Home Learning Newsletter
Ebbw Fawr Learning Community Primary Phase January 21
⭐️⭐️⭐️ Da iawn to all our home learning superstars! ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Blwyddyn Newydd Dda! Happy New Year to all our pupils and families. Although it has been a strange start to this year and school term we have been so impressed by the fantastic engagement and excellent work children have been producing.
It has been great to see so many children attending the daily Google Meet sessions and completing their daily tasks. We hope you are finding the teaching videos a useful support for tasks. Next week we are going to further develop the Google Meet sessions to include live teaching to help prepare you for the day’s tasks. Staff are really enjoying seeing the children everyday in these sessions and we hope that developing them will further support with home learning.
Thank you very much to all parents and carers who have been supporting their children with their learning at home. We fully appreciate that home learning is not easy for a variety of reasons and are so impressed with the levels of engagement and the work pupils are producing. We really appreciate all the effort you are making. We know it’s not easy for everyone to do all the tasks or to attend the google meet each day so anything you can do is great and will help with children’s learning. We know that most pupils cannot do home learning without parental support so thank you!
This newsletter will give you a snapshot of what all classes have been doing over the last two weeks and celebrate the great learning that has been taking place. I have also included some links to our school website and digital platforms which may be of use.
Remember there are lots of ways you can keep learning at home:
-Attend the daily Google Meet live teaching session
-Watch the daily teaching videos
-Complete as many of the three daily task as you can
-Work on our digital platforms like reading eggs and maths seeds
As ever if you need any support or help don’t hesitate to contact us via class dojo or phone. Stay safe and well.
Best wishes,
Mrs Llewellyn
Blended Learning at Ebbw Fawr
Digital Toolbox
Ebbw Fawr Learning Community
Email: Cllewellyn@ebbwfawr.co.uk
Website: www.ebbwfawr.co.uk
Location: Ebbw Fawr Learning Community (Primary Phase), Ebbw Vale, UK
Phone: 01495 357756
Facebook: facebook.com/ebbwfawr
Twitter: @ebbwfawr
Nursery Miss Griffiths and Mrs Jones
At Meithrin Ebbw Fawr we began the year by ‘Seizing the Season’, and the weather was perfect! We started by going on a winter walk, looking for signs of winter and to collect natural treasures. We put our chosen twigs, leaves and berries into a dish, topped it up with water then left it outside overnight. In the morning we couldn’t wait to find out what had happened to the water. We had made ice ornaments and are extremely pleased with the results, we found out lots of facts about ice and why it melts.
We listened to the stories The Winter Hedgehog, Ridiculous and Owl Babies, and discovered that some animals hibernate for the winter and some need help to find food. We made bird feeders and a cozy nest for Owl Babies and birds.
Through all the fun and learning that has taken place in our topic, children have continued to develop their knowledge of number and phonics through games, rhymes and lots of practical experience as well as developing ICT skills! Da iawn Meithrin!
Class 1 Miss Morris and Mr Morris
We have continued our daily structured tasks in Maths and English, whilst also including a daily fun challenge. In reception we recognise the importance of phonics and daily maths practise as such have continued to complete a weekly spelling test and pupils are enjoying using the Reading Eggs and Math Seed app to reinforce these skills at home.
We love seeing how hard everyone is working and receiving all of the brilliant work on Dojo. Whilst the children are doing fabulously, I would also like to thank the parents/carers for their brilliant input and assistance. We could not do it without you!
Class 2 Mrs Aggett and Mrs Boulter
Every morning we have our Google Meeting and it is so lovely to see everyone. Mrs Aggett posts videos and sets work for us to do.
We have really enjoyed listening to Mrs Aggett reading the Stick Man story. She sets us different activities to complete. We had to go outside and make a Stick Man using natural resources. We used ‘Wow!’ adjectives in our sentences, while remembering capital letters, finger spaces and full stops.
Mrs Aggett also sent us on an outdoor shape hunt. This was lots of fun and we found lots of shapes everywhere. We have also looked at number patterns and repeated patterns and completed lots of work.
Lots of us have posted videos of what makes us happy. This was fun! We have been saving lots of work on HWB too! We really enjoy the lovely comments our teachers make and like it when Mrs Boulter phones us to see how we are. Even though we are working hard every day we still miss playing with our friends and our teachers miss us too.
Class 3 Miss O’Connell and Miss Morgan
The children in Class 3 have had an awesome start to the term! Miss Morgan and I are very proud.
We start each day with a Google meet at 10am where we share news, say hi to our friends, answer questions, recap on our learning for the day and then finish with story time. We miss each other lots but this helps us stay in touch and see one another.
Our topic this week has been ‘Arctic Life’. The children have researched using the internet and have learned lots from the daily teaching videos. The children shared their facts and findings using J2write on Hwb and created posters. They enjoyed learning about the different types of animals that live in the Arctic and created fantastic Fact files. Their favourite bit of learning this week was carrying out a science experiment to find the warmest material for a scientist to wear while visiting the Arctic!
The Children in class 3 have done an incredible job learning their 2,5,10 times tables. They watched the teacher’s video daily to help them with the tasks and by the end of the week they were working out in a ‘Maths gym’. Getting fit while counting!
I’ve been blown away by the children’s winter poems this week. Together they worked as a class to create great word banks for senses in winter. We used these and added adjectives to create the most beautiful descriptions.
Da iawn pawb. Keep up the excellent work.
Class 4 Mrs Whitcombe and Miss Hughes
Class 4 love the daily meet and greet session where they can see their friends and join in a fun activity. We always have a family pet that makes an appearance. It was so much fun seeing the children drawing a picture following my verbal instructions! They are superb listeners and were able to create almost the same image as myself.
Class 4 are fully engaged learners and always eager to find out the next days tasks which makes the work so worthwhile.
Class 5 Mrs Skinner and Miss Kirby
I have also been so impressed by the children’s ability to work through their maths on Mymaths and by completing worksheets and writing out number sentences. They have been able to add and subtract different amounts of money as well as finding change. Our class have worked so hard and I am very proud of each and every one of them. Well done on a very productive, successful week.
Class 6 Miss Pearson and Mrs Winton
Home learning in class 6 has been hugely successful. We have had a very high number of children engage with Google Meet in the morning where we have had a topic for discussion. This has ranged from bringing our favourite Christmas decoration to discussing our pre-lockdown hobbies to what our luxury item would be on I’m a celebrity. Listening to each other’s ideas has opened up conversations and topics for debate such as should we be allowed electric items in camp? Leading to team work on who will bring portable chargers etc. We all really enjoy seeing each other every morning.
The work turned in to both Google Classroom and Class Dojo has been of a very high quality. We have had a range of activities from My Maths, spelling practise, extended writing and introducing our topic Aspirations. Every one of you has shown a great interest and researched well into your future job roles. In addition to this we have done weekly science investigations and this week looked at descriptive writing. The descriptions produced were so good that you can picture the scene and it feels as if you are stood along side experiencing the view. We then took this one step further and drew the view thinking carefully about shape, lines, shading and colour.
I have been blown away by the efforts of class 6 and the standard of work produced. You really are all home learning super stars, da iawn! ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Class 7 Mr Williams and Mrs Evans
In Class 7, we have recently started to look at our new 'Aspirations' topic that has allowed the children to identify what they would like to be when they are older.
We have also been looking at the effects exercise has on your heart rate. This has led to some amazing investigations and some brilliant videos of their exercises.
The children have also been creating descriptive writing using the views from their bedroom windows or a walk around their local area. The class has produced a range of electronic and practical work and we very much look forward to seeing what the children learn, investigate and create next week.
Class 8 Miss Keogh and Miss Macguire
Class 8 have been working extremely hard in all aspects of learning this term. The learners have engaged in Google meet in the morning and have engaged with questioning and reflection. The children enjoy all activities but have really enjoy the practical and hands-on activities.
This week we focused on fitness and the children designed a circuit of exercises. The children had to decide which part of the body they were going to work on and what the exercise would be. The children then completed their fitness circuit and uploaded them for us to see. Some of them looked very tricky but it was lovely to see the children participating, enjoying and being active.
In Maths we have been focusing on 2D and 3D shapes. The children thoroughly enjoyed shape hunting around their house and recording the shapes and the amount of shapes they found. They then used this information to create a graph using J2e.
We have just started our new topic ‘Aspirations’ and the children have loved researching the word Aspiration, sharing their job aspirations and reasons why. We have focused on key vocabulary to support this topic and will continue looking at job aspirations.
Welsh is an area of learning the children really enjoy we have a phrase of the week and have been working on sentence structure and writing about ourselves. We have been working on sharing opinions with reasons and building on our Welsh vocabulary.