Croeso!

What busy bees we have been! We’ve finished the term with a real focus on Cynefin — exploring our sense of place, belonging, and community. The children loved learning about Penclawdd, spotting human and physical features in our local area, and thinking about what makes our community special. Through RVE, we explored celebrations, traditions, and important events, including Anti-Bullying Week, Remembrance, Advent, and Universal Children’s Day. The children shared thoughtful ideas about feelings, kindness, and respect, helping them develop an understanding of different beliefs, values, and experiences. 

According to our learners, the most memorable part was of course our amazing 'Jingle All the Way' sing-song with our fantastic families and community. What a 'SEALLY' fun but busy term!

Literacy, Languages and Communication

Literacy learning this term has focused on recounts, inspired by our exciting trip to the cinema to watch Dog Man. The children created story maps, practised orally retelling the trip using time connectives (first, next, after that, finally), and completed an oracy task using their individual story maps to aid their speaking. Many children used actions, expression, and descriptive language to help bring their recounts to life. I was so inspired by the children that we are working on getting a microphone in so the whole of Penclawdd might hear some fantastic oracy! Look out! 

In SPaG, we worked on:

• using capital letters and full stops correctly (at the start of sentences, names, places, end of sentences etc)

• identifying and using nouns / verbs

• Identifying past and present words and how suffixes change them

• improving sentences by rereading and editing

Phonics sessions run daily, with children blending sounds, spelling words using taught patterns, completing sound hunts, tricky word games, and roll-and-read activities. This truly is our foundation in Sealions class. We experienced the past to present time-machine to continue learning about powerful verbs  and even developed our very own SPAG superheroes to help to remind us of the correct placements. 

In Welsh, the children explored local vocabulary linked to where we live, recreated Welsh landmarks using construction materials, and played traditional Welsh playground games. We have also explored descriptions in Welsh - designing our very own paper plate Welsh heroes that describe them! We have also explored days of the week, months of the year, birthdays and clothing. Our Helpwr Heddiw slot has really taken off - with children practicing Welsh orally daily and becoming 'Cymraeg experts' under the guidance of our fantastic Criw. 

French lessons focused on recognising and using simple animal vocabulary through songs and games. We truly have multilingual experts in our midst!

 

Mathematics and Numeracy

In Maths, the children worked hard to build confidence with numbers through practical, hands-on activities. Year 1 focused on counting forwards and backwards, ordering numbers to 20, finding one more and one less, and exploring tens and ones using whole–part models. Using a plethora of manipulatives, they have worked so hard on expanded their reasoning skills (their favourite saying is "let me tell you why Miss B!" and have utilised their knowledge of 2D shapes and 3D shapes to make beautiful patterns and even help identify presents by shape for Santa! 

 Year 2 developed their understanding of addition and subtraction, solved two-step word problems, and worked with money using pounds and pence. The cockle shop has never had such fast customer service - with Year 2 being able to give change and calculate costs using a number of strategies.

We have even created tally charts practically and digitally after counting and identifying the number of homes in Penclawdd before sorting them into categories. 

Across the term, the children enjoyed number hunts, maths games, Christmas-themed challenges, and applying their skills through role play in the cockle shop and Santa’s wrapping station, using money, measuring, and positional language in meaningful contexts. 

 

Health and Wellbeing

Health and Wellbeing has been woven throughout our learning this term. In PE, the children practised a range of skills including throwing, catching, balancing, football skills, yoga, and dance, learning how to move safely and work together. Our football skills have really taken shape! 

We also took time to focus on emotional wellbeing, celebrating Mental Health Day with a cosy cup of tea and a chat, and discussing friendships and kindness during Anti-Bullying Week.

We often enjoy our mini-excursions to the garden to get our hands dirty by caring for our vegetables and thrive when outside in outdoor learning! 

 

Expressive Arts

We’ve been getting creative in lots of different ways this term! We visited the Tabernacle and sang as part of our Harvest festival. The children created images inspired by the artist Emma Cowrie - an artist who 'walks and draw'. Due to the weather, we took a virtual walk around Penclawdd and took snapshots of our favourite parts. Using Emma's technique of sketching, then applying acrylic paint in layers to find our colour and texture. We also designed Welsh-identity collages and Welsh heroes to aid our Welsh learning. They also took part in music activities inspired by sea animals and ocean sounds and enjoyed performing poems and sharing their work with others. Children also participated in a drumming session!

Role play, including cinema scenes and the cockle shop, allowed the children to express ideas, emotions, and imagination confidently through drama and play. Our visit to the cinema also inspired lots of comic books and Dogman inspired art!

 

Not to forget, we also performed in our show Jingle All The Way and had oodles of fun performing for our wonderful families!

Science and Technology

This term, we’ve been exploring both the physical and digital world. In Science, the children investigated everyday materials, learning about properties such as waterproof, strong, flexible, and absorbent. They tested materials and applied their learning through junk modelling activities. Using our fantastic business building models made at home, we wondered: Which material would make the best material for a Penclawdd home?. Through hands on investigation, we identified which materials have specific properties, which float, sink, are magnetic, are strong, are opaque/transparent and wrote our conclusions. We then used this to inspire our own Fantasy town. 

In Technology, the children developed their ICT skills by learning how to be kind and safe online and using digital tools such as J2Blast and J2data. Technology was also used to support learning across the curriculum through interactive games and creative tasks. We have been learning about what it means to be a good digital citizen and how to keep safe online. We have created posters on the 3 core rules of online safety and learnt about the differences between private and personal information. More importantly, we have truly explored the importance of ownership and caring for the items we have (for example - keeping passwords safe and safely charging laptops/iPads). We know the importance of adding the date and our name to our work to avoid plagiarism! 

We have also become sphero/beebot experts this term. We programmed our equipment using positional language to help navigate around our classroom 'Penclawdd!'. We then transferred this knowledge to Turtle online - using knowledge of directions to move around different maps. 

 

Humanities

In Humanities, we have further explored our local area using positional language and mini-maps. We continue to become global citizens as we talk about Black History Month and furthered our knowledge of Martin Luther King and how we can act safely and fairly. In RVE, we have learnt about ethical veganism and the story of Advent and what it means to Christians. We created Christingle.