3AH

Welcome to our class webpage where you can find out about our amazing learning journey. You will find information about our activities, examples of our work and comments from us! Please visit often to see our learning journey develop.

Term 6

End of term reflections

As we finished our final term together in Year 3 we all thought about what we had done and what we enjoyed.

Here are just a few of our thoughts and reflections.

Tiffany- 'I've really enjoyed The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane because it was so interesting'

Alfie- 'I have got better at my maths this term by getting more questions right and getting onto the 'prove its' more often.'

Tom- 'I liked our visit to the Botanical Gardens because there were lots of beautiful plants and flowers.'

Taylor- 'I have shown to be a Purple Learner by helping Lily with her spellings.'

Hollie- 'I have improved my writing this term because I used to make lots of mistakes but now I don't!'

Declan- 'I have improved my writing. This is because my narrative writing is now more interesting and much neater.'

Hindu Rangoli patterns

Throughout the day we learnt about the Hindu festival of light Diwali. We made lanterns as a symbol of light which reminded us of how Diwali is about light over darkness, good triumphing over bad. At the end of the day we designed our own rangoli patterns and carefully copied our designs onto black paper and brought them to life using coloured chalk.

Foodie Fun Day.....Italia!

On Tuesday we took a day trip to Italy to help raise money for Foodbank. We came to school wearing the colours of Italy and donated £1 to this important cause. During the day we learnt about Italy and some of its main cities, learnt to count to 10 in Italian and did some cooking- bruschetta.

We all had a great day!

Shadows and Light

Today was an exploration into light, space and shadows. Throughout the day we plotted our shadows on the playground. We watched them shorten and then lengthen again as well as their path from side to side. We were all really interested in how the earth orbits the sun and in turn how we get seasons and longer days of daylight in the summer.

Later on in the day, we looked at how shadows are created and developed our scientific language by using translucent, opaque and transparent. Finally, we created posters for a younger child about sun safety- the number one rule being never look directly into the sun!

Science Investigation

As part of our science  this week we have set up an investigation looking at how sunlight affects a plant's growth. We wanted to make the test as fair as possible so we have only included one variable- where our seeds will be placed. Everything else was kept the same- the same amount of cress seeds, same container, same amount of water and the same position each time. We are observing the seeds over time and recording measurements and observations on a grid. We also made predictions about what will happen. 

We all  placed our seeds in different locations that would mean that they had different amounts of sunlight. The locations are: cupboard, on a window sill, under Mr Hamlen's desk, in the classroom but surrounded by mirrors and a mixture of in the cupboard and in the classroom.

We can't wait to see what happens!

Results!

Having carefully cared for and watered our seeds we finally had some results. We found that the seeds that grew in the cupboard did grow but were thin and feeble and a rather unappetising yellow colour. The best plants were the ones that had full sunlight, although some of the ones on the window sill did dry up due to the extreme temperatures over the weekend.

Scooter training

This wee we were really lucky to have scooter training. We had to bring our scooter to school along with a helmet and a chain (if we had one!). We spent about an hour on the playground learning about control, how to use the scooter safely around pedestrians and the odd trick or two!

PE session with Year 2

On Monday we invited the Year 2 children from the infants to share a PE session with us. We helped them learn one of our favourite activities. The aim of the game was to work as a team, use clear communication and support each other. We had to get from one side of the pitch to another without stepping on the grass, we were given various pieces of equipment to help us get there.

Transition with Year 2

It doesn't seem possible that it was a year ago that we started our transition activities but here we were sharing our PE session with the Year 2's. We wanted to play our favourite game where we have to work as a team to cross from one side of a space to another without stepping on the grass. We were allowed two hoops and a small mat which we could stand on. It is an activity that requires great communication, team spirit and careful planning!

Feeling peckish? Fancy a tasty treat?

To enhance our instruction-writing skills, we wrote instructions for how to make a jam sandwich. Once we had drafted, edited and redrafted our instructions, we evaluated their effectiveness by following them to make (and munch) some scrumptious jam sandwiches. Yum!

Term 5

How can Brahman be in everything and everywhere?

Setting description

Today we went outside and into the secret garden in the school grounds. We each used our senses to think about what Edward might see, feel, smell or hear. Each of us carefully listened to the various different sounds that were around us- leaves rustling, crows crowing and dry leaves crunching beneath our feet.

Measuring capacity

Today we learnt how to read a scale when measuring the capacity and volume of a container. Carefully, we read the scale and decided on the intervals. Then we looked at the level of the liquid inside.

It was lots of fun pouring the water into the different containers to match the challenge amount!

Magnificent monsters!

We've been exploring figurative language as a tool for making our descriptions more vivid. After learning how to use alliteration and similes, we wrote and illustrated a creepy collection of magnificent monster poems. Read them if you dare!

Measuring indoors and outdoors

In order to learn how to measure accurately we used different equipment to measure everyday items such as the water fountain, books, pens, playground markings and many, many more items.

What makes the journey more important than the destination?

Wow!

Year 3 enjoyed a special day with their favourite soft toys and dolls, posing for portraits, telling their toys' life stories and having fun in the sun at a picnic. Our wonderful wow day launched our new enquiry, 'What makes the journey more important than the destination?', in which we will follow Edward Tulane, a toy rabbit, on his miraculous journey.

Term 4

Term 4 reflections

Felicity-'This term I have learnt that muscles work in pairs by relaxing and contracting.'

Tyrese- 'I'm really proud of getting onto the 100 club.'

Amy- 'Next term I want to focus on my listening because I want to listen more carefully.'

Joao- 'This term I have learnt to program a light bot so it can move.'

Ala- 'I have improved my handwriting and understanding the TT's because I understand how to include them in my writing.'

Kasie- 'This term I have learnt that Tabago is an island in the Carribbean.'

How do Christians remember the Easter story?

Challenge

To bring our RE enquiry to a close we looked at the different ways that Christians remember the Easter story. We also looked at different Easter gardens and the various features that they contain- a cross to symbolise how Jesus died, the tomb, a hill and a path. Quite often they include flowers to represent new life.

We worked collaboratively to create our own Easter gardens, we also went outside and into the secret garden to find natural resources to help create our gardens.

Expression of love

Throughout our journey in this enquiry we learnt that God sent his only son to earth to solve and address all the things that were going wrong at that time. This was an act of love because God knew that Jesus would die.

We also thought about what acts of love we show in school, at home and with our families. Respect and love were words that came up many times whilst we thought about the selfless things that we do each day.

New life

Easter is a time of new life- flowers beginning to blossom, lambs being born and warmer,lighter days. We also learnt that a butterfly is also a symbol of new life and of the Easter story.

The butterfly is one of the significant symbols of Easter. Its whole life cycle symbolises the life of Jesus Christ. The first stage is the caterpillar stands for his life on earth. The second phase, the cocoon,  portrays the crucifixion and burial of Jesus. The third and final stage is the butterfly, this represents His rising from the dead in a glorified body. 

WOW

As part of our RE enquiry this week we all had a taste of a hot cross bun. We thought about why there is a cross on the top of them and through discussion, we learnt the cross is a symbol of how Jesus died and that he died on a cross. 

We continued our learning by thinking about situations where we may have 'saved the day' or redeemed a situation. We remembered times when we may have helped a friend when they were hurt of found a missing jumper. Maisy and Bob, the puppets, helped us to think about helping others and being selfless. Finally, we thought about how Jesus was sent by God to save the world and redeem the earth.

Challenge

There was much excitement taking on the role of Gregory and using green screens to film vlogs (a video diary) set in Tobago. Our vlogs document Gregory's first experiences on the island and capture his thoughts and feelings. After an uncertain start, Gregory soon begins to embrace life in Tobago and it starts to feel more like home. 

Coding and Algorithms

Today we learnt about coding and how to write an algorithm. As well as coding we we used  two clever apps - Lightbot and Kodable. We wrote algorithms, debugged, repeated commands, debugged, created procedures and debugged some more! The programs became progressively more complex so we really had to put our heads together!

Bristol Basketball 

Throughout term 4 we have our outdoor PE session run by Bristol Basketball. Each week we learn new skills which enable us to control the ball better as well as build up our hand eye coordination. This week we learnt how to shoot- our shooting hand had to look like we were raiding the cookie jar after the ball had left!

Gregory's emotional journey

In preparation to create vlogs as Gregory, we got into character by freeze-framing key events from his first few days in Tobago. We all tried really hard to think about how Gregory was feeling and what might be going through his mind at each stage of his journey. 

Science week

Today saw the start of science week in Year 3. Our theme of the week is 'How we move and grow'. Our WOW was to look at and handle real animal bones and a heart from a deer. Some of us were a little unsure at the start but as time progressed each and every one of us became enthralled and engrossed by what we were able to learn form this amazing opportunity.

As the week progresses we will learn about muscles, the purpose of our skeleton and bones as well as how to be healthy.

Hollie W- 'It was so interesting learning about what was inside the heart.'

Felicity- 'The joint of the leg looked like it was plastic but I knew that it wasn't.'

Antony- 'I learnt that the heart is a muscle.'

Declan- 'It was a but weird holding the heart but it was very exciting, it helped me learn.

The Human Skeleton

We carried out some research on the human skeleton and what its main purpose is. Through our research and discussion we found out the three main roles that the skeleton plays- protection, support and aids movement.

Muscles

In order for the skeleton to move we learnt that it needs muscles to help it. We went outside to do some paired work about how all muscles work in pairs. We tried to stand up holding a ball between us while linking arms to demonstrate that if we didn't work together then we wouldn't be able to stand up. Some of use used a skipping rope in pairs to demonstrate that we had to work as a pair to rotate the rope- just like pairs of muscles complement and work with each other to contract and relax.

Healthy Diet

As we came towards the end of the science week we learnt that the human body needs a healthy diet in order to grow and develop effectively. We went outside to sort healthy and unhealthy food into two groups. Using a venn diagram we also noticed that some foods are alright to eat but not too often or in large quantities. 

To help us understand what a healthy diet consists of we looked at the Eatwell Plate. This helped us to identify what the different food groups were and what proportion of those groups we should be eating. We then made our own Eatwell Plates.

Final Challenge

Our final challenge was to design and make a poster for a recipe for a human body. This was a collaborative learning challenge where we all worked in small groups and had specific roles to do within the group such as: time keeper and resource manager. We started off with some planning time and then worked collaboratively to create our poster in a fixed time.

Everyone wanted to include what they had learnt over the last week and present it in a colourful, eye-catching way. Once the time had ended we all looked at each others posters and shared some positive comments.

Where is home?

World Book Day

To celebrate World Book Day we all came to school dressed as a character from a book that we have read. We had Dennis the Menace, Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz, Anne of Green Gables and many, many more.

Throughout the afternoon we did a variety of activities linked to World Book Day- design a Book Day voucher, book quizzes and write part of a story that was added to by children from each year group. The end results were quite amazing!

To finish the day off many of us came together in the hall for an evening of story telling, and of course hot chocolate with marshmallows!!

Year 3 Athletics

Today we practised some of our athletics skills with the help of Year 6 and the Schools Sport Partnership. We practised jumping, running, throwing, balancing and aim. Everyone had a great time.

It would fantastic to find someone who could go to the 2024 Olympics!

WOW

For our WOW, we all tried a range of new, different and exciting foods! Some of these were pita bread, feta cheese, mango, melon, soy sauce, kiwi and lots more! We found a range of them delicious and were surprised about how they tasted. Some of us thought that we wouldn't like a few of them but were amazed when we actually ate some of the new foods.  Throughout the afternoon, we discussed where we thought these foods might have come from and recorded our ideas on a table.

Immersion

We have begun to read the book of 'Gregory Cool' and thought about how this boy may have felt about going on a long flight to a strange country and staying with people who he hardly knew. We all decided that he would have felt rather anxious and possibly homesick.

One of the may immersion activities was to write a postcard home to our families and describe what we had been doing whilst away. This could have been a day trip or a longer period of time away from home.  One of the challenges was to use one of our targets and write in the past tense,

Have a look at some of the finished postcards.

Term 3

Why and how did ancient Egyptians make mummies?

Reflections on Term 3

As we cane to the end of the term we thought about what our favourite part was, what we were proud of, how we had shown perseverance and what we had improved at. 

Have a look at what some of us wrote:

Alec-'I have shown perseverance when I thought hard before asking for help.'

Tom-'My favourite part of the term was when we mummified the tomatoes because it was fun.'

Hollie-'I'm proud of getting my Headteacher's certificate for writing because I had found writing hard and this is a big achievement for me.'

Lewis-'This term I have improved at my reading because I have been practising with my mum and in my group.'

Alfie-'My favourite part of the term was our WOW day because we saw what the mummification process was and we played a throwing game.'

Challenge!

Our end of enquiry challenge was to mummify an organic item. Instead of a pharaoh we decided to mummify a tomato. First, we carefully cut a slit in the side of the tomato. Next, we scooped out the insides and threw away the seeds and pulp. After that, we made our own natron salt by mixing salt and baking powder. Finally, we packed the tomato with the natron salt and placed the tomato into a container, again also packing it with the mixture. We then weighed the mummifying tomato and placed it in a dark cupboard.

After a gap of nearly three weeks our mummified tomatoes were ready to be revealed. We had great fun uncovering them and seeing what had happened to them. We weighed them again and worked out how lighter they were.

Have a look at how they turned out.

Colourful cartouches

A cartouche is an oval-shaped frame surrounding the name of an ancient Egyptian noble or pharaoh. It represents a looped rope that possesses the magical power to protect the name written within it. A cartouche was meant to protect against evil spirits both in this life and the afterlife. After studying the hieroglyphic alphabet, we wrote our own names inside carefully decorated cartouches.

Net nasties!

In our computing session this week we discussed the question 'Is all information online reliable?'  We decided that not all websites are reliable and that you should look at at least three different sites to check your information. We also found out that not everything that is written on the internet is truthful and that anyone can write what they want- true or false!

We designed our own 'Net nasties' to help remind us of how important it is to follow the safe searching rules. Have a look at some of our nasties.

Visit to Bristol Hindu Temple

Today Year 3 visited the Bristol Hindu Temple in St George. We were met by the priest who made us feel very welcome. Once we had removed our shoes which was a sign of respect, we were introduced to what Hinduism was and what it was like to be a Hindu in Bristol.

After a while, we were able to look around the temple and view the different forms of their god. The deities were in the forms or statues, paintings and shrines. Before we left we were able to ask questions such as:

'Why is there fruit at the front?'

'How many gods are their in Hinduism?'

'Why is there an elephant in one of the pictures?'

We were made to feel so welcome and really enjoyed our visit.

What is a Hindu place or worship?

Throughout the week we have been learning about what it is like to worship in a Hindu Temple. We have learnt key words such as mandir, murti, deity and puja.

During the week we also wrote about our visit to the temple using adverbs to give extra detail to the reader- have a look at some of the amazing writing below!

To conclude our our enquiry on 'What is a Hindu place of worship?' we used what we had learnt and made a comparison between what was similar and what was different between a Hindu place of worship and a Christian place of worship.

We found that there were several similarities such as people pray, get married and learn from the priest. However, we did notice that in a Hindu temple people remove their shows as a sign of respect and sit on  the floor whereas in a Christian place of worship people sit on pews.

Once we had discussed some of the similarities and differences we went outside and used two hoops crossed over to sort the information into a venn diagram. 

Have a look at some of the diagrams below- it was quite cold so we didn't stay outside too long!

Preparation of our mummified organic object

Today we prepared our organic object-namely a tomato, to be mummified. We followed a set of instructions so that each important step was carried out. 

First we made a slit in the side of the tomato. Then we carefully scooped out the seeds from inside the tomato. Following that, we mixed salt and baking powder to make our own natron. The final step was to stuff the mixture into the void of the tomato, place it in a container and precisely pack the remaining natron around the outside of the tomato.

We will wait a couple of weeks before we are able to uncover the tomato and see it has been mummified.

We will keep you posted! 

Practical division learning

Today we braved the elements to take our maths learning outside. We were answering word problems that involved the calculation of division and then deciding if we needed to round our answer up or down in order to answer the original question:

Year 3 are going on a school trip. There are 29 children in Year 3. The children are going to ride on a roller-coaster.

A car on the roller-coaster holds 4 children. How many cars will be needed for all the children to have a ride?

Eventually we had to go inside as the rain became too much for us. We continued our learning in the hall!

WOW

As part of our WOW to introduce our enquiry based on the Ancient Egyptians, we all dressed up as a range of people that would have been seen during this time. We had a range of Pharoahs and explorers. and even Cleopatra!

We were very lucky to have an Egyptologist visit us to teach us all about the Ancient Epyptians! She remained with us throughout the day and helped us learn about this exciting new enquiry.

Term 2

What is the place between?

Challenge

Our challenge was to create the Place Between using words and pictures. We drew together our writing skills from across the term to describe this magical place. The art involved creating a background of purple, black and blue, carefully cutting out a shadow hand template and finally spraying over the template to create a shadow creature.

RE: Has Christmas lost its true meaning?

Through this enquiry we learnt about what the true meaning of Christmas was to Christians and compared this with what Christmas means to us. We started off by looking at some of our own family Christmas traditions- leaving a mince pie out for Santa, having a fairy on top of the Christmas tree and many, many more.

We then looked at the Nativity story and found out the significance of the wise men, shepherds, star and the fact that Jesus was born in a manger. Following on from the story of the Nativity we looked at some of the many symbols that we use today that relate directly to the story of the birth of Jesus.- An angel represents Angel Gabriel who announced the birth of Jesus to the shepherds, a candy cane is a symbol of the shepherds crook and gifts that we exchange link to the gifts that the three wise men gave to the infant Jesus.

Finally, we thought about a gift that we could give to the world. 

Declan- 'My gift to the world would be to help people to be healthy.'

Evie- ' My gift to the world would be for everyone to have food and drink as well as a safe place to live.'

Phoebe- 'My gift to the world would be education for all.'

Reflections from Term 2

Hollie W- 'My favourite part of term 2 was the WOW because it was funny, magical and I got to stand up in front of the whole year to help perform a trick.'

Kasie- 'I'm proud of my handwriting because it's got neater.'

Lui- 'This term I have improved at multiplication in maths by focusing on it.'

Roman- 'I'm proud of my times tables because i'm one of the best in the class now.'

Kylan- 'My favourite part of term 2 was spray painting because we actually got to do the spraying!'

Felicity- 'This term I have improved at my English because I have been using more of my TT's, especially compound sentences.'

Christmas jumper day

Many of us came to school in our Christmas jumpers today. We donated money in aid of the local Food Bank,  We think we look ready for Christmas!

Class Assembly

This week we had an amazing class assembly. Everyone spoke so clearly and were proud of what they had to share. We shared just a snapshot of what we had learnt about so far this term. We shared how to write a compound sentence, what a noun phrase was, some amazing forces and magnets learning as well as some awesome art work.

Anti-Bullying Week

This week we learnt about what bullying meant using the acronym STOP- Several Times On Purpose. We also learnt the difference between rude behavior, mean behavior and bullying.

There are different types of bullying- cyber, physical and verbal. 

We used the book 'It's OK to be different' by Todd Parr to help use learn about diversity and how difference should be celebrated rather than singled out and used as an opportunity to bully an individual.

Have a look at our 'It's OK to....' pictures.

Continuing the theme of anti-bullying, we each randomly selected a member of the class and wrote a positive message to them. We didn’t want the person to find out so we didn’t sign our name. We all really thought about what we could say.

Here are some of the messages written about members of the class:

Ruby- ‘I like it when you laugh every day because it makes me laugh a bit’

Lui- ‘He is always kind and generous to me and is my friend’

Holly B- ‘You are kind and very beautiful’

Kylan- ‘Kylan is a great, amazing and fantastic friend because he supports people’

Readers theatre

Today we learnt a section of our book 'Leon and the place between' and added actions and emphases to certain parts. Many of us thought of actions to words which added extra emphases to the performance of the section.

We are sure that you will be really impressed with our final result!

This week saw us begin our multiplication learning. We looked at Place Value (PV) counters  and how they can help our learning. We then moved onto arranging them in different arrays. Towards the end of the session we went outside and made human arrays with cones on our heads to represent ones and tens (red and yellow PV counters).

Have a look below at what we did.

n order to begin Term 2's enquiry, we invited a very exciting magician, Magic Mike, into school for the day. Magic Mike came baring lots of fun, excitement and of course magic! The day kicked off with a magic show where Mike showed us and taught us a range of different tricks and magic skills. We then went on to make our own juggling balls and designed our own circus posters. After lunch  Mike did a workshop with us in our class, where we learned even more amazing magic tricks that we are going to practice on our families! Later in the day, we finished off with making balloon dogs in the hall.

Phew, what an exciting day!!

Term 1

What is a place of worship?

What makes a hero?

Our final challenge to this enquiry was to write a Kennings Poem about our own personal hero and to put them on display in our 'Hero Hall of Fame'. We had to think who our personal hero could be and what made them a hero in our own eyes. Many of us chose members of our families. 

Once we had written our poem we designed and made a frame to hold a picture of our personal hero. They were mounted together and we each held our poem for our family and friends to view in the Year 3 Hero Hall of Fame.