Hope you all had a good half term. It was lovely to see the children back in school today, although we missed those that were absent. We will be continuing with our theme of 'Animals' until Easter. Over the next few weeks many of our stories and activities will be based around jungle animals.

Activities include:

• describing a jungle setting, the children will be encouraged to use descriptive words and sentences to describe jungle pictures


• problem solving - children will be given a set of elephants and will be encouraged to re-arrange the elephants and find all the different ways the elephants could go to the jungle party


• hot-seating - children will be encouraged to take on the role of a jungle animal and answer questions asked by other children


• creating jungle animal prints - children will look at pictures of animal prints and choose appropriate paint and tools to re-create the prints


• Group memory activity - this involves the children in a group looking at a picture in turn before attempting to re-create it by remembering what the picture looks like


• Circle time activity - children will have the opportunities to discuss why it is important to be kind to our friends


• Sorting jungle animals according to a set criteria before deciding on their own criteria

We will also be learning Welsh songs in preparation for St. David's Day next Thursday as well as making welsh cakes and learning about how Welsh kitchens have changed over the years.

Hope this information allows you an insight into what the children will be getting up to over the next two weeks, and that you can prompt the children at home when talking about what they have done in school.

May I also remind you, that along with theses activities all children take part in many writing activities (or pre-writing, depending on stage), reading, music, ICT and PE every week.

We have changed out morning routine. Instead of sitting all of the children down for milk and toast at the same time, we have split the children into groups and have a 'cafe' every morning. Each group of children will have two helpers, that will wear aprons whilst serving other members of the group. The purpose for this, is to encourage independence and choice. The children will have toast some mornings, although they will also have the chance to opt to have fruit. It worked well this morning, and we hope that as the children get used to the new routine it will become even more successful.

Snack money of £7 is now due - prompt payment would be appreciated.

PE days remain the same.

We are all looking forward to a busy and exciting half term. We have a visit from 'Jonathans Jungle Roadshow' to look forward to. The children will have opportunity to look at and hold some unusual animals. We also hope to visit Cefn Mabley Farm - more information on both to follow.

If anyone has any concerns please come in and see us.

Thanks for your support