Let's all learn about Kyffin Williams

After a successful Comenius week before the Easter break, we are now back to a normality and our latest activity was to learn a little more about a Welsh artist. We chose Kyffin Williams's expressive works to focus on. The point of the study is to share with our Comenius partners a little more about the art scene in our country.

 

Here are a couple of pages a couple of girls from Year 5 created on the Welsh Artist.

 

 

 

The Welsh landscape painter would regularly adventure out into the countryside and paint what was in front of him. His paintings provided a sense of dramatic depth about them capturing the terrain through using intense colour and tones creating life and atmosphere within the paintings. Here's a short video providing a little more details of his excellent work.

 

Comenius partners visit Wales



Following a first welcome meeting back in November in Barcelona, we were relishing the process of preparing for the next stage of their Comenius in Wales. The Comenius project is designed to develop international links between schools across Europe which allows opportunities for teachers from each school to visit every school involved in the circle. The international partners from Spain,France, Poland, Turkey and Romania visited Ysgol Bryn Hedydd on 20^th March.

Our Comenius Partners

They had an exciting day commencing with some of the year 6 pupils acting as tour guides showing them around of what the school had to offer.

Ana, our first language spanish pupil was in her element with the Spainsh team

They were fascinated to see how the ‘Bws Dysgu’ was used as an extra learning space.

All aboard Y Bws Dysgu!

We allowed the teachers to have first-hand experience with our range of ipads and ipods of which they used to record experiences with during their stay.

Our Comenius partners using the ipads



Getting to grips with our ICT resources

During the afternoon, we took our Comenius partners down with our year 2 pupils to experience a lesson on the beach. As a Beach School, this was one of the most anticipated parts for them as the majority of the schools we are linked with are located hundreds of miles from the beach!



On our way to the beach!!

This provided opportunity for our pupils to converse with our Comenius partners





Our Turkish team enjoying the beach



Exploring on the beach!



The Comenius Team

Our partners stayed with us for 3 days and during the second day of their stay, we took them on a tour of a North Wales to show them the many delights we had to offer. The Great Orme, Snowdonia and Betws-y-Coed were amongst the beautiful places on the day list and this gave us many opportunities to discuss the many similarities and differences we had between our schools.

Llanberis Slate museum



Betws-y-Coed

 

During the evenings, we had Comenius meals to help get to know each other better

The Romanian Team

French and Turkish team

The Polish Team

The final day consisted with the pupils of Ysgol Bryn Hedydd putting on a service for our Comenius partners; singing and performances that left our partners with very fond memories and experiences of the school to take back and share to their countries.

The next chapter of the Comenius will take place in June where four members of staff from Ysgol Bryn Hedydd will visit Poland in the hope for an exciting experience to bring back to Wales.

The build up has begun...

The build up indeed has began, where Ysgol Bryn Hedydd are steaming towards the week of welcoming our European guests. Each class has been very busy learning a little about each country visiting us. Each classroom now has the 6 flags that are involved the Comenius Project above their doors and the Hall is Comenius inspired, ready to welcome our guests when they arrive in two weeks time. As part of our project, we have Comenius activities that the children participate in to develop a greater understanding about themselves and as a European Citizen.

 

Our latest task was to create a Family tree. Year 5 carried out this activity and had a lot of fun exploring how big their family actually was! Here are a couple of results:

 

 

Spain celebrates a 'Non Violence and Peace' Day on the 30th January and as part of understanding a little more about this, a group of pupils at Ysgol Bryn Hedydd created a poster in order to promote this a little more. We decided to combine Literacy into this task and discovered what 'Peace' meant to them. Here are a couple of examples:

 

 

 

 

Our Wales Comenius Pet

Having enjoyed Half term last week, it was back to work this week and togther the children worked on a Welsh Mascot as a Comenius Pet.

Each of the countries have designed or made a mascot where a winner has been chosen from each country. This is our entry:

 

 

Year 5 along with Mr Nolan helped and contributed to making this superb 3D model which we hope the other countries will like enough to vote to become the over all Comenius Pet!

Good Luck Dafydd!

Comenius Day at Ysgol Bryn Hedydd

As part of out Core Subject Week, we incorporated a Comenius Day at Ysgol Bryn Hedydd. This allowed the children to travel around the classes where they would experience a taste of each culture and tradition of the countries associated with the Comenius.

Starting with Key Stage 2, in the Turkish class, they had the opportunity to made Ottoman Turkish lamps. The children were able to experiement using their creative skills to create patterns on their lamps.

In the Polish class, the children were making Polish Gwiazdy's. They're a little bit like paper snow flakes but have 8 sides rather than 6. Gwiazdy means 'stars' in Polish. The children therefore designed their own Gwiazdy from paper. The paper cutting craft typically has geometric designs and originates from the Kurpie and Lowicz regions of Poland.

The Catalan class was focused on the works of Gaudi. Gaudi has a major inflcuence on the beautiful city of Barcelona and the children were able to learn more about this in the class.

In the French class, the pupils were presented with a number of challenges. Whilst familiarising themselves with French music, one of the challenges was to construct an Eiffel Tower from straws. The children carried out the task very well and made some very realistic looking towers!

The second activity was a research challenge where they used ipads to find out as many interesting facts about France. The final task asked the children to connect the correct piece of artwork to the correct artist.

In the Romanian class, one of the classes were making Romanian pancakes where they looked very nice indeed. The children got to taste them too and compare how they differed to the pancakes in Wales.

It was a little bit different in the Foundation phase where each class looked at one specific country. Year 2 went on to learn Spanish phrases and discovered where Catalonia was located in relation to Spain. The second Year 2 class looked at Turkey where they designed patterns for Turkish rugs, made Turkish flags and tasted some Turkish Delight.

Christmas time - Creating cards

The children have been really busy this week creating Christmas cards for each of our partners in Catalonia, France, Turkey, Poland and Romania.

The children have used their creativity to print images themed to Christmas for the front of their cards. 

The children designed an image, transferred the design onto a polystyrene plate and used an ink layering process to form a print.

The children used rollers to apply the ink to the plate. The children had the choice of colours but realised that the 'simple but effective' created the best results.

The children also used their ipods to research the origins of Christmas. They used glue to stick these in each card.

The children then wrote their cards to the country they wanted their card sending to. Emily (below) is excited that she is sending her card to Santiago Ramon y Cajal in Hospitalet del Llobregat, Catalonia.

The children were pleased with their prints and look forward to recieving Christmas cards from each of the countries involved in the Comenius 2012/14.

Wales visits Catalonia - The beginning of the Comenius project

Having the opportunity to visit a primary school in L'Hospitalet de Llobregat, Barcelona was a fascinating and exciting experience for myself and provided the path to develop a strong international links with countries over Europe to my school (Ysgol Bryn Hedydd) in Rhyl, North Wales.

This was the first mobility and I (Alex Jones) arrived at Santiago Ramon y Cajal on Wednesday 14th Novemeber 2012. The countries involved in the Comenius Project 2012/14 are Wales, Catalonia, France, Turkey, Poland and Romania.

 

 

The school I visited is an Elementary school. The school has a great diverse of cultures from around the world with children attending whose families have come from the likes of South America, Morocco, Congo, Guinea, Pakistan and China.

 

 

The aim of the project is to unite the schools together and to develop the quality of teaching in schools through the exchange of educational experiences and sharing different methodologies.

 

During my time at Santiago Ramon y Cajal, I was able to develop a feel for how the school ran and was provided an insight into teaching strategies and learning.

 

The children had been very busy and prepared very well for the Comenius visit. They provided us with gifts on arrival

 

L'Hospitalet de Llobregat evening news came into the school in the hope to learn more about the Comenius project and ask myself for an interview

 



 

The children put on a little show for us which we really enjoyed watching

 

 

The main aim of the first mobility was to meet all the teachers and countries involved in the comenius project and to arrange dates for the following 2 years in roder to visit each country. Wales will be the second mobility so the children at Ysgol Bryn Hedydd will be busy preparing for the visit in March 2013.

On the final night in Barcelona, we were delighted with a water fountain display in the heart of Barcelona. A lovely end to a fantastic experience.