Year 3 are excited to share with you some of the wonderful learning they have been doing this term. Click on the posts below to find out more...
To finish off our science topic of light and shadow, year 3 made elaborate shadow puppet theatres. We turned off the lights and used a torch to illuminate our shadow puppets as we performed to our class. The opaque puppets could be seen through the translucent baking paper at the front of our theatres. It was lots of fun!
The children have had a wonderful day of immersion in Stone Age life. They have created cave paintings in our classroom 'cave', sat around a fire flint knapping whilst telling stories of a successful day's hunting and have also been entertained by a visitor from the Stone Age. Using the magic of theatre, our visitor changed into an archaeologist who taught us how artefacts are found and used to tell us more about the past.
This is the title of our class text which is inspiring our writing this half-term. It tells the story of objects found under the floorboards in a Victorian house; two of these objects being wooden toy soldiers. The children have been writing in role as these toy soldiers; Major Glad and Major Dizzy. This week our heroes have become bored of being under the floorboards (they have already been there for 20 years) so have written letters to the grown-up children of the household asking to be rescued. We have been super impressed with the year 3 children's letter writing skills.
We have made a great start to the year by making the most of the sunny weather to learn how shadows are formed. We learnt that shadows are formed when a light source such as the sun is blocked by an opaque object like our bodies. We drew round our shadows in the playground at 3 different times during the day and observed that the size and direct of the shadows changed. The year 3 teachers have been very impressed by the attitude of the children as they have made the big leap to KS2 and are looking forward to a great year of learning.
Year 3 have been focusing on 2 design and technology projects this week; the first is to plan and make a healthy sandwich and the second is to design and make a shell structure to keep their sandwich protected. Today, the sandwiches were made by the children and placed in their fabulous boxes. We eventually allowed them to feast on their creations although unfortunately the rain did not allow us to have our planned picnic. Please ask your child what they liked about their sandwich and box and what they would do to improve it.
This week, all the year 3 children have been busy writing their own fantasy adventures. We have used Podkin One Ear as our inspiration but have created our own characters, settings and plots. The children are currently writing up their fabulous stories and illustrating them so that we can create class books. They have loved this activity so please ask them about their own creations; they may well want to write a sequel at home. In other areas of the curriculum, they have learnt river vocabulary, carried our scientific observations, learnt more about safe use of the Internet, measured mass and capacity, had conversations in French and danced to Dancing Queen. Phew!!
This week all the year 3 children have earned their safe walking certificates. They have practised:
- walking safely on the pavement, keeping away from the road
- choosing a safe place to cross the road, in a straight line, onto a clear pavement
- making sure they can see clearly and be seen by all road users
- crossing with care, at a safe time
-and using pedestrian crossing points to cross busy roads
Children learn by example. They need to continue to practise safe walking with their responsible adult to prepare them for walking independently when they are older. For further guidance, please see The Highway Code Rules for Pedestrians (1-35).
What an incredible few weeks we have had in Year 3. Highlights include dressing up as Egyptians and spending a whole night at school!! First, the Ancient Egyptian day was filled with activities which may have taken place in a marketplace 3000 years ago followed by a 'feast' where the children performed dances and drama for the Pharaoh and Queen. Many thanks to the parent volunteers who worked so hard all morning running the stalls.
Friday night the children returned to school where they enjoyed orienteering, campfire singing and eventually some sleep before an early rise for breakfast. It was lots of fun for all and we were very impressed with the children's growing maturity and independence. (The teachers are still recovering....)
Thursday morning is mix up time in year 3 where the 3 classes have lessons in mixed class groups (Witches, Trunchbulls and Twits). The children enjoy a carousel of French, music and PE lessons. This term in PE the focus is on dancing (learning a routine for Dancing Queen), the focus in music is composing using 3 notes and in French the children are learning the months of the year.
We have made a great start to the new term by beginning our new core text; Podkin One Ear by Kieran Larwood. The book begins with our would-be hero in grave danger and the children are already entranced. They have written in role as Podkin this week and we will continue to use this text to inspire us through the remainder of the summer term. In science we have been learning about the different parts of a plant and have dissected daffodils.
What a fabulous final two weeks! Year three have been busy immersing themselves in Henri Rousseau's painting, Surprise! as part of Arts Week. We had fun exploring the painting in depth and used our newly developed printing skills to create a beautiful mural. This week we took advantage of the glorious sunshine to create shadows, a long awaited lesson, which we all enjoyed thoroughly. The children were able to notice patterns in how the shadows changed throughout the day - making links with their maths learning of measurement. Continuing with our study on light and shadows, we created some wonderful shadow puppet theatres which we used to perform some very expressive scenes from Matilda!
Wishing you all a marvellous break and look forward to seeing you all again in the summer term.
Year 3 have been learning more about the history of our local area this week whilst on a visit to Richmond Museum. We learnt all about how Victorians did their laundry (it took 6 days!). Did you know that all of Queen Victoria's laundry was sent to Richmond to be washed? We looked at how Richmond changed from the Tudor times and how the coming of the railways in Victorian times made the area a much busier place. We also had fun playing with Victorian toys and pretending to be in a Victorian school.
