Teddy Bears Picnic

What a wonderful day we have had today. It was our Teddy Bear's Picnic! Thank you to all of the Mums, Dads and Grandparents who sent in outdoor clothing and of course, a Teddy Bear. The day was a big success and the children enjoyed various outdoor activities. We played lots of games, did some outdoor art, made special woodland hats, listened to bear stories and went bug hunting! Of course we made sure that we made plenty of time for our picnic. The children and their bears enjoyed eating healthy Teddy Bear themed snacks and sharing a drink of milk.

I am really looking forward to the 'Animalympics' show tomorrow in school. I will post some pictures onto the blog of the creatures that we meet.
In the mean time, please enjoy these pictures of our Teddys Bears Picnic.

Hunting for Ted.

Playing a memory game.

Intrepid explorers.

Working as a team.

Enjoying some milk and a snack with our bears.

Performing a Teddy Bear song.

Going for Gold!

As our new class topic is 'Olympics 2012' we thought that it would be a good idea to invite a real Olympian into our school and class. We asked David Roberts CBE if he would be kind enough to join us for a question and answer session and we were delighted when he oblidged.
David joined us today and the children asked some questions that they had planned and some that were quite spontaneous (a list of which follows). I would like to thank David for being such a great sport and spending his valueable time with us in class. The children were thrilled that they had a chance to meet an Olympic medalist and also got to hold a real gold medal!

The questions that we asked David Roberts CBE
Have you got a medal?
How did you get a medal?
Did your teacher give you a medal?
Which Olympics have you been to?
How did you do?
Can you swim fast?
How fast?
Can you swim underwater?
What do you eat?
Is your medal shiny?
Is your medal gold?
Can you do a roly poly?
Which country are you from?
Can you run really fast?
Can you jump very far?
Do you have to train?
How long have you been training for the Olympics?
When do you train?
Are you strong?
Do you have a girlfriend?
Have you met the Queen?
What is the Queen's house like?
Where do you live?
What do you wear when you are swimming?
Do you get medals everyday?
Do you win everytime?

The children thought of all of these questions (and a few others) themselves. I think that they did a wonderful job of interviewing David! Da iawn pawb a diolch yn fawr iawn David.

Having a look at a gold medal!

Trying on a gold medal!

We asked plenty of probing questions.

*I hope to add a podcast of some of the interview within the next few days*

Llanharan Primary Olympics

A big 'Well done' to all of the children who competed in our annual sports day. We were very fortunate with the weather as it was warm enough to enjoy ourselves but cloudy enough to avoid too much sun and of course no rain. It was wonderful to see so many families and friends of the school at the event. We were lucky enough to have a real Olympian at the event and also an official torch bearer with her torch. It was really exciting!

Here we are beginning our opening ceremony procession.

                                   We had great seats! Right next to the track!

Ty Gwyn were the winners this year. Here are the house captains raising the trophy.

Photographs of our Ugly Bug Ball

(Not so) Ugly Bug Ball

We held our Ugly Bug Ball on Friday afternoon but there wasn't a single ugly bug in sight. The children were all far to beautiful to be ugly bugs! They looked wonderful! Thank you so much to the lovely parents who made such a fantastic effort. We had a really special, enjoyable day. We spent the morning perfecting our mini beast masks, playing games and taking part in guided reading sessions. The children were all incredibly excited by the afternoon. 


When it was time for the Ugly Bug Ball we all made our way to the hall where we were joined by Mr. Roberts Year 4/5/6 class. I would like to thank Mr. Roberts class for the wonderful bug stories that they wrote and read for us in custom made story tents. The children in Nursery and Reception love to spend time with the older children in the school and it was wonderful to watch all of the children working together so well. So, THANK YOU YEAR 4/5/6 and Mr Roberts! 


As well as listening to stories we also found time for face painting, some bug themed games and an Ugly Bug Parade. The whole school, including Mrs Price came to watch our parade. The children will soon be able to bring their masks home, they can't wait!


We also held our class assembly today on the topic of mini beasts. The children had only had a few practices of the assembly and I thought that they presented it very well indeed. I am very proud of all of the children, each one of them joined in with songs, poems, dances and acting - no mean feat for 3-5 year olds, especially in front of a whole hall full of people. What a fantastic class I have!


The recent events draw our topic of 'Wriggle and Crawl' to an end. I look forward to starting our new topic 'Happiness' after Easter.


Thanks for reading the blog!
Miss Rose

We Are Poets!

We have been very busy young people today in Nursery and Reception at Llanharan Primary School. We wrote a class poem together all about mini beasts! We also wrote our own individual efforts which describe our favourite bug. Miss Rose suggested that it would be nice to share our class poem with our parents and the world via our blog. So here it is...

Bugs

By  Nursery and Reception Class

Bugs have rainbow coloured spots,

Bugs drink sparkling nectar from fabulous flowers,

Bugs live in a tickly spiders's tummy,

Bugs taste delicious, mmm,

Bugs are twirly and swirly,

We love bugs!

Thank you for taking the time to read our poem. I hope to broadcast it as a podcast within the next few days. We will also be presenting the poem as part of our end of topic class assembly. I think that it is a rather wonderful piece of writing produced by our class of 3,4 and 5 year olds. Well done everyone, bendigedig! What do you think of our poem and blog? Please leave your comments and thoughts, diolch!

Useful links

A few parents asked for me to repost some links for ebooks and phonics guidance. They can all be found at http://llanharanps.wikispaces.com/Links

Parents Evening and Afternoon

Thank you very much to all of the parents who came in to school this week for parent/teacher meetings. I loved hearing all about what the children in Nursery and Reception get up to at home! It was also great to look back at how much the children have progressed since September, I am very proud of them all. As always, if you ever have any questions or comments my door is always welcome.
I am very excited to announce that we had out first rehearsal for our class assembly today, the children did really well and we can't wait to perform. I do not know when the assembly will be yet but will try to update everyone soon.
Thank you for your continued support,
Miss Rose.

Eisteddfod - Diolch!

A big thanks to all of the family members who turned up to cheer the children on in our St David's Day Eisteddfod earlier this week! I must say I thought it was a fantastic show, well done to all of the children who performed so brilliantly and behaved so well throughout. The children really showed that we might be a small school in size but we have more than our fair share of talent and heart! I felt very proud to be Welsh and I would imagine everyone else there did too! Thanks again to the parents who dressed the children so beautifully for the big day.
The song that Nursery and Reception performed was a lullaby called 'Heno, Heno'. This and some other lovely Welsh songs can be found and played at
 http://www.ngfl-cymru.org.uk/vtc/ngfl/2007-08/music/irf35/anim2.html
Congratulations to Ty Gwyn who were the wining house this year. The other houses put up a good fight and narrowly missed out on scooping the prize trophy. Perhaps next year will be a Ty Gwyrdd win or a Ty Coch. Don't forget to follow @llanharanps on twitter and myself @missrosetweets. You can have a peek at some great photographs of our Eisteddfod that were tweeted earlier this week.

Class Trip - Part 2

We had a fabulous time on our class trip today!  The weather wasn't too bad and we loved being outdoors. When we arrived, Gem (our guide) led us up to the beautiful log classroom where we learnt all about how to be safe in a woodland. We then went into the woodland where we conducted a caterpillar hunt (we found 13) went bug finding (we found woodlice, flies, snails, slugs, millipedes and many more) and then made our own mini beasts from mud! Most of the children loved getting messy and enjoyed showing off their muddy hands. We also made beautiful 'cookies'. 'Cookies' are small pieces of wood that can be decorated and made into necklaces. A big thank-you to the Forestry Commission and to Gem. Diolch yn fawr!

Here are some pictures of our muddy Monday out...

Here we are making our wooden necklaces

Off we go into the woodland to explore!

Gem told us all about the caterpillars that we found.

We all enjoyed looking for and collecting mini beasts.

Class Trip

I am awfully excited for our school trip tomorrow! We are off on a woodland adventure where we will hopefully find lots of mini beasts and perhaps help to create some homes for them. This trip fits in perfectly with our topic of 'Wriggle and Crawl'. We really are becoming insect experts in Nursery and Reception. The children will be creating their own podcast from the woods so be sure to check the blog again in a few days to listen!

'Wriggle and Crawl'

Our current topic in Nursery and Reception is 'Wriggle and Crawl'. We have been learning all about mini beasts and their habitats. Last week we went down to the amphitheatre and performed some creative movement. The children have been working on sequences of movement that are inspired by their favourite mini beast. Can you guess which bugs we are being?

Sponsored Bounce

The sponsored bounce took place last Friday. It was a fantastic whole school event that everyone thoroughly enjoyed! We all manned our space hoppers to find out how many bounces we could do within 2 minutes. I'm sure most of the children would have slept very well on Friday night, we were all worn out! A big well done to all of the children and a big thank you to all of the parents who offered their support. Diolch! (Pictures to follow)

Welcome to our blog!

Welcome to the brand new Nursery and Reception Blog! Miss Rose will be managing the blog for the children in Nursery and Reception although we will certainly be blogging as a class. This blog will keep you updated on the exciting things that we get up to in school  and will also be used to share class pieces of work eg. shared writing. Thank you for taking the time to look at our blog, we hope you enjoy it!