Playground Shelters

The children worked in small groups to create their own playground shelters. They planned their shelters and then followed their design to make the shelters. They thought carefully about the structure considering the shape of the base, the lengths of the pieces of wood that they needed to cut and the shape of the roof. They used their newly acquired DT skills to measure and then saw various pieces of wood. They are incredibly proud of what they have achieved. Please take a look at their final pieces. 

DT - Frame structures: finger fluency

Designers need to practise making things until their hands and fingers do things automatically, without much thinking. This is called fluency. By practising making frame structures in lots of different ways, your hands and fingers will become fluent in making and assembling. Today the children had to measure and cut six pieces of wood that were identical in length. They assembled and glued these pieces of wood to create a structure and then reinforced their structures by adding triangular card corners. 

Investigating Structures

Today we looked at different shapes that we can use when building structures. We used marshmallows and cocktail sticks to investigate how good the structures are at supporting weight. 

Defeating the Monster Stories

The children have been writing their own 'Defeating the Monster' stories, based on The Nothing to See Here Hotel. They have then published these stories into books with front covers, illustrations and chapters. Today the children got the opportunity to share their stories with Year 6. They are all very proud of their books and are now proudly stuck into their Writing Journals so they can look back at them in years to come. 

We have been learning about instructions in English.  We designed our own games and wrote instructions on how to play them.  We ended out topic with a games fair, playing each other's games.

These 3 beat off fierce competition to be voted onto the school council.  The standard of the children's presentations was amazing and the class had some tough decisions when voting.  I am immensely proud of all of them!

In History we are learning about The Ancient Egyptians and important events that happened during their long period of History.  They were invaded many times, they built the pyramids, they had many Pharaohs, they believed in many Gods, they mummified the dead and they believed in an afterlife. Can you tell which events we are representing in our freeze frames?

Smoothie Making

This week in DT we have been working on 'finger fluency'; focusing on blending and juicing. As a group, we chose the ingredients for our smoothie from a range of fruits and juices. We made our smoothies by blending and then tasted our smoothies to evaluate our choices

Odd Sock Day

Today we celebrated 'Odd Sock Day' at White Court School. Odd Sock Day is an annual event, where children and adults are encouraged to wear mismatched socks, as a way of celebrating diversity and promoting inclusion. It is a fun and symbolic gesture, to remind everyone that being different and unique, is something to be proud of. 

Design Technology

In Design Technology, we looked at the packaging and branding of different cans of soup. In groups, we took it in turns to taste different flavoured soups and tried to guess the ingredients. We then completed a score card, and judged each soup based on appearance, smell, flavour and texture. 

Mini Compost Bins

We worked in groups, and followed a simple set of instructions to create some mini compost bins.

1. First, we placed some small stones in a plastic container.

2. Then, we added a layer of compost.

3. After that, we carefully dug up some worms and gently placed them onto the compost.

4. Next, we added a handful of scraps on top of the worms.

5. Then, we wet some shredded paper, and added it as the topmost layer of compost bins.

6. After that, we added a thin piece of fabric over the top of the plastic container and secured it with an elastic band.

7. Finally, we attached a long rectangular piece of card around the container, so that it was nice dark for the worms.

Charcoal Prehistoric Beasts!

We created our very own prehistoric beast drawings, using charcoal. First, we sketched the outline of our beast, using pencil. Once happy with the shape and proportion of our drawings, we used charcoal to add extra detail. We thought carefully about which charcoal techniques to use, to add texture and shade. 

Today Year 3 had a fantastic day at Barleylands. Take a look at the photos to see what we got up to ...

Class Trip to Barleylands - Stone Age Day

Reminders

• School uniform top half (school t-shirt & jumper/ cardigan)
• Comfy trousers e.g. jogging bottoms/ leggings
• Wear trainers (that you don't mind getting dirty).
• Bring a packed lunch in a plastic bag (with your name on it) that can be disposed of afterwards
• Backpacks can be brought, but children will be responsible for carrying them
• Named water bottles
• Lightweight raincoat

Charcoal

We have been exploring using charcoal in different forms, using different techniques and looking at the different effects that can be created. 

Edible rocks

We followed a simple set of instructions, to make edible versions of the 3 main types of rock: Sedimentary, Metamorphic and Igneous. For the Sedimentary rock, we used blue icing to represent the water bed, sprinkles to represent fossilised bones and yoghurt and mousse layers were used to represent the mud and sediment. For the Metmorphic rock, we used different coloured icing, to represent the different layers. For the Igneous rock, we mixed up mini marshmallows, broken up biscuits and chocolate chips, to show how the rock is formed when molten rock or magma is cooled. 

         Sedimentary                       Metamorphic                                Igneous

2023-2024

♦ Key Information ♦

PE days

In Year 3, PE days are Tuesdays & Wednesdays. Please remember to send your child into school in their PE kits on these days. Any earrings must be removed, and long hair must be tied up.

Homework

Weekly homework is set every Friday, and due back in on the following Wednesday. We expect children to read regularly. Please can adults record in your child's blue reading record when you have read with your child at home.

Reading Points

You child will receive reading points, when they have read at home with an adult, and recorded it in their blue reading record. The reading points will be collected and added up, and your child will be able to earn Reading Award certificates, which will be awarded to them in Friday assemblies. Each week, 2 children from each class (who read regularly at home), will be invited to Hot Chocolate club, where they will be asked to bring in a mug of their choice, and will made a lovely hot chocolate (or alternative drink where necessary) and enjoy listening to a story or some music on our wireless headsets. 

Animal Experience Day

We had a very exciting day exploring the rainforest, learning about habitats and the vast array of animals that live there. We got to handle Madagascan hissing cockroaches, a royal python, a yemen chameleon, a leachianus gecko, a chinese water dragon, rats and sugar gliders. Year 3 really enjoyed asking thoughtful questions and listening to interesting facts. Thank you to Eden Oasis for providing us with such a fun, educational, unique experience.

Welcome back! We hope that you all had a lovely Easter break  This term we will be learning all about amazing Rainforests! During this topic, we will be learning to locate, describe and understand key aspects of Rainforests. We will also be learning about human and geographical features in the Amazon Rainforest, and will be researching and finding out about various animals and creatures that live there.

In History we have been learning about the Ancient Egyptian Journey to the Afterlife.  We acted out the journey and decided which was our favourite part.  Watch the video link below.   Can you guess which parts of  the journey we are showing in our freeze frames?

Creating our own board games

In English, we worked together to create our own board games. We then worked really hard to write a set of instructions to play our games. At the end of the week, we are going to have a 'games fair' where we vote for our favourite games. We can't wait to find out what the prizes are going to be! 

Welcome back! We hope that you all had a wonderful Christmas break. Our new topic is Ancient Egypt. We can't wait to have our Ancient Egyptian Day where the children will come to school dressed up and become fully immersed into the topic. We have an exciting term ahead of us and are looking forward to sharing with you all of the interesting things that we are learning about! 

Welcome to Armadillo Class! This term (Autumn term) our topic is The Stone Age. We will be learning all about what happened in the Stone Age and how Stone Age people lived. We will also be looking at cave art and creating our very own. We will be sharing our learning journey with you on this class page, so please check this page regularly, to see what we've been up to. 

Science

In Science, we have made mini compost bins. We explored Maisie's garden and then followed a set of instructions to create our bins (including real life worms). 

We love reading! 

We love reading in Armadillo class. We have a very comfy reading corner that we enjoy using. We have DEAR time (Drop Everything And Read) where we are allowed to make ourselves comfortable and read a book/text of our choice. We love our new Bookflix display. This display has a recommended reading list for us and has templates for us to complete book reviews for our friends.