Author: year3

This week in Varjak Paw, we were thinking about the different settings in the story – the city surrounding the Contessa’s house and Mesopotamia, which Varjak visits in his dreams.  The children created a soundscape in table groups of one or other of the settings and saw whether the other children could guess which it was. We compared the different locations in readiness for our writing.

Even SF Said, the author of Varjak Paw, has listened to our soundscapes!

This term in computing, the children are learning about data, how computers store information and how they help us make sense of the information we have at hand. In our first lesson, we introduced the children to terminology associated with databases using a “Top Trumps” style game using comparison cards. Each card represented a record, each record contained a number of fields and each field stored some specific data related to that record.

The children enjoyed playing the game and we then went on to create our own set of cards so we had a class game.  Chestnut created a game all about animals, Rowan opted for a game all about the children in the class.

We started our new geography topic this week, learning all about South America. To kick off the unit, after a brief introduction, the children had a carousel of activities to help them discover lots of facts about this vast continent of 12 countries.

Two tables in each class were using laptops to finding facts or go on a scavenger hunt for different snippets of information…
Did you know the internet country code for Uruguay is .uy?
Did you know that the highest waterfall in the world is Angel Falls in Venezuela at 807m high?
Did you know most countries in South America speak Spanish?

On the third table, the children played a game of South American country Top Trumps looking at land mass, total population, highest peak and capital city population to see who could claim the most cards.  They quickly worked out that Brazil trumped most other countries due to its size.

On the last table, the children played a game of Battleships, but this time with cities in Brazil.  There were two different maps, each containing 8 cities and the children had to find them using map coordinates to see how many they could find.

“Outside! For the first time since Jalal, a Paw stood on the edge of the world.” SF Said, Varjak Paw (Chapter 5)
Varjak sat on the wall looking down at the Outside. In our conscience alley, the children gave Varjak their opinions about whether he should stay with Elder Paw and the family, or leave and head to the Outside.

“He needs to leave because he’s got to find medicine for the Elder Paw.”
“Leave because then you can find dogs to help”
“Stay because they could get kidnapped by a dog.”
“Leave so he can take care of himself”
“Leave because you can explore”
“Leave because you need to get a dog to save the Grandad”

SF Said, the author, has listened to our Conscience Alley and he sent us this Tweet!

On Wednesday, four of our year 3 children led KS2 worship in the hall.  The theme this week sets the scene for the rest of the term, recapping the events which led on from Easter and which have been celebrated over the last few weeks – Ascension Day, celebrated on Thursday 18th May (which we led a service for at church with year 2) and Pentecost, which was celebrated on Sunday 28th May.

The children opened the worship with a greeting and lit the candle, they read passages from the Bible and led prayers too, including the Lord’s Prayer which all the children joined in with. We ended our worship with a song – Give me Joy in my Heart

Second day back and already something a little bit different!

Today, we were lucky to have a team of young leaders join us from the Marsh Academy to host an Olympic Roadshow, giving the children an opportunity to try mini skills games of basketball, hockey, athletics and cricket.  The children had a great time as you can see!

We cannot believe it’s already the final term of year 3 – it’s gone so fast – and we have plenty of new and exciting things to learn this term.

Our topic focus is geography and we will be learning all about South America and the Amazon Rainforest and extending the rainforest theme to our music lessons too. Our book this term is the classic story, Varjak Paw by SF Said, a story we are sure the children will love. In RE, we are returning to our learning about Sikhi and finding out more about how they show their love and care for each other through seva. Our computing learning will cross over into maths looking at databases and statistics and computing will also feature in DT as we design products to keep children safe outside in the dark. With sports days this term, our PE focus will be athletics and a favourite team game, rounders.

We are looking forward to a final, fantastic term together!

Term 6 Overview – South America and Rainforests (PDF Download)

At home for maths, we would like the children to focus on their key instant recall facts relating to time – I can recall facts about durations of time.  We will also be setting various activities throughout the term on our ‘Learning with Parents’ portal. Can you earn a certificate this term by completing all the activities?

Key Instant Recall Facts – I can recall facts about duration of time (PDF Download)

This term in PE we have been we have been learning all about team work, problem solving, giving clear instructions, following multi-step instructions, map reading and orienteering.  The children had great fun learning how to work together and solve problems, competing against other teams. One week they had to work out how to hold as many pieces of paper as possible between 2 people – the only problem, the people holding the paper couldn’t collect it, the paper could not be touching the floor, and no 2 pieces of paper could be touching! They came up with some ingenious ideas!

They learnt how to follow maps, initially creating patterns inside hoops by following a map, identifying the parts and picking them up, running to the hoop and using the map correctly orientated to complete the pattern.  They worked as a team, with one child at a time building the puzzle.  In another puzzle, they had to follow a map and spell out words where letters were hidden underneath cones.

Finally, in the last week, using ‘Treasure Island style’ maps of the school, they had to run around as a team collecting letters, reporting back to the leaders as a group to collect their next letter.  When they had all 5 letters, they had to tell the leader their word.  All this against other teams to see who could come out on top with the most correct words!

As part of our DT project, we looked at the features of castles and linked this to 3D structures and nets.

Firstly, we created our own designs following a design specification.  We had to make the castle strong and sturdy, include a drawbridge and towers, make it out of recyclable materials and use 3D nets.  After that, we could add our own flourishes to make them our own!

We had a go at making 3D shapes from nets. This was much harder than it looked!

We then made castles of our own.

Our finished builds!

We started our learning about plants with a crime scene! What had happened? Who was responsible? What should we do?

We investigated roots and whether the size of the root or number of roots makes a difference as to how quickly water is absorbed.

We explored how water travels up the stem.  We put some white Carnations in coloured water.  After a few days, the petals had changed colour slightly.

We explored capillary action in plants using tissue paper and water.  We put water in one cup and observed how it transferred to an empty cup via the tissue paper.  This stopped when there was approximately the same amount of liquid in each cup.

We investigated the different components of a flower using tulips. We peeled off the 3 outer sepals (these look like petals on a tulip as they have adapted over time, in most plants these are green), then removed the 3 petals, before looking at and removing the male and female parts of the flower where the pollen and seeds are made.

Finally, we explored how seeds are dispersed so that new plants can grow. We simulated being a flower dispersing its seeds in different ways. When we looked at how we all landed, we discovered that seeds land on the ground randomly. Consequently, it doesn’t matter which way up they are planted; they will still grow.