Nursery and Reception

Week Beginning 22nd April 2024

What a busy week we have had in Dosbarth Meithrin a Derbyn. This week, we used the musical instruments to create a piece of music inspired by 'Interstellar' by Hanz Zimmer. It was lots of fun! This week has been Wales Outdoor Learning Week and we spent a Health & Well-Being session outdoors in our beautiful garden. We created sensory potions in our mud kitchen and took care of our bug hotel.

In Reception, we have also began to write our newspaper reports based on the 1969 moon landing! They are looking fabulous and we are looking forward to reading them to our friends.

Week beginning 15th April 2024

We have had a lovely week in Dosbarth Meithrin a Derbyn this week. We started the week by reading the book 'Whatever Next'. We spent time talking about the events in the story and even sequenced them in order! We also spent time in our role play cafe where we used real money to pay for items!

Reception class booklet for Summer term 2024:

This booklet details what children will be learning this term and how parents can support their children's learning at home:

Reception Class Booklet Summer Term 2024.pdf

Nursery class booklet for Summer term 2024:

This booklet details what children will be learning this term and how parents can support their children's learning at home:

Nursery Class Booklet Summer Term 2024.pdf

Week Beginning 8th April 2024

We have had a wonderful first week back. We are very excited to get stuck into our new topic, which this term is Space. We started the topic by reading the non-fiction book 'Meet the Planets'. We discovered lots of amazing facts about the solar system and even created our own planets using paint and pippettes. The pippettes helped the colours to swirl together and create amazing effects!

Week Beginning 18th March 2024

This week we have continued our Easter rotation. We have hopped like bunnies, had fabulous fun with the parachute and had a great time looking for and describing the position of eggs on our Easter egg hunt!

Enjoy the Easter holidays everyone and Happy Easter!

Week beginning 11^th March 2024

This week we have started our Easter rotation! We have been exploring the use of pattern and making Easter cards. It is lovely to see how creative the children are, and how they have produced such individual interpretations of the task.

We have also been learning about positional language, and the Nursery children have all been singing the song, ‘Put Your Bean Bag on Your Head’.

All this language will be fantastic to use during our Easter Egg Hunt next week!

Week Beginning 4^th March 2024

This week has been all about Farmer Duck, "How goes the work?!

Miss Hood looked fabulous as the farmer, and the rest of the staff dressed up as farm animals. We had a cow, a farm dog, a pig and a barn cat!

We thoroughly enjoyed the stories and all the related learning activities on World Book Day. We read with other year groups in the hall, the Early Entitlement and Nursery children read with the Year 6 children. We also had a lovely treat when Miss Walford came to read a story to the Rec & Y1 children. A fabulous week, celebrating the joy of reading!

Week Beginning 26th February

This week we have been celebrating St. David's week. In school we have practised and learnt a Welsh Folk Dance and some Welsh Songs: Mr Hapus ydw i and Canu Roc a Rol. We also designed and made our own love spoons! Congratulations to the competition winners!

Week Beginning 19th February 2024

This week has been Safety Week and the EY children have been learning about Road Safety. We have read stories and learned a great song to help us remember!

We had lots of fun learning about crossing the road and keeping safe through our role play activities outside.

Week Beginning 5th February 2024

This week we moved away from farm animals and have focused our learning on arctic animals. We started the week by reading the book 'The Emperor's Penguin'. We became scientists for the day when we were tasked with freeing the emperor penguins from a block of ice. We made sensible predictions about how we could melt the ice carefully and what might work best. We used the egg timers to discover what might work the quickest. It was very interesting!

We did some penguin yoga and moved our bodies in lots of different ways. We waddled just like a penguin, and shuffled on our bellies like a penguin slides along the slippery ice! In our Language, Literacy and Communication lessons, we looked at the physical and characteristic features of emperor penguins, and thought of lots of new words to describe them. We really love the words majestic and regal. We think they describe an emperor penguin very well!

Have a lovely half-term everyone.

Home learning for 8th February 2024:

Y1 & Reception home learning 08.02.24.pdf

Week Beginning 29th January 2024

In our topic lessons this week we have spent time in our outdoor areas investigating all the micro-habitats on our school grounds. We also explored world habitats and discussed which types of animals would live in each one.

In Language, Literacy and Communication, we continued learning about poetry and rhyming words. The Reception children even worked together to write their own poem!.

Week Beginning 22nd January 2024

It has been yet another busy week in Meithrin and Derbyn. We continued with our focus of farm animals and discussed the various jobs that farmers do. We looked at the vegetables that are grown on farms and measured their length and weight using non-standard units. We also made our own butter! We made predictions about what might happen during the butter making process, and carefully observed as the liquid cream began to solidify and turn into butter. We then enjoyed eating the butter on crackers as part of our snack. It was delicious!

Have a lovely weekend everyone!

Week Beginning 15^th January 2024

This week we have started our learning rotation about farm animals. We read the book Farmyard Hullabaloo and considered animals that would live on a Farm. We have made animals for the Penarlag Farm role play area, carefully thinking about what materials, tools and resources to choose to create the effects that we wanted. We thought about good describing words and have used these in our play and in our writing.

In PE we created a farm with the large apparatus, moved in different ways to develop our balance and coordination skills.

Have a lovely weekend!

Class booklet for Spring Term 2024:

Nursery & Reception Class Booklet Spring Term 2024.pdf

Week Beginning 8^th January 2024

Happy New Year to all!

It has been lovely to see all the children again after the exciting Christmas break, and we welcome 3 new children to the Nursery.

This week we have been supporting the RSPB Big School’s Bird Watch 2024. We made bird feeders and placed them around the school grounds. We then took the binoculars we made and went bird watching! We saw quite a few birds, mostly Blackbirds and Herring Gulls, and had a fabulous time exploring the school grounds. Over the coming weeks we will continue watching for the different birds that visit out bird feeders and count them very carefully. We will then submit our results to the RSPB to support their research and help look after the birds.

This year we have also signed up to take part in the RSPB’s award scheme and will be trying our best to achieve the Bronze Award!

Have a lovely weekend!

Week Beginning 18th December 2023

Well it has been a busy but magical week in school. We had a visit from a very special visitor who gave us all a gift. We could hear his bells as he was on his way! We also had a wonderful party day. We enjoyed a Christmas breakfast, played games, did lots of disco dancing and watched a movie! Fun was had by all!

Reception ended 2023 with a trip to Rhyl to watch this years pantomime 'Jack & the Beanstalk'. Oh no we didn't!...Oh yes we did!

We wish all of our families a very Merry Christmas and a prosperous New Year!

Week Beginning 11^th December 2023

It has been a very busy week this week. We have had three days of our Christmas performance ‘The Christmas Tree Nativity’. One performance for all the children in school and two performances for families. The children were fabulous! With lots of smiles and beautiful singing, they really did give it their all, with a lot less time for rehearsals than in previous years.

This Friday we also held our Christmas Fair, the lucky dip and Christmas tattoos were very popular.

Thank you to all the families of Penarlâg for your support! Have a lovely weekend.

Week Beginning 4th December 2023

This week, Christmas has most definitely arrived! The learning areas have been transformed by Christmas magic and everything glitters or sparkles! The children have enjoyed writing Christmas cards, wrapping presents, making paper chains and even creating Christmas sand castles!

We have enjoyed reading the book ‘Jesus’ Christmas Party’, re-enacted parts of the story in the role play area, retold the story and even wrote parts of the story with our own twist!

It has also been a pleasure to welcome visitors to the school this week, and the children have been only too happy to tell them all about their learning and life at Penarlâg!

We look forward to welcoming families to school next week to watch our Christmas performance ‘Christmas Tree Nativity’; have a lovely weekend!

Week Beginning 27th November 2023

Oh what a wonderful week we have had in school! We started our Christmas play rehearsals and we have been ever so excited to show off our acting skills! We know it takes a lot of courage to stand on a stage in front of an audience. We cannot wait for you to watch our performance!

Penwythnos hapus pawb!

Week Beginning 20th November 2023

This week we have taken photographs of our paintings and with a little help, we have emailed them to Glenys (on Purple Mash!). We have been outside observing the trees, (That means looking very carefully!) to see which ones still have leaves on. We have made some rubbings of the tree bark. We finished our Autumn learning cycle by choosing outdoor activities to complete. Some of us made leaf crowns, some went on a scavenger hunt, some looked for bugs and some even made homes for elves!

Next week we will be beginning our rehearsals for our Christmas performance, how exciting!

Week Beginning 13th November 2023

This week we have been learning all about the Welsh artist Glenys Cour and her painting Gower Autumn VI. Glenys mixes colours to create feelings and moods. We have created our own paintings called Autumn and also created a painting on a topic of our own.

Mrs Morris had to email and ask Glenys permission to use an image of her painting, Gower Autumn VI. Glenys said "Yes, of course, but only if you send me some images of your work."

We are really looking forward to learning more about emails next week!

Week Beginning 6th November 2023

It has been great to be back in school this week!

This week we went on an Autumn Walk as the starting point to lots of learning activities we are doing. It was a fabulous way to start our topic rotation!

Week Beginning 9th October 2023

This week we have continued our Toys topic by learning about games! We have played a colour matching & mixing game and practised counting when we played the Spotty Dog game. We all had a fabulous time and learnt lots about taking turns.

Week Beginning 2nd October 2023

This week, we read the lovely story 'I love you Blue Kangaroo'. As part of our Creative lessons, we talked about the colour of Blue Kangaroo and other toys. We learnt about the special primary colours red, blue and yellow. We explored mixing the colours and discovered how to make orange, purple and green!

We also learnt about the different materials that our toys can be made from. We talked about some being hard, soft, bendy, rough and smooth! Then we went on a hunt outside and in the classroom to see what different materials we could find.

Week Beginning 25th September 2023

Our class story this week has been Goldilocks and the Three Bears and all of our learning activities have based on this story.

We have counted bears in our Maths activity, made the three bears in our creative work and even created movements to the story in our PE session!

We also had a fabulous time in our Wriggle moves session. This week we focussed on the 'up' movement. We held our Flipper Flappers and pushed our arms up and up and up! We pushed rice up, drew up and even gave out writing muscles a good work out singing and dancing to the song 'The Only Way is Up'! It really was great fun!

Week Beginning 18th September 2023

This week the Nursery and Reception children have had their first 'Fine Motor Thursday' session in the Hall. We enjoyed threading, peg boards, puzzles, drawing and building towers!

We have been learning about the sound 's' and singing the song 'The Snake is in the Grass'; hopefully lots of families will get to hear their children singing the song this weekend! We thought of lots of things beginning with the sound 's', but our favourite was definitely 'smelly socks'!

Class booklet for the Autumn Term 2023:

This booklet contains information about what your child/ren will be learning and how you can help at home.

Nursery & Reception Class Booklet Autumn Term 2023.pdf

Week Beginning 11th September 2023

This week the Nursery Children started school, and it was lovely to have them all in school on Friday. They have all settled really well and thoroughly enjoyed playing in all of our learning areas. So far, the outdoor area is definitely a favourite!

This week the Reception children have really settled into the full time school routine and have been excellent helping the Nursery children to settle. They have been busy working hard practicing their pencil grip. We have been writing the letter 'o' in lots of ways and tried hard to start at the top and go round anti clockwise.

Week Beginning 4th September 2023

It has been wonderful to welcome back the Reception children this week! We have had a lovely week and all of the children have settled in really well.

We are still getting used to our new cloakroom and going into the hall for our school dinner, but all the children really enjoy playing on the 'Big Yard' at lunch time!

Next week will be another exciting week as we look forward to welcoming the Nursery children.

Week Beginning 10th July 2023

What a fantastic week it has been in Early Years! On Tuesday, Reception went on their trip to the Seaquarium in Rhyl and Nursery enjoyed a Teddy Bears Picnic.

Week Beginning 3rd July 2023

This week in Early Years we have been focusing on 'time'. We have been learning to order the days of the week and use the vocabulary today, yesterday and tomorrow. We have also been discussing how long activities take and spent time sequencing our daily events correctly. We used the egg timers to count how many jumps we could do in 1 minute and how many we could do in 3 minutes!

Week Beginning 26th June 2023

This week we have all had a lovely time outdoors together!

We have continued to look after our plants in the garden areas, and been amazed at how much they have grown since the Spring! The mint and rosemary in our sensory garden smell fabulous!

We have all finished making our own hermit crab shell homes, and each and every one is so different!

We also had a great time working and moving together with the parachute. Another busy week in Early years!

Week Beginning 19th June 2023

Well done to all of our children who took part in our Sports Day! The children have been busy practising for the events and did themselves proud on the day. We were very proud of them.

This week, we also participated in the Race for Life and all of the children received a medal. Thank you for all of the sponsor money we have received.

Da iawn pawb!

Week Beginning 12th June 2023

This week we have read the story A House for Hermit Crab. Just like in the story we are creating our own shell homes! We have created lists of what we need, collected items from outside and around the EY Unit to decorate our homes, and described and explained our choices. Look out next week for some pictures of the final results!

Week Beginning 9th June 2023

This Friday we had lots of fun at our Summer Fair! We had a Lucky Dip, where everyone won a prize! We also had 'Find the Golden Carrot' game, the children looked carefully to guess which one was the golden carrot, and if they were right, they won a prize! The tattoos were very popular too! What a lovely afternoon we all had!

Week Beginning 22nd May 2023

This week we have been learning how to create an algorithm using the Bee Bot. We have been using lots of directional language when instructing the Bee Bot.

Oh no! We need to de-bug! There were times when we gave Bee Bot the wrong instruction. We worked together to de-bug and try again! It was lots of fun and we even created our own Bee Bot mat.

Week Beginning 15th May 2023

This week we have been lucky to enjoy such lovely weather! All of the EY children have enjoyed taking part in a Forest School session. We have enjoyed mark-making, painting, planting and making potions in our outdoor kitchen!

Week Beginning 8th May

It may have only been a four day week but Early Years have been extremely busy! We read the story 'The Rainbow Fish' which we used to help us talk about how to be a good friend. We created portraits of our friends using natural materials from our garden and discussed what makes each of us a good friend. We also spent time in our garden planting seeds and discussing how things grow in Spring. We are excited to see how our seeds change over the coming weeks!

Nursery have been busy developing their fine motor skills and doing lots of fantastic mark making! They have been getting their groove on all week doing lots of dancing and arm movements as part of our early writing scheme 'Wiggle while you Squiggle'! It is lots of fun for both the children and the teachers! Reception were overjoyed to receive a post card in the post from some friends who visited the Seaside! They have been busy this week writing one back to tell them all about their week at Penarlag!

Have a lovely weekend.

Mrs Morris, Miss Hood and the Early Years Team.

Week Beginning 1st May 2023

This week has been a very special week in Early Years celebrating the coronation of King Charles III. We have learned all about him and made our own crowns! In our Maths lessons, we have been completing surveys and recording our data using a tally chart. We want to find out what the most popular piece of fruit is. We will use this data to order our snack from the farm shop over the coming weeks.

We hope you all have a lovely weekend!

The Early Years Team.

28.04.23

Spring has Sprung!

This week is Outdoor Learning Week. All of the Early Years children have been exploring the school grounds looking for signs of Spring, and noticing how our environment changes with the seasons. We noticed flowers, bugs, creatures and the leaves beginning to grow on the trees. Our favourite change was our Forest School area. It was lovely to see the blossoms on the trees!

Early years class booklet for Summer term 2023:

Early Years Class Booklet Summer Term 2023.pdf

Friday 21st April

In Reception this afternoon, we enjoyed a fantastic P.E lesson led by Year 5. They have been teaching us a variety of skills ready for our Sports Day!

Friday 21st April

This week in Early Years we have been reading the poetry book 'Commotion in the Ocean'. We have enjoyed learning all about rhyme and have played lots of rhyming word games! Our new topic this term is 'Beaches and Seas'. In our Science lesson, we attempted to create our own waves! We carefully followed a sequence of instructions to help us create the waves and discussed what might happen during each stage! We also created some beautiful art work using a technique we had not used before. We used a little food colouring, bubble mixture and wands to create bubble art! They reminded us of under the sea bubbles. In our Maths lessons, we have been learning about repeated patterns.

It has certainly been a busy first week back and everyone should be very proud of themselves and the effort they have put into their learning!

Have a lovely weekend.

Mrs Morris & Miss Hood.

Thursday 20th April

This afternoon Reception had a visit from Will at Techno Camp. Will taught us about algorithms and even brought along his friend Sandwich Bot! We had to instruct Sandwich Bot to make a marmalade sandwich. We thought carefully about our instructions before instructing Sandwich Bot. However, we did get it wrong on one occasion and Sandwich Bot ended up with a butter tub on his head! But we worked together to de-bug and get it right. Thank you Will for a fantastic afternoon!

WB 27.03.23

This week we have been using positional language and learning all about Easter. We have explored using plaster of paris to make Easter eggs and made predictions about what would happen. We had great fun experimenting with marbling inks making our Easter cards and we even went on an Easter egg hunt!

Have a lovely Easter holiday!

From the Early Years Team.

Easter Week

Week Beginning 20th March 2023

In Reception this week we have been reading The Angel and the Dove. It is a story about Easter and new beginnings. Together we thought of actions to re-tell the story which helped us to write it ourselves!

Week beginning 13th March 2023

This week we have been reading The Very Hungry Caterpillar. We have retold the story, made log piles for mini beasts and learnt all about reflective symmetry. We worked together to write a diary of what the Hungry caterpillar ate each day of the week and created our own dance!