In geography we have been looking at four different locations in the world which are all called Richmond: London, Yorkshire, Virginia USA and Melbourne Australia. Every day we have been recording the temperature in these locations  and using a key we have stuck a  different coloured leaf to our display to represent this temperature.  The photo shows 3T's display this week. As part of the topic, the children have learnt about different climate zones,  the northern and southern hemispheres and can describe locations as either rural or urban.

Year 3 have celebrated the end of a long half term by making and eating jelly. The heroes of our core text, Major Glad Major Dizzy, love jelly so it is an appropriate way to finish; our last piece of writing based on the book will be instructions on how to make jelly. The children have also been having science related fun by making shadow puppet theatres and putting on plays about the adventures of the two heroic soldiers. To do this successfully, they have needed to understand how shadows are formed and to choose materials which are translucent and materials which are opaque.

To celebrate black history month, we have looked at a timeline stretching back to pre-historic times which shows how key people of colour have been in British history for tens of thousands of years. We have also learnt a little about the amazing author Malarie Blackman. Have a lovely half term break!

Year 3 took advantage of the sunshine last week and carried out a scientific investigation. At 3 points during the day we drew around a child's shadow. We used the same child each time to ensure that our investigation was a fair test. As you can see in the photo, the shadow was in a different place at each time. The children were able to explain that the shadow had changed because the sun (the light source) was in different  position in the sky. We then could discuss how the earth rotates on its axis every 24 hours. 

We have had a wonderful year teaching the lovely year 3 children. They have worked hard, laughed and learnt so much. We wish them well as they continue their Sheen Mount journey into year 4. The last couple of weeks of year 3 have continued to be packed with learning with lots of maths work on shape and statistics and the completion of their epic fantasy adventure stories. The photo is of the 'Takeover' which took place a few weeks ago and the children tell us was one of the highlights of the year.

Year 3 had a super exciting day out at Kew Gardens on Tuesday. This trip supported their geography (rainforest), science (plants), history (local area) and art (botanical drawings) learning so many areas of the curriculum were supported whilst we also had some fun in the sunshine. A highlight of the day was seeing the Titan Arum plant in flower. This was a real privilege as this plant from the rainforests of Sumatra only comes into flower once every 3  - 7 years. Luckily for us it opened on the night before our visit. This meant that its pungent 'corpse' smell had cleared before we saw it.

Year 3 children are enjoying learning new tennis skills every Thursday afternoon at the courts on Sheen Common. We are very lucky to have Ben from Community Parks Tennis giving us these free tennis lessons in this wonderful venue. The children have been learning underarm and over arm service and have even begun to learn how to score a tennis game. In other news, we have loved seeing your rainforest dioramas; thank you for all the parent involvement in this homework.