AoLE

Humanities

Dosbarth Pinc - Where Do We Come From?

Pupil Voice

We received a mystery envelope containing some old photographs, Mr Urdd and the question 'Where Do We Come From?' The children decided that Mr Urdd must be asking us to find out where we come from. We looked at the old photographs and talked about what we could see, and where we think the pictures were taken. We considered the question 'Where Do We Come From?' and came up with ideas of what we could investigate.

We picked a photograph that was sent to us and completed an observational drawing. When we had finished we talked about what we know is different now, compared to the picture.

Questions about Wales.

After talking about where we come from we thought of questions that we wanted to find out about Wales. In pairs we used the Chromebooks to find the answers our questions and find the answer. We also learnt how to insert an image into a google doc.

We also used the Chromebooks to research facts about Wales that we found interesting, and then shared them with the class. Did you know...?

Our Locality

We began our topic by taking a walk around our locality and talking about how it had changed over the years. We paid particular attention to the types of houses that we could see. We then wrote about the type of house we live in, and completed a survey using j2e programme on Hwb.

Ble wyt ti'n byw?

St Fagans

We went on a trip to St Fagans. We visited the shop and completed a workshop finding out about the difference between shops now and from the 1920s. We also looked in the Rhyd-y-Car cottages and talked about how they houses had changed over the years. A visit to the school was "not fun" according to the children, as there were no toys, computers or colourful things.

When we got back to school we compared what we learned about in St Fagans to now. We all agreed we would rather live now than in the 1920s!

Cwmlai

After finding out about Wales and Tonyrefail, our locality, we decided we wanted to find out more about our school. Who better to ask than Mrs Jones, who has worked in our school for a long time, and was even a pupil at Cwmlai before she worked here! We thought of some questions that we wanted to ask her, and she visited the classroom to talk to us about Cwmlai and how it has changed over the years. Mrs Jones brought lots of old photographs for us to look at. We even managed to spot her in one when she was 8 years old and in our classroom!

We then took a walk around the outside of Cwmlai, looking at the changes to the building over the years. We completed observational drawings of the building and talked about the different parts.

Eisteddfod

We finished our topic by celebrating our school Eisteddfod. We researched Welsh artists Jenny Lambert (year 2 children) and Rhiannon Roberts (year 1 children), and recreated our own version of one of their paintings.

We also learnt the Welsh poem 'Glaw' for our recital, and wrote it out for a handwriting competition. The Foundation Phase then gathered in the hall for our Eisteddfod.

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Dosbarth Glas - Where Does Money Come From? Does It Really Grow On Trees?

Our topic this year began with a mystery coin being found in the classroom - it was the King Charles Commemorative Medal which we had received from the Royal Mint. The children took time to investigate the inscriptions upon the coin and wrote descriptions of what they saw. This sparked our pupil voice - here is an example of the questions the children put forward.

Our Thoughts

We designed our own book covers detailing our thoughts on meaning of the topic title.

Money is....

Then we brainstormed what money is and its uses.

Coin Designers

We created our own paper coins with a design of our choice.

From here we began exploring some of the questions the children came up with. We began to learn about the history of English money and designed our own coins, we learnt about banks, we visited Saint Fagans and explored the shop and old money - we had a circle time discussion on how shopping is so different these days. We looked at different types of coins and made our own clay coins - which was very messy!

We each chose a country and researched the currency, we made slides/posters and presented them to the class.

What We Learnt...

After our visit to St Fagans we wrote some of the key information related to our topic that we learnt.

The Royal Mint Trip

The children thoroughly enjoyed our trip to the Royal Mint. We participated in a 'Making Money' workshop where we learnt how to be a Medieval Minter, how money was made by hand and machine in the olden days and what was used before money. The children learnt how to convert old money to money we use these days and ordered a Kings and Queens timeline of coins.