It has been a very busy first term of 2026!! We have welcomed new faces into the Penguin family! It has been a joy to see the children be so kind and caring towards our newest friends! We returned to school refreshed and ready to head into the new year with happiness and positivity! 

Literacy

LOVE has been the talk of the classroom this half term! Love is definitely all around in Dosbarth Meithrin! We have been making love cards for our special people in our lives, love potions and love messages! Our writing wall and proud cloud are bursting with so many wonderful creations already this year! We have also been learning about the value of love, and why we love people and why people love us. We begin to recognise the positives in us and what we can do to show people we love them. 

We have thoroughly enjoyed our phonics sessions too, with interesting sound walks around the school and hunting for different sounds in the classroom. We are beginning to embed a real sense of sound knowledge which is imperative for future phonetic learning. 

 

Numeracy

Numbers are always popular in nursery – especially if there is a birthday! The children are keen to know what the number looks like, what number is before and after it. The children are always keen to try and write numbers and often follow prompts to do so. 

Numeracy within the classroom is evident. The water play has become very popular this month – possibly to do with our Penguin Day! Children use rich language such as empty, full, pour, heavy, light, all whilst finding a home for penguins to live in. Love potions have also been popular with different colours and smells for special potions for special people. Again, the children use rich vocabulary during these independent activities. Staying on the love theme – bracelets have been a reoccurring interest and the children have spent lots of time making and threading some gorgeous jewellery. Some follow a pattern too. 

The children are also very keen to build and create. This helps the children to recognise differing sizes and shapes. They love to use magnetic blocks and Lego to create wonderful buildings! 

 

Science

We have been in the kitchen quite a lot already this year! We love making delicious snacks for our treats. Each time, we make something different, and it opens up conversations about why we use certain appliances for different things. Why we need heat, for example, and other times, why we might need ice. We have also had discussions about turning a liquid into a solid and how temperature can help to do that! The children were amazed! "It's like magic!"

 

During our Penguin Day, the penguins were stuck on the ice!! We needed to free them and get them to safety, but how?! What would help melt the ice? We had lots of discussions and ideas – cold water, hammer, warm water. We tried them all and guess what? The warm water worked the best!