What a fantastic start to the New year! We have started our topic of 'Splendid Skies' and we immersed ourselves into it by welcoming Will and his barn owl Whisper - we were able to ask questions and Will informed us of some key facts and inspired us to delve deeper into nocturnal and diurnal animals. Our literature of 'White Owl, Barn Owl' also helped to want to learn even more about these beautiful creatures. Take a peek at all of our learning...

Will and Whisper

Will is a dear friend of our school and he brought in Whisper his barn owl to engage us in our topic.  We were able to ask some enquiring questions and we learnt so much.  Will will also be visiting again in Spring 2 to bring some very special eggs for us!  Diolch Will and Whisper  

LLC - Literature, Welsh and Phonics

We have loved our literature book by Nicola Davies of 'White Owl, Barn Owl'  We have looked at non fictional and fiction books and we were also able to extract some accurate fiction from the narrative that Nicola has written about.  We used expressive arts to help us re-tell  the story and through the story we were able to extract some beautiful adjectives which we built upon and we then wrote a class poem and our own poems.  We have of course been working on our handwriting - we love our ribbon dance on a Monday and we are perfecting our cursive handwriting.  This half term we have been active learners and learnt our tricky words through playing musical handwriting, musical balloon catching and of course a run around the gym! We really are very happy and engaged learners! 

 

 

Expressive Arts

We have used our literature book to explore different fabrics and materials to make our own owl puppet - we then used our puppet to re-tell the wonderful story. We have also used music to help us with different tones and volumes - understanding the silence of the barn owls wings too - this was a little tricky at times! We did try and pass the tambourine around the circle in silence...it was rather tricky!  We have mixed paint to create lighter and darker shades and used this to make our native birds.  We also used collage techniques to make the white owl in our story.  We are beginning to understand the different parts of the paint brush make different strokes - we are taking our time to perfect our work.  

Humanities

During 'Children's Mental Health' week we talked all about 'belonging'.  This gave us the opportunity to talk about where we live, what is important, and we used Google Maps to help us show us special places in our community.  During this half-term we have also discussed habitats and especially the habitats of our native birds – we loved spying the birds and feeding them too, and we are beginning to understand the natural elements where they like to live.  

Health & Well-Being

Fresh air is something we love to 'drink' in the Flamingos class! We LOVE being outside, and we have explored our school grounds whilst looking for signs of nocturnal and diurnal animals .  Our PE sessions this half-term have evolved from dance to performing our moves in front of our friends...we, of course, have kept up our endurance – after all, we have to keep up with Mrs D!  We love our circuits, balances and have also developed the skill of target throwing – something we are very enthusiastic about! We have continued to talk daily about the importance of hydration, with some of us ditching the squash and having water in our water bottles – this has earned us dojos! We discussed our favourite healthy fruits and during 'Children's Mental Health' week we talked about where we belong and how both our families and our wonderful community ensure we feel loved and belonged.

Science & Technology 

We have a class pet!!  Well, a code-e -pillar!  He is called 'Connor' and we give him clear instructions, and we can send him to say hello to our friends! Although, we did get in a little pickle this week when we put our class Draig mascot in the middle of our rug and Connor had to be directed around Draig! We had to overcome the problem together!  We discussed habitats, and we made our own Owl habitat – we ensured it had a safe place to sleep, somewhere to bring up their young and some food...which we searched for!  We looked at flight and the wing span of our favourite native birds – we then had our own birds to fly - wow they soared! We have been busy finding out lots of data from our friends and our neighbouring classes – we are quite nosey to be honest! We have begun learning how to tally accurately and how to direct the turtle on JIT.  Busy, busy! 

Maths and Numeracy

We have been busy learning some key facts all about  our native birds - we looked at the wing span from our tiny native robins to the red kites that we see soaring above our school.   We also flew our own 'birds' and measured the distance with our giant footsteps - we then also used a metre stick and measured as accurately as we could.  We have also been looking at representing numbers and addition and subtraction.  We are really becoming experts at doubling - just ask us!