Task 1 was to plan what you would take on a journey around the world. Here are some for you to enjoy!

Class 3/4 have been very excited as their caterpillars have arrived! Watch this space for progress reports!

We hope you all enjoyed our class assembly! We certainly did!!!

Dear Parents and Grandparents,
Please come and visit our Class assembly on the morning of Thursday 19th April. Start time 9:05 am.
Come and sing some songs and learn facts about the Tudors that might surprise you!
The children and I are looking forward to seeing you there.
Mrs K. Williams

A strange event happened in the lower juniors at Maes yr Haul on Thursday 29th March, we travelled back in time to become Tudors for the day.
We all dressed up, even Mrs Williams and Mrs Davies! We became new Tudor people for the day and had to create and share our new names and facts about ourselves with others. We tried really hard to use old english when we spoke. Lots of 'Thou doth' and '....eth' s were used around the classrooms. We made a Tudor dessert adding mixed fruit into a rice pudding ready for our Tudor banquet in the 'Great Hall' in the afternoon.
Other classes made other Tudor delicacies for us to sample including march-pane treats and ginger bread. We all drank beer! (ginger beer) or apple juice and we showed our special entertainment skills in between the different courses. There was some wonderful Tudor dancing and some Tudor X factor style entertainment. We all had a great time and lots of fun.
Come and see our classroom window for photos from the special day.



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This week is a special week at Maes yr Haul - It's time to celebrate our 10th year with lots of exciting events planned through out the week.
Most amazingly the One Show's huge hot air balloon was inflated on our field on Wednesday morning and the whole school turned out to see it. We listened carefully to the balloonist and asked him lots of questions, recording the event on our flip camera. We used these facts and included them when we wrote our newspaper reports later. We also made a class balloon out of tissue paper which we inflated using hot air and 'flew' in the hall on Thursday afternoon. We videoed it and showed it to our visitors on Friday morning. It caused lots of ooohs and aaaahs!
On Friday morning the school was open to mums and dads and other special visitors, including Mrs Mahoney and Mr Davies. We had lots of exciting things happening in our class including pastel sketching, cake decorating and many activities linked to the number 10. We had a graffiti wall with any questions that had an answer of 10. We worked in our groups, using a diamond '10' system to rank different ideas for our TOP TEN booklets, e.g. TOP TEN role models, things that are important to us, food, animals, qualities etc.. We also had to find things around the classroom that weighed the same as 10g and make a model out of art straws using only pieces cut to 10cm lengths. We went outside for the special event and enjoyed looking at our tiles in the new Maes yr Haul logo. We had a very busy week and a great party on Friday afternoon to celebrate. It was good fun.

On Thursday 15th March Class Williams and Class Garland visited Llancaiach Fawr to find out all about Tudor and Stuart life. Great fun was had by all. From the moment we arrived it felt like we had travelled back in time. The servants who greeted us spoke to us in 'olden day English' and we had to listen really carefully to understand what was going on. We had a tour of the great house where the Pritchard family had lived. The children were amazed about the fact that whenever we travelled around the house, the mistress went first followed by the boys and finally the girls. We were shown where Master Pritchard had entertained Charles I in the Great Hall and the armoury where he stored all his weapons. Luke was allowed to try on the armour. It was very heavy. The house was very grand and it had a privy (toilet). It had needed 30 servants, 15 who slept up in the attic on the fourth floor and 15 others who travelled in everyday.
We enjoyed learning about the Pritchard children and how the rules were very different for them. If you were under 12 you were only allowed to sit on the floor and when you were eating you were only allowed to stand by the table, not sit on any furniture. The children's maid demonstrated the bilbo catcher toy which looked very tricky to master. The Pritchard children had been allowed to drink wine and beer as the water wasn't clean and they could have got married at the age of eleven!
After our tour we came down into the Servants' kitchen and made plague bags using muslin cloth, dried herbs and string. In Tudor and Stuart times they thought diseases were spread by smell and they held these bags up close to their noses to block out bad smells! Shannon tried out the job of turning the spit, which was a very hot, dirty and tiring job close to the fire needing to constant turn the spit handle to roast animals like pigs and hares for many hours at a time.
In the afternoon we tried on some Tudor fashions, took turns to sit in the stocks and tried out some Tudor dancing. We were shown some Tudor instruments like the lute and Mrs Dawson banged a tambour keeping a steady beat for our Tudor dancing. Even Mrs Williams danced and we were all smiling and clapping. It was great fun and made a wonderful end to a busy day.Come and see the photos displayed on our classroom window.
Thank you to all our wonderful helpers on the day. We hope you had a great day too!

The Tudors have certainly arrived in Class Williams. Our first few weeks have been incredibly busy exploring all those gory Tudor monarchs. The children have been painting Tudor portraits for our timeline display, which look fantastic and are very easy to identify. They have been using the Q matrix to generate lots of Tudor questions which they would like to explore.
They have been researching lots of interesting facts using some great websites and information books. The horrible histories set are very popular, full of lots of gruesome details too! Ask Evan for some wonderful bloodthirsty facts!
The children were set 2 open ended style homework tasks set on exploring the Tudor Rose and creating a Tudor artefact. The results were incredible with lots of careful and detailed models produced plus some incredibly creative Tudor roses. Thank you everyone for all your hard work. It was an absolute pleasure to be in class when all of it was shared.

Blwyddyn Newydd Dda

Wishing everyone a happy new year in 2012.
Thank you for all my cards and presents at the end of term.
I hope everyone had a great christmas and are fully charged ready for an exciting new term.
Watch out - Class 3/4KW are going back 500 years to Tudor times in Wales!!

On Thursday 1st December we had a Penny Parade. All of the classes took part. Most of us brought in some spare change to try and get our class to have the longest line of pennies. Unfortunately our class didn't win but we did try our best. Our line measured 17m 42cm. The winning class was Mrs Garland's class with an amazing line measuring over 48m long. It must have raised alot of money as part of the Christmas Fayre.
By Caitlin Fitzgerald



On Friday 2nd December it was our school's Christmas Fayre. There were lots of stalls in the two halls. Lots and lots of people went. It was very busy. There was a sweet stall which sold lots of yummy sweets and some jewellery stalls with pretty earrings and bracelets. In the cup cake competition some children entered after decorating their own cup cakes. They looked tasty. You could visit Santa in the foyer. The choir sang lots of Christmas songs. My favourite carols were Rock around the Shops, Christmas Calypso and Hallelujah. It sounded fantastic.
by Emma D, Natalie and Poppy J

On Friday 18th November it was Children in Need day. We payed a pound to dress up in spotty clothes. Even Mrs Williams and Mrs Davies wore their spotty ears. We had some fun with some Pudsey maths! Another great day was had by all!

On Wednesday 9th November we all went to Techniquest. It was very exciting. There were 3 buses as all of Year 3 and 4 were going together. On the way there we talked and told lots of jokes.
In Techniquest there were lots of activities for us to play with. Luke ,Evan and Xander enjoyed the plasma ball, taking photographs of shadows in the dark room, the smoke maker and the light reflector.
Omar, Cameron and Carys thought the water area was amazing, where they could build dams, fire water guns and explore a water maze. Poppy J and Maya loved the musical activities up stairs.
At last we went into the shop where there were lots of fab things to buy. Lots of the boys bought rugby balls and some people bought special gem stones.
Next we went into the 'forces' show, which was really funny! Miss Roberts-Morgan had to sit on a seat of pins, Shannon and Medina were shooting Barbie across the stage and Dafydd was testing a car on rollers.
It was a great day. Even 1 of the buses not starting to come back to school didn't spoil our day! Thank you to all our parent helpers who were great.

Friday 4th November was no ordinary day at Maes yr Haul. Strange characters were seen around Class Williams and Class Garland. There were ghouls, devils, vampires, skeletons, witches and many more scary creatures. Exciting activities happened. There was a spooky catwalk and spooky singing. Spells were created and ghoulish biscuits, decorated from cooking early in the week, were devoured and feasted upon.
Luckily these characters seem to have disappeared. We have Wanted posters up on display in the class in case we see any of these creepy characters still lurking around!

Following all the Rugby World Cup fever, on Friday 21st October the whole school wore 'Red For WALES!' We were still in high spirits, even after losing the semi finals to France. However it wasn't to be and after getting to see some of the match in the afternoon Wales lost to Australia, ending up an overall fourth in the whole tournament. Not the best of endings but lots to be proud of!! The whole celebration of the Rugby World cup was such a worthwhile event and all the children produced wonderful work and powerpoints on their adopted countries, finding out some incredible facts.

On Wednesday 19th October, just before half term our class took part in a Diwali workshop. We made lovely Diva lamps from clay which we left to dry and then painted ready for to take home and use at half term. We listened to the legend of Rama and Sita and talked about the link to the lighting of lamps. Following half term, Jacob told us all about his Diwali celebrations including fireworks and special food. It was a real enjoyable workshop for all.