns perfectly with the Core Purposes of the Curriculum for Wales, which emphasises the importance of developing responsible citizens who are actively engaged in their communities and understand the impact of their actions on the environment.

Dosbarth Lime have now posed this question as Pontypridd Town Detectives - Does Pontypridd Town have a litter, graffiti and dog poo problem like Beddau?

We will be visiting Pontypridd soon to investigate! 🔍

Da iawn Dosbarth Lime! 👏👏👏👏

🚀Launch Day!🚀

We made badges to wear when we become Pontypridd Town Detectives!

The children enjoyed showcasing their Pontypridd landmark - the models were all fantastic! 👏

We watched a video showing us Pontypridd Town and Ynysangharad Park. We found out about Evan James and James James and listened to The National Anthem.

We worked in rainbow groups to complete EPIC planning to influence what we find out about as Pontypridd Town Detective this term! 🔍🔍

This week in maths we explored odd and even numbers and completed a problem solving activity with a partner.

Autumn Term September 2024🍁

Our first day in Dosbarth Lime

Christmas Party fun!

Selling our reindeer food after school and in Christmas bingo!

We sold out of reindeer food so we had to make even more!

🎄Christmas Challenge🎄

Mrs Powell set Dosbarth Lime an exciting challenge to create reindeer food while sticking to a budget of ten pounds. The children come together to brainstorm ideas and gather materials to make their festive creations. They plan to sell the reindeer food for one pound each before and after school, aiming to raise money for their class fund. This initiative not only teaches them valuable lessons in entrepreneurship and teamwork but also adds a touch of holiday spirit to the school community and more importantly the children had lots of fun too!

Street Detectives on a mission to improve Beddau!

Following on from Dosbarth Lime identifying the negative impact people have on Beddau, they thought of ways to help. The children noticed that littering, graffiti and dog waste were becoming significant issues in Beddau, negatively affecting their community. They decided to take action by designing and creating colourful signs to educate their neighbours about the importance of keeping the area clean. These signs included friendly reminders to pick up litter and dog poo, stop graffitiing and to to take care of our parks, along with fun illustrations to catch people's attention. The children felt proud to contribute to their local environment, and they hope that their efforts will inspire others to take better care of Beddau. They plan to complete a litter pick in Beddau very soon too! Well done Dosbarth Lime!

Christmas Jumper Day

Panto fun!

Street detectives 🕵️

This week we took to the streets once again but this time to investigate some of the jobs done in our local area! We started off the week by discussing jobs that our family members do and explored what certain job titles mean.
On Thursday we visited the shops in Beddau and found out about the job of a Pharmacist, shop keeper, Beautician and Barber. We were even invited in to the Barbers and had the opportunity to ask the Barber questions about his job.
We finished our detective work with a look around Spar and then collected salad boxes and seeds from Subway to enjoy when we got home. Diolch yn fawr i Subway and Mo’s Barbers!