Class 4H Cefn Fforest

Miss King visits Cefn Fforest Primary

2009-01-05T11:54:00.001-08:00

Cefn Fforest
Originally uploaded by allanah_k

On Monday 5th January 2009, Miss King and Mini-Dylan came to visit the pupils from Cefn Fforest Primary who had begun the conversation with their friends 13,000 miles away at Appleby School, Nelson New Zealand.
It was a chance to actually say hello face to face rather than over a Skype line with 11 hours difference between each other - actually to meet in the same time zone was fantastic.
Cuddly Kiwi who has many adventures since arriving back in 2006 and has been much loved was handed back to Miss King for his journey back home - we hope to keep up with him when he returns to the classroom in February...... in New Zealand.
After a good walk around the school looking at the excellent displays Miss King and Mr Harrington left on their journey to Caerphilly Castle where it snowed!

Season's Greetings to all

2007-12-29T12:49:00.000-08:00

As part of Sharon Toner's Voices of the World Project, in which children from all over the world record messages in their mother tongues ( not easy in Welsh, as we learn it as a second language!!) - we recorded ourselves for December singing 'Jingle Bells', we decided to Voki it ..... enjoy

Get a Voki now!

For the previous month's task we were to record Twinkle Twinkle Little Star-we found it near impossible to find a translation, as a result we present a slightly bi-lingual version of Twinkl Twinkl Seren Fach !!!

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Thank You to Voices of the World for giving the pupils of Cefn Fforest Primary School the chance to take part in this great collaborative project :-)

A new start for Year 4 in 2008

2007-12-19T15:49:00.000-08:00

As of this Friday (21st December 2007) Mr Harrington will be leaving Cefn Fforest Primary School, after 19 years at the school this will obviously be a big change, not one taken lightly.

Mr H would like to thank all his current class of Year 4 pupils for their willingness to go on the online journey this year with him, and he is sure that you will continue this with your new teacher in January 2008.

This blog will be kept live for a few months, as Mr H is interested in knowing how those embarked on the Myst3 Exile game are getting on - Mr H will post when he completes the game also...... always remember the most important part of any school is not the building, the teachers or, the pupils .................... but the school as a whole community working for each other....................keep blogging.

Mr H signing off. ( for now!)

Myst III The mystery continues.....

2007-12-07T12:07:00.000-08:00

In Class 4H we have had a double helping of Myst 3 Exile this week. Due to some additional time in the curriculum as we head towards Christmas, we squeezed in 2 Myst sessions this week.
We agreed many of our moves collaboratively as we explored the world called J'nanin. Above you can see the book that we found inside the tusk which we had to roll the barrel into. The book is called AMATERIA ( it has a distinctive bird design on the cover) we had to work out the combination for a lock first, in order to allow the book to come down for us to look at it.Above you can see a view of the Amateria landscape, it is quite different from the bleak island of J'nanin... several pupils thought it appears have a Chinese feel with many red wooden structures connected by gangways and paths.
We explored Amateria for as long as we could today ..... we were distracted from our set task today, to find out if the tusk with the light gather in front of it contains a book also!Mr Harrington has been doing his own research on this particular tusk - above you can see the tusk door with the coloured lights shining on it. On the door are 5 buttons they have to be pressed in the correct order and you may get inside, if you are lucky!
The order of the buttons is the order in which the lights link is shown below-
yellow
blue
green
red
yellow
purple
red
Take a look at the book inside and visit a new island (or age!).... good luck and we will meet to discuss how you get on on Monday.

Who in the World is looking at us in Cefn Fforest?

2007-12-05T12:52:00.000-08:00

The above map depicts: 1,355 visits from 28 Apr 2007 to 18 Nov 2007

This map is normally updated daily (latest: 2007-11-18 07:33:17 GMT)

Sadly in school due to Caerphilly CBC's blocking we cannot see where our blog visitors come from as our ClustrMap is unavailable to us. However this is our most recent map. showing not only that we have had 1,355 visitors since we started on 28th April 2007, but more importantly showing the spread of visitors from around the globe to our small classroom here in the South Wales valleys.
To anyone sceptical about the use of blogging just consider the worldwide 'real audience' that we have for the news and views that we post from our classroom - now that is truly mind blowing.... we hope that Cefn Fforest Primary School will keep on blogging and podcasting in the New Year, after all we do have people out there who follow what we are doing :-)

2 New Voki's

2007-12-05T12:41:00.001-08:00

We are part of the Voices of the World Project, started by Sharon Toner from The High School in Dundee. There are now 55 teachers from around the world embarked on monthly projects in which our pupil's voices are heard, many speaking in their own languages. We have recently added 2 contributions - ( a late entry to November- Twinkle Twinkle Little Star -Twinkle Twinkle Seren Fach which we sadly failed to translate into Welsh )

Get a Voki now!

Also we have recorded our December contribution which is Jingle Bells ( also a voki - also recorded in English rather than a complicated Welsh translation!)

Get a Voki now!

NADOLIG LLAWEN A BLWYDDYN NEWYDD DDA

MYST III

2007-11-30T12:36:00.000-08:00

We are at present in the middle of an investigation of Myst III The Exile. Over the past 4 weeks we have been using the strange world of Myst's parallel times to help with our creative writing and also our exploration skills.

We have been into the 'tusk' you can see above - going up in the lift to the room at the top , after re-arranging the lift controls.
We saw again the person who stole 'RELEESHAHN' in this room before he teleported again. He told us strangely that he had reset the 3 symbols needed to take us further.Mr H has had a Myst evening (Friday) and has the following information for the pupils who have been so keen that they have gone out and bought their own copies of the software ( at between £3 and £5 excellent value).

* Go back up into the room at the top of the tusk - each of the 3 lights when you approach will allow you to focus on a tusk and fit a symbol into the panel each tusk door (1 for each of the 3)
* Outside focus each of the colour topped lenses - now go back to the point near the shore where you turn the control until the sunlight is focussed onto the sender unit - When yo go to the tusk door with the focus device in front of it now it should be coloured by a rainbow of light from each of the lenses.

That's all for now.... more later.....

Henry Tudor and his wife.

2007-11-18T15:05:00.000-08:00

A new video podcast from Class 4H at Cefn Fforest Primary School. This video shows a finger puppet show linked to our study of The Tudors.
Teigan and Daryl spent two sessions carrying out their own research on the internet before planning and filming their presentation

Well done Teigan and Daryl.

Kingswear Primary School - Halloween Poems

2007-11-15T12:00:00.000-08:00

Some friends of ours down in the West Country have produced a wonderful array of Halloween Poems - give them a listen they are fab :-)

Click here to get your own player.

Cefn Fforest Podcast Y4

2007-11-13T06:26:00.000-08:00

Cefn Fforest Year 4 began podcasting this afternoon. Mr Harrington finally remembered to set up his laptop and load up Audacity for Maia and Shayana - hopefully this is the first of a series of podcasts this term. Watch this space.....

VisuWords Dictionary

2007-11-08T12:44:00.000-08:00

VisuWords have come up with an excellent tool for the writer - an online Dictionary/Thesaurus - it is brilliant for searching out interesting words to put in your creative writing.

It works by building in front of your eyes a linked network of related words - it is inspirational, go and check it out, it's well worth the effort.

Moturoa's Money, Money, Money Voicethread

2007-11-05T16:15:00.000-08:00

Cuddly Kiwi's Welsh Adventure Voicethread

2007-11-05T16:10:00.000-08:00

We would like it very much if you add comments to our Voicethread.

Miriam shares her voice with The World

2007-11-04T07:39:00.000-08:00

This was posted by our friends at Appleby School near Nelson, New Zealand last week and contains Miriam singing - a Star in the making. Follow the link above to Appleby Airwaves podcasts.
"Miriam Shares Her Voice
Today for our homework we shared the music that we like- either talking about it, listening to it, playing it or singing it.

We all knew that Miriam took singing lessons but we had never heard her sing before. Today she brought along a CD that she had recorded with her singing teacher.

We knew real talent when we heard it. Awesome, Miriam. Thank you for sharing your voice with us."

The Tudors

2007-11-02T06:57:00.000-07:00

King Henry VII

Why not get one step ahead of your friends and visit the Tudor Research Pages created here by Mr Harrington.... get up to speed ahead of the rest, find out your Tudor Tasks for the next few weeks and get your research going... good luck and we will all meet again on Monday 5th November ( the night of a Stuart related incident!)

Spell and Donate

2007-10-31T03:32:00.000-07:00

At Free Rice you can not only test your spelling ability but donate Rice to those worse off than your self through the United Nations Food Programme.

About FreeRice

FreeRice is a sister site of the world poverty site, Poverty.com.

FreeRice has two goals:

Provide English vocabulary to everyone for free.
Help end world hunger by providing rice to hungry people for free.

This is made possible by the sponsors who advertise on this site.

Whether you are CEO of a large corporation or a street child in a poor country, improving your vocabulary can improve your life. It is a great investment in yourself.

Perhaps even greater is the investment your donated rice makes in hungry human beings, enabling them to function and be productive. Somewhere in the world, a person is eating rice that you helped provide. Thank you.

Go on test yourself and help others less well off than yourself as you do it ....

Cuddly Kiwi's new friend

2007-10-21T15:24:00.001-07:00

To all of our friends at Appleby School, New Zealand ( and Miss King - welcome back ). Just to let you know that in the hustle and bustle of a new school year, we haven't forgotten about you - in fact Cuddly Kiwi got a new friend the other day - Miss Watson (Tiny Ted's original owner) bought a kiwi locally last week and the 2 kiwis have been sat on our window sill chatting ever since ( Cuddly K still has his voice.... just about) - no sign of any nesting yet though, we will keep you posted on any developments.

Compliments make you happy :)

2007-10-21T15:11:00.000-07:00

As part of our 'PATHS' PSHE sessions in school this year we are giving each other compliments. This works by every pupils name being written on a piece of paper - one is selected towards the end of the day - we sit on our carpet at around 3.20pm, and come up with personal compliments for the chosen person ( of course we will all be chosen ..... eventually).The compliments are written very quickly by Mr H onto 'Post-It' Notes which are usually stuck onto the recipient at home time.... I guess some parents think it a bit odd, however we love it and will certainly miss the opportunity to praise each other when we are all complete ( unless Mr H can come up with another ingenious way to enable us to give each other compliments)

" The compliments make me feel really happy, it is nice to have friends"

Voki

2007-09-26T04:36:00.001-07:00

Get a Voki now!

Voices of the World

2007-09-18T13:29:00.001-07:00

We have been invited along with schools from around the world to record a simple message in our own language - the message is "Hello, we are from (school) in (country) you are listening to voices of the world. Here is our message recorded in Welsh and turned into a Voki...

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A Voki of the Winning Poem from Eisteddfod 2007

2007-08-11T04:11:00.000-07:00

Down in the Darkness

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Year 6 Film Project 2007

2007-08-08T02:57:00.000-07:00

This year we ran a transitional Literacy Project between all of the feeder schools and our Local Comprehensive School ( High School). Our oldest pupils (Year 6 - aged 10-11), worked on the project producing a variety of presentations.
The project had just finished when a small group of pupils who are involved in some of my digital media work approached me with a film project based on the book Rose Blanche by Roberto Innocenti.
They had a very clear idea of how they wanted the film to look, in the event we only had lunch time in which to squeeze in rehearsals, shooting, cutting, editing and post production. They were an excellent group to work with - in fact they only needed a quick 'how to' on iMovie and they were away.
We had as you expect in a film many hurdles to overcome - one for me was supervision, I had to be on hand just to know where they were and what they were doing ( at all times - school policy ). One of their problems was the variable weather that we had through May and June, so continuity became an issue.
Thier technical skills improved hugely during the project, from learning how to shoot scenes avoiding huge waste and re-shoots, to adding post production sound ( we have a group of pupils now who would make good Foley Artists - they taught me some things as well which was excellent :).
Their final piece of work was shown at their End of Year Presentation Awards and the Director, Producer and main driving force behind the film rightly became our first "Young FilmMaker of the Year".

Click To Play

* After filming and DVD making I made the fatal error of deleting the working files from the film !!!!! I then had no way of converting the file for upload - Step in the EduBloggersphere - thanks to David Warlick who posted my a link to a conversion download Handbrake which having used I would recommend you to download ( one for the Toolbox - you never know when you may need it.)
Apologies for the quality of the final project - the DVD is 350MB while the Blip.TV file is 53MB hence there is bound to be a loss of quality, I hope that this doesn't spoil your enjoyment of the film.

Tiny Ted Goes back to School

2007-08-07T14:57:00.000-07:00

Tiny Ted will begin 3rd grade with Noah on Thursday at Paine Intermediate School in Trussville. His teacher, Mrs. Childs cannot wait for her new students to come. Pictures from the first day of school will be posted on Mrs. Childs' website for everyone to see and learn more about this special students. More to come soon!

Tiny Ted's Summer Vacation in Alabama

2007-08-07T14:52:00.000-07:00

Tiny Ted is happy and well in Birmingham, Alabama, USA, with the Chamberlain Family. Because it is summer in America all of the schools are on holidays (vacation). April Chamberlain and her family have taken Tiny Ted on holiday with her family. Here is Noah and Luke with Tiny Ted.

Noah and Luke are taking good care of Tiny Ted and showing him the town and state. Tiny Ted even spent all night at the Birmingham Zoo with Noah for the Harry Potter Zoo Snooze.Here are Noah and Tiny Ted getting ready for the Harry Potter read!
WOW. I hope there is strong glass between Tiny Ted and the white tiger! The white tiger came extremely close to see Tiny Ted up close.

They made troll boggers, petted animals, took a night-time tour of the zoo, a midnight train ride, and fell asleep to Noah's mom reading from the new Harry Potter book. It was great fun!
Here is Tiny Ted making a troll bogger.

Luke was able to visit the zoo during the day with Noah and Tiny Ted.

The Butterfly Encounter was everyone's favorite part of the day.

The Chamberlain Family spent the last weekend before school starts in Mobile, Alabama visiting the USS Alabama. The USS Alabama is a huge navy ship. Look at all those guns!!!!! AK
We can recognise that flag! AK
Tiny Ted got to go in all the cool places. This is the control seat for an anti-aircraft gun. AKTiny Ted needed to get in close to look through the gun site.Tiny Ted sat on this mine. A mine is like an underwater bomb- like those ones in Finding Nemo when Nemo and Dorrie met the sharks. AK
They took a ferry ride.
And explored Fort Gaines and played on the beach.

These are some huge oil rigs they saw off the coast.Tiny Ted will begin 3rd grade with Noah on Thursday at Paine Intermediate School in Trussville. His teacher, Mrs. Childs cannot wait for her new students to come. Pictures from the first day of school will be posted on Mrs. Childs' website for everyone to see and learn more about this special students. More to come soon!
It was great to see Tiny Ted again. Thanks Mrs Chamberlain for sharing him with us.
We will try to keep up with Tiny Ted's time in his new class :) Mr H

Summer Time Voki

2007-07-21T09:53:00.000-07:00

Get a Voki now!

Summer Time Voki

2007-07-21T09:52:00.001-07:00

Get a Voki now!

2007-07-20T14:48:00.000-07:00

Cuddly Kiwis's Adventures in Wales

I like blogging and podcasting because....

2007-07-09T11:16:00.000-07:00

Get a Voki now!

2007-07-05T06:47:00.000-07:00

This is a picher took in my BIRTHDAY PARTY last week on the 28TH JUNE 07.If you have noticed that kiwi as got big. It was done by my Dad on Adobe Photoshop .All you have to do is take a picture of the thing you want to add in and of course add it in.

2007-07-05T06:04:00.000-07:00

When I took cuddly kiwi home I wach some t.v. It was The sweet live of Zack and Cody and Hannah Montana. Than when to my awards evening. We done some good things it was really good.

Charlotte

Well Done Charlotte

2007-07-03T13:19:00.000-07:00

Charlotte brought in the trophies that she was presented with on Monday evening ( sadly even though Cuddly Kiwi was there Mr H forgot to put batteries in the Cuddly Kiwi Cam!!! so no live pictures!!!). The award was for Charlotte scoring Top Points in the Girl's Brigade and the achieved 100% attendance. The trophies will be shown to the whole school in an assembly on Thursday, but you get to see them here first.
What a talented group of pupils we have in Class 3H...... news on that we heard today which teacher's we will be with next year in Year 4..... Class 3H will move on to Miss Edwards our Deputy Head, we will be blogging next year.
Mr Harrington will also be in Year 4 teaching Mrs Prescott's class - they already have a class blog, and will be very keen to carry on with some of our exciting ICT Projects next year : )

by Mr H

Jordan goes Voki !!

2007-07-03T02:48:00.000-07:00

Get a Voki now!

Cuddly Kiwi and my Football ( Soccer) Trophies

2007-07-02T05:51:00.000-07:00

Cuddly Kiwi came home with me on Thursday because it was my BITHDAY party I am 8 now. I had the medal in a tournament.I had the trophy on Cefn Fforest presentation the week before last. The trophy is for playing for the under 8 team.

Star Gymnast from Class 3H

2007-07-02T01:49:00.001-07:00

Our star gymnast from Class 3H Chantelle took part recently in a Rotary Club International, Team Gymnastics Competition. It was held at a local Leisure Centre and was a competition for 4 local gymnastics clubs. Chantelle was Team Captain for her club - Cwmcarn ( not bad to be captain at 8 years old!!).
Not only did Cwmcarn win the competiton.... but Chantelle was the gymnast with the highest individual score in the competition. She brought the shield that her team won in to show us in an assembly last week.

We are all very proud of Chantelle as are her parents and we will be following her gymnastic career closely over the coming years.... Well Done Chantelle.

Safe Internet Site from Miss K at Appleby School

2007-06-20T15:16:00.000-07:00

The Post below comes from the Moturoa Blog and is a very timely reminder as we head towards the summer break, of one way to ensure that we stay within a safe area on the internet - parents this would be a good site to take a look at - thanks Miss K for finding this site...

A Safe Idea from Miss K

A number of children and their families have been keen to make a blog for themselves and this is really great.

We have been talking quite a bit about cyber safety while we are learning about Keeping Ourselves Safe. I would like to recommend Firefox as a way to browse the internet. It is the browser we use at school and you can use it on a PC or an Apple equally well. It is a 17MB free download and after you do you can automatically import all your old bookmarks/favourites and passwords. Firefox has a number of really useful extras that make viewing the internet better.

One of these is Glubble.

Glubble puts the web in the hands of families.

Glubble Trusted Surfing for children under 12 years of age enables families to be sure they only see the best of the web they choose to allow.
Glubble Altered Search makes Google and Yahoo show results from childrens' trusted Glubbleworld instead of the world wide web.
Child friendly look and feel with interfaces for pre-reading and children with younger reading ages.

You can find both of these excellent tools by clicking on the photo above. If you would like some help with downloading these safe tools please call in to school one morning and we can show you.

Certainly something to think about...

Blogged with Flock

Year 3 Pirate Day

2007-06-16T05:01:00.000-07:00

On Friday 15th June we had our 'Pirate Day', we dressed up ( never have so many Jack Sparrow's been seen in one place at the same time!!!) and took part in pirate activities.
We had a Treasure 'Island ' `Hunt, tried out our new Pirate Ship, filmed our versions of Pirates of the Caribbean. In the afternoon we had a Pirate Feast, gave out prizes for our Pirate Ship design competition and watched a short video.... wow what a brilliant day!

Thank you to all parents who helped with costumes and also to those who sent in food for our feast.

Tia and Kiwi

2007-06-12T02:35:00.000-07:00

On our way home from school the ice-cream van was parked outside my house so we had an

ice-cream to cool us down.My mum cooked our tea and then we went out to play, we rode up and down the lane on my brothers scooter until it was time to put it away, it looked as if it was going to rain and we didn't want to get wet.

Cuddly kiwi enjoyed the wind blowing in his face, as we rode up and down on the scooter with my dog sooty running after us . Cuddly kiwi liked to ride on sootys back too. Even my cat Pepsi came in to meet cuddly kiwi before we went to bed as we had a busy day. My mum took a few photos of us to put into cuddly Kiwi's photo album so that he can remember the fun day that he had a my house.

Cuddly Kiwi goes to a Gymnastics Competition!

2007-06-12T01:54:00.000-07:00

On Saturday I took Kiwi with me to my Gymnastics Competition!First we warmed up on the things which we had to do.

After that the judges were judging us, I went on bars first we had to catch the height bar it was easy.Then we went on beam I stayed on all of the time.After that we went on vault we did handspring and we did it two times it was easy.

We moved on then to floor I did my floor after that we had to have our medals .My gym club came first I had the highest mark out of everyone I was the Captain of the team.

Cuddly Kiwi with Ewan

2007-06-11T05:55:00.000-07:00

On Thursday me & kiwi went in my bedroom he had 2 photo's then we went in the shed & we had a photo with the remote control car.

Cuddly Kiwi with Ethan

2007-06-11T05:38:00.000-07:00

On Wednesday I took cuddly kiwi to my house he went in magnet castle and he put his magnet crown on and we went to bed.

Welsh Vocabulary - Amser - Time

2007-06-09T15:04:00.000-07:00

**Amser - Time**

Welsh Vocabulary for Class 3H

Faint o'r gloch ydy hi? what time is it?

Mrs Cassidy's Class Talk to the World

2007-06-08T14:54:00.000-07:00

Mrs Cassidy's Class speak to us all using a new web tool called Flixn.

Mr Harrington tried the site out in school today - it is not blocked (yay), however Flixn cannot find our webcam !!!! More work needed. But for now take a look at Mrs Cassidy's pupils speaking so clearly, it is wonderful.

A Video Showing Mrs Cassidy's Class in Canada

2007-06-08T14:01:00.000-07:00

Mr Harrington came across this video showing Mrs Cassidy and her pupils talking about how and why they use technology in their classroom. Mrs Cassidy's Class in Moose Jaw Canada are good friends of ours on Landmarks ClassBlogmeister... thank you Mrs Cassidy.

Cuddly Kiwi ans Emily

2007-06-06T02:20:00.000-07:00

Cuddly Kiwi came to tae kwon do competition he was sitting in the front seat .
He went to have a go at sparing and he win gold and i had a trophy for patterns .He went up agents a black belt he was in first place Peter gave him a medal for taking part and now he is in the club. My friend Curtis he helped cuddly Kiwi but he finally got there he was in a tiny white suit and he had a yellow belt he wanted to war my sparing kit but it was to big and he did numcuks he got bashed in the head he had to have a bandage on his head.

Environment Day at CFP

2007-05-25T14:24:00.000-07:00

Today Friday 25th May was Cefn Fforest Primary School's third Environment Day. Year 3 today spent the day doing 4 activities:
*Leaf Frame Making - Using leaves and twigs to make a picture or picture frame. ( Cuddly Kiwi is seen here amongst some of the completed frames)Mr Harrington hosted this activity.
* Minibeast Hunt - each class had a session with Mrs Prescott where they searched on our grass area for a range of minibeasts and identified them.
* Blogging - a new activity where each class went into the IT Suite with Mrs Prescott to blog abou the day and to comment on other people's blogs.
* Planting - each class headed outdoors again with Mr Harrington in order to plant up pots with Runner Bean seeds.
We have left our seeds in school hopefully to germinate over the holiday week, we will see what they look like on our return to school on Monday 4th June.

Thanks very much today go to Ellie who loves Environment Days as she is a brilliant gardner and helped everyone out with their planting today.

Thank You Ellie.

Another Farewell Today

2007-05-25T13:41:00.001-07:00

We are sad going into the Half Term break as we are losing another member of our class. Will seen here much earlier in the year is changing schools to one much closer to home, meaning that he will be able to walk to school, which will be much easier for him. He and his infectious spirit when he gets excited about a topic will be much missed by Class 3H - good luck from all of us in Class 3H Will, keep on blogging.

Our European Friends

2007-05-25T13:21:00.000-07:00

Recently we posted onto the internet some of us playing some of our playground games. This was to show our friends in the Play to Learn group the type of games which we play in Wales.
Daniela has now posted some video podcasts of her children and their playground games.
The first video is called The Beautiful WasherWoman.
The second video is called We were playing football using a little pine-cone.

Daniela our teacher friend from Lazio in Italy is seen here on the left with Kylli from Estonia on the right.
We very much enjoy watching the work of our European Partners it is very intersting to see how some things about the way we play are the same while others are different. Mr Harrington would like Daniela to Teach us the words for The Beautiful WasherWoman once we return from our Half Term Break on Monday 4th June.

Kiwi and Me

2007-05-24T05:48:00.000-07:00

Cuddly Kiwi came home with me and me went on my trampoline cuddly kiwi dun a flip. then we went inside and watched tv.

by Rhys

Flat Stanley the Hero

2007-05-20T13:51:00.001-07:00

On Monday 21st May 2007 as part of our IT and Literacy work we will be producing our own newspaper articles on a part of the Flat Stanley story. We will be using this link.

Dino, Bella and Parents visit Cefn Fforest

2007-05-18T04:14:00.000-07:00

Dino and his sister Bella made it to Cefn Fforest, very early this morning ( at around 8.20a.m.) They are in the UK on holiday before returning to via a break in Malta ( by the pool) back to New Zealand.

We had arranged with Miss K at Moturoa to have a live Skype class to class conversation at 8.30 am - ish UK ( 7.30pm NZ time)
It worked out really well from both sides (11,000 miles or so apart) - in New Zealand parents and pupils waited excitedly, while in Wales we waited excitedly for dino and Bella to arrive. The Skype chat lasted for about 30 minutes before we had to let our friends in New Zealand go to bed!! Miss King has podcast some of our discussion along with 2 other videolinks they have had this week here.

Dino and Bella then came into our assembly at 9.15 ( Dino took loads of photo's) and they told us something about New Zealand and the things that they get up to there - they both spoke very confidently to around 200 children ( a compliment to their teachers I am sure). Before finally heading off laden down with presents and cards from their friends in Wales.

We combined their visit with our celebration party for having 1,000 visits to our ClassBlogmeister Blog, so Bella and Dino got to have an early morning party as well - cool!

Hands Around the World

2007-05-16T12:06:00.000-07:00

We recently sent 60 paper hands coloured by the children, with information about Cefn Fforest, Wales and a link to this blog to Imagiverse in California. Michelle Mock and her team at Imagiverse have now sent back to us an envelope crammed full of hands from around the world. This is a fantasticly simple idea which enables pupils to find out a little about other parts of the world.
We have a display of these hands now in the entrance to Lower School.

It shows the enormous range of ideas and creativity that children have in the variety of designs, sizes and amounts of information put on each hand. We received and hand form a School for The Deaf in New York which includes sign language as a means of communication.A hand from School for the Deaf in the USA

We had hands from India which are beautifully, carefully designed with delicate colours, and one which we really liked made by a 4 year old from Pittsburgh... thanks to Michelle and her team for their work in sending these out... we even had one of our own hands returned after its round trip to California ( it must really know how Flat Stanley felt after his journey).
The Big Hand from Newark New Jersey, USA

Me & kiwi

2007-05-16T06:34:00.000-07:00

Me & kiwi had Giggs & Rooney printed on the back of man united top.We had food and my antie came over

to play whith my Baby Brother whith me we had lot of fun.

Hands Around the World

2007-05-16T05:12:00.000-07:00

Today Wednesday 16th May our Hands Around the World arrived from our friends in California. We received paper hands from USA, Canada, Peurto Rico, India, Australia and of course... it had to happen.... we had one hand from Moturoa Class Appleby School in New Zealand -

It would be great to find out who in Miss King's Class designed and coloured this wonderful hand.
We look forward to finding out...

Cuddly Kiwi visits with Mathew

2007-05-15T01:53:00.000-07:00

On Monday i had cuddly kiwi and we went down to visit my nan I had lots of fun!! Then i went home we had lots of fun we played cars and my dog he is a sausage dog and cuddly kiwi was sitting on my chair we was waching tv.

then my mum called us for our dinner cuddly kiwi had fish and i had eggs and toast and kiwi liked his drink was water and i had milk.

then we went to my bedroom we got my planes out then we played battle planes then it was time for bed.

by mathew

Late News on Dino's Visit

2007-05-14T16:10:00.000-07:00

A late message on Monday evening from Miss King, that Dino and his sister Bella are hoping to visit school on Friday 18th May at 8.15am.
There will be a letter going home from school today Tuesday asking parents permission for us to come into school early in order to meet Dino and Bella on Friday.

A Message from Elliott's Blog ( a pupil from Moturoa Class NZ)

2007-05-14T12:20:00.000-07:00

Elliott is a pupil in Miss K's Class in New Zealand who is running his own blog from home, he posted this article over the weekend to show how in the Southern Hemisphere of the World they are just going from Summer into Autumn

The Trees Change

"Out side our porch we have a tree that is normally green and know it is a mixture of colors and looks great we had a lot of fun at school yesterday because they have lots of trees and all of the leaves have fallen and I gathered them all up into one pile and the little kids played in them and had lots of fun and a thanks to mrs p and mr h in wales and all the other people leaving comment on my blog

By Elliott"

Elliott's classmate Oscar also runs a blog - Oscarsblog(Noodles) - a cool name for a blog- his most recent post was about finding a hedgehog in his garden (I am sure that they would love to have some comments on their blogs from us here in Wales) :

"Cool a hedgehog that i found on our lawn and it was a small one. We need to give him a name,any ideas?

Please Posted by Oscar at 7:22 PM "

The Great Fish Naming!!

2007-05-14T11:32:00.000-07:00

Anyone who has been reading our blog/or Moturoa's Blog ( New Zealand) will be aware that Moturoa's partner schools Binghamton in New York and ourselves here in Wales have been asked to name a fish ( the fish were a present to the class from another teacher).

We here in Wales were asked to name the silvery coloured fish, our friends in New York named the true gold fish, while Moturoa named the gold fish with the black mark on its tail. In each school there was a 'name choosing vote' the result being that each fish now has a name selected by the pupils from that country - we think that this is pretty cool and look forward to hearing about how 'Sparky' and his friends get on over the next few weeks - perhaps a webcam (or fishcam) would help us keep track of the fish.... who knows? The following entry is taken from the Moturoa Blog today :

All Our Fish Have Names

I bought some toys for our fish and a new fish tank. The aquarium we had was rather old and all scratched. Now our overseas friends have named two of them we need to think of a name for our one. We had a vote at school today and four names seemed good- Bubbles, Lightning, Tiger and Goldy were popular but Lightning won the day!

So our fish are called Sunny, Sparky and Lightning! Thanks guys!

News thanks to, Miss K and the pupils from Moturoa Class, Appleby School, Nelson, New Zealand.

Cuddly Kiwi and Me

2007-05-14T05:19:00.000-07:00

me and cuddly kiwi on the weekend when we got home we went to wach tv then it stoped raining we went on my tranplen then we went play on cooking mama then i went over my dad then i went home to bed.

by charlotte

Flat Stanleys Ready for their Journey to Canada

2007-05-13T13:03:00.000-07:00

** A Parade of Flat Stanleys**

We spent Thursday afternoon colouring, cutting and sticking our Flat Stanleys.
Once they had been completed we all took them home with a Diary. We are going to write about the things that Flat Stanley got up to with us over the weekend.

Our Stanleys will then be leaving for our friends at Glamorgan JP School in Toronto. The plan is for Stanley to get into his envelope early next week and set off on his AirMail journey. We looked at where Stanley was going using Google Earth in Mrs Rees's class last week .

Marvellous Results from Bike Day

2007-05-12T11:07:00.000-07:00

Well done to all Junior pupils who took part in the school Sponsored Cycle on 3rd and 4th May, we have totalled all of the laps completed by each year group :

Year 3 - 1097 laps
Year 4 - 1236 laps
Year 5 - 1574 laps
Year 6 - 1726 laps

With each year group having roughly 65 pupils, it shows that everyone put in a great deal of effort, the total number of laps was a staggering 5633 !!! ( each lap was measured at 300yds) Making a grand total of 950 miles travelled!!! ( Well Done everyone)
So far the total money collected towards our £2000 total ( to have the area around our garden rubberised) - is £1549 ( again excellent Well Done to all!!)
We still have money to collect but should reach our target easily which is excellent news.

Cuddly Kiwi and Crystal

2007-05-11T06:14:00.000-07:00

Cuddly Kiwi at my house

This is a picture of Cudly Kiwi with Baby Benjamin on my mother's bed. They are lying comfortably on her pillo.They like sitting by each other and you are lucky you are not seeing them kiss...!!!!!

by Crystal

We made a Spinner today during wet play

2007-05-10T07:02:00.000-07:00

We made a spinner to day and this is wot it looks like.

We had great fun making it and playing with it in the corridor

by Ellie and Ethan

Bike Day

2007-05-10T03:43:00.000-07:00

On bike day we had lots of fun.We went on our bikes around the school and Ben done 37 laps and Luke done 30 laps and my 2 best freinds Ben & Ewan were in the final for bike day.In the final it was 5 cones then there was big block of tiers and it was anouther block of tiers then they went in to a cage it was anouther block of tiers again and we had to stop and go as fast as you can a cross the finish line and Ben came second.

Cuddly Kiwi's visit with Josh

2007-05-09T06:31:00.000-07:00

First me and cuddly kiwi helped my dad put up the trampoline. Then we played on my new trampoline my brother was good at bouncing on my trampoline.Then cuddly did a flip!!!

Cuddly Kiwi visits Will

When Cuddly kiwi visited my grandma's I held cuddly

and a Harris Hawk called nearly because she was nearly sold.

Me and kiwi had a go on the Spiderman p.s.1. game.

I fed the bird( he didn't eat Kiwi!!!

Interesting Facts about Glamorgan JP School,Toronto,Canada.

2007-05-08T13:58:00.000-07:00

This information comes from Glamorgan Junior Public School's website and is about the school's opening ceremony in 1974...

School Opening

Although the school had been functioning since September of 1972, Glamorgan Junior Public School was was officially opened on February 28, 1974. There were so many school openings in Scarborough at this time that Glamorgan's opening was delayed for two years. The school was officially opened by Scarborough Ward 5 Trustee David Owen. Guests at the opening ceremony included; School Board Chairman Gerry Phillips, Ontario Education Minister Tom Wells, and Scarborough East MP Reg Stackhouse. The guest speaker was David Glee, a professor at the Ontario College of Education. Glee, a Welshman, delivered an address on his native country. The school had about 190 children in 1974. For opening day celebrations the children dressed in Welsh costumes, planted daffodils and received lessons on Wales.
The name Glamorgan comes from a county in Wales. It is not known who decided on the school name, but in 1952 Glamorgan Avenue was already planned for a street name on the area developer's map. Upon opening Glamorgan was "twinned" with a Glamorgan County school called Tondu Junior Mixed School.

Flat Stanleys Arrive

2007-05-08T12:51:00.000-07:00

We are reading Flat Stanley by Jeff Brown in class for the next 2 weeks.
It is a great book ( the big book has wonderful illustrations by ? As part of the Reading Project Mr H has linked us with a school in Canada!!! ( more friends around the globe )
Our new friends are Glamorgan Junior Public School a northern suburb of Toronto Ontario, they have sent us their Flat Stanley's along with each Stanley has come a 3 day diary of what Stanley got up to when he was with the pupils. If you take a look at the alphabetical lists here you will see where and who Flat Stanley has met worldwide, he has certainly been a busy boy, travelling much further than his visit to California in his first book!!!

This is Flat Stanley at the summit of Mt Rainier

We are looking forward to taking our new found friends on some adventures while reporting back to the class in Canada on Stanley's progress.

While on the right we can see Stanley in London

Flat Stanley is seen below with Arnold Swartzeneger!!!!!

We wonder what Stanley will get up to in Wales! You will have to wait and see...

** The publishers of Flat Stanley are a company called Egmont, they are an ethical publishers and believe in looking after the environment as part of their way of operating. To check out how they operated ethically click here

2007-05-08T12:42:00.000-07:00

We had some exciting news from New Zealand today - following Miss K's birthday a teaching friend has given the class 3 Golfdish - you can read about them below -

" "Our Three New Fish"

Thank you for all the wonderful birthday wishes from all around the globe. Yes we do sing "Happy Birthday to You" with the same tune all around the world. I played the children from Wales singing me Happy Birthday in Welsh with the same tune and it was lovely. And the children of Moturoa classroom sung the song to me on Friday as well. We even have a tiny chime thing that we can take home to play if it is your birthday. For my birthday Raewyn (one of the teachers at Appleby) gave us three fish for the classroom to fill Jim's empty tank.We would like the children in Cefn Fforest School in Wales to name the silver coloured one.
And for the children in Mrs S's class in Binghamton School New York to name the gold coloured one. And we will name the other gold one with a black tip at the end of its tail.

Midnight arrived safely from New York today with much excitement. He was introduced to Mini-Dylan from Wales and will travel home with children once he has been shown around Appleby School a little more. We got straight in and started to reply to your letters. Thank you so much. We will post photos tomorrow.

Miss K and Moturoa Class"

As you can imagine we had a great time while sat on the carpet in front of an interactive whiteboard looking at the silvery fish deciding on a name - many were suggested but only one was chosen our fish will be known as 'SPARKY'. The name was a popular choice amongst the class. We can't wait to hear and see the exploits of SPARKY and his 2 friends ( it will be interesting to see what Binghamton School in New York and Moturoa Class decide to call their fish)... watch this space!

Cuddly Kiwi enjoys Bike day at Cefn Fforest

2007-05-04T01:50:00.000-07:00

The Malteser Boys!!!!!

On Thursday we had a bike day to raise money for the garden and to have some fun. It was really fun and at the end of the day we had a final.

This is Ben and Ewan reporting : we were in the final of the year 3 we both came equal second & we won maltesers & WE ARE NOT SHARING THEM : )

Cuddly Kiwi visits Luke

2007-05-03T02:16:00.000-07:00

Cuddly Kiwi

First kiwi came to my house.

He went on my bike first it

was very fun.

by Luke

Cuddly Kiwi goes to the Baths

2007-05-02T05:18:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I took cuddly kiwi to Newbridge Swimming Baths.I took 2 photos of him in the lockers,and a photo of him in the car it was my dads car. I really enjoyed looking at the photos.
by Chloe

Cuddly Kiwi visits

2007-05-01T01:38:00.000-07:00

On Monday evening Cuddly Kiwi made a visit.

Cuddly kiwi was on my swinging chair. Then he when on my slide.

by Jas

Cuddly Kiwi goes to the Football Tournament

2007-04-30T04:59:00.000-07:00

Cuddly Kiwi goes to the football tournament.
On Sunday the boys who are in the football team went to play a match .we were geting ready to play in
the changing room then we went out play the match.we beat them 7_3 we were very very happy to win.
by Jordan ( techie)

Hands Across The World

2007-04-30T04:08:00.000-07:00

We have just finished and posted today, ahead of the 1st May deadline our handprints. They are off to California to Michelle Mock of Imagiverse, they will then be posted on to another school somewhere in the world - it's quite exciting.

The handprint idea is a fabulous one, and we can't wait to see where in the world our prints go, and also where we get handprints from. We had some particularly interesting design ideas some of which you can see above.

Tiny Ted in the USA ( Howdy Partner!!!)

2007-04-28T01:08:00.000-07:00

Tiny Ted is continuing his 'Tour of the World' he has moved on now from New Zealand to the USA, he is in the state of Virginia and as you can see and read is having an absolutely brilliant time on his 'Amazing Adventure'. Thanks to all of the teachers and schools he is visiting on his journey, he is going to have a great story to tell us when he returns to Wales.

Thanks very much also to Katie A and Chris Micheals for posting their photos and telling us all about Tiny Ted's adventures in Virginia, USA.

"Hello New Zealand and Wales,

I’m so sorry it’s taken me so long to tell you about my adventures with Tiny Ted! Tiny Ted and I had two amazing adventures while he was here in Williamsburg, Virginia. First Tiny Ted helped me give a tour of The College of William and Mary and then we went line dancing!

Tiny Ted helped give a fabulous tour of the College! I even think he helped convince some students to attend! He walked around the entire campus with me two times! Tiny Ted also shared his adventures with the guests of the College and told them about his friends in New Zealand and Wales. They were all very excited to hear about you all and were very honored to meet Tiny Ted. They couldn’t believe he had made it all the way to the States!

Tiny Ted was the best tour guide that day. He stood up in front of over 500 people and introduced himself as a tour guide for the College of William and Mary! He didn’t seem scared to talk in front of all those people and they all clapped for him when he was done. Here is a picture of Tiny Ted with two other tour guides. The stuffed doll was part of another assignment for the student on the left.

After a long day of giving tours Tiny Ted and I rested for a couple of hours, ate dinner, and went line dancing! Since Tiny Ted was in the southern part of the United States I felt it was only necessary that he attend a real country western line dancing club. He was a little timid at first, but after a couple of dances Tiny Ted was doing the two-step like a pro!

A cowboy spotted Tiny Ted and they began talking about his adventures around the world. Tiny Ted told the cowboy about his friends in Wales and his friends in New Zealand. Then the cowboy talked to Tiny Ted about line dancing and wearing cowboy boots and hats. The cowboy explained to Tiny Ted that line dancing was a tradition in the southern part of the United States, specifically in Texas. Here’s a picture of Tiny Ted and his cowboy friend.

Unfortunately those are all the adventures I was able to take with Tiny Ted. Thank you so much for letting me spend time with him! I can’t wait to hear about his future journeys around the world!

2007-04-27T07:41:00.000-07:00

My frend has gone to another school today, i hope that she will keep in tuch with us.

Farewell to Georgia!!!

2007-04-27T07:11:00.000-07:00

Class 3H would like to wish Georgia good luck in her new school. Georgia has been with Cefn Fforest Primary since the nursery and has built up a wide number of friends in the school. However Georgia actually lives very close to her new school ( she can walk to school ) - whereas she has to travel by car to get to to Cefn Fforest, so it makes sense for her to move to the closer school.

Georgia plans to keep in touch with all of her friends in Cefn Fforest as well as Georgia at Appleby School, via her blogmeister page which she will still be able to use.

All of the class wish her good wishes - we will miss you Georgia :)

Cuddly Kiwi has had an interesting day today when he went home for lunch with Charlotte - he had waffles for his lunch ...

This is our first Blog from Class 3H

2007-04-26T07:52:00.000-07:00

We are finally able to use Blogger in our classroom as the site has been unblocked by our Local Authority ( Thank You Caerphilly IT Helpdesk Team ). We are going to use this space to show the journey and adventures of our Travel Pets ( Tiny Ted and Cuddly Kiwi ) as well as showcasing the work that we are doing in our small corner of Wales.

Our Movement Display

We studied our own movement in our Gymnastics lessons with Mr Gannon and then drew some preliminary sketches before our final drawings of ourselves ( many thanks to Mrs Hook for the display ).

We are in the middle of some very important work with our partners in Europe and New Zealand, we will be telling you more about these projects and keeping up to date with what is happening in the near future. It is great to have a voice from class at long last. You can keep up with our day to day blogging on our ClassBlogmeister pages which we hope you will do.

We will return to blog very soon...