During our DT week we designed and produced two car mechanical car prototypes: The first had an inclined plane, the second a slingshot. We built and tested each car, learning how to construct axels and wheels to make a chassis. When we compared performances of each prototype, we quickly got used to trouble shooting and sorting issues such as ‘why’ all four wheels were not rotating.
Our amazing portraits from Art Week are complete! A huge thank you to Mrs Farmer who has taken a lot of time and care displaying our works of art.
To add to our maths skills, we have been using a number line to add or subtract 99, 98 & 97. We added or subtracted 100 to a 3 digit number, then compensated by 1, 2 or 3.
To start our new English unit, we listened to Aesop's Fables, identified the key features, watched some short video clips and had a great discussion about the 'morals' from each fable. Finally, we hot-seated some of the characters!
As part of Art Week, we linked our History learning and discovered the Ancient Egyptians invested papyrus, a type of paper made from reeds. We made our own payrus bookmarks, translating our names using the hieroglyphic alphabet!
Year 3 have been exploring the features of Pop Art and looking at various pieces by Andy Warhol. They have enjoyed looking at every day objects, drawing them, sketching and printing them. Self portraits using Andy Warhol features have been started … watch this space!
As part of our RE learning, we visited St. John’s church in Yeovil. Rev Graham let us explore the church, we played a game looking for coins and soon found the letters made the word Jesus. We had a lot of fun looking at and discussing various parts of the church: the stained-glass windows, font, alter and lots of crosses. It was a very enjoyable trip.
As part of our history learning, we looked at a selection of images showing ancient Egyptian art. In pairs, we closely observed pictures and discussed what we could see. We discovered we could learn a lot about the clothes, jewellery, animals and objects that were important to the Egyptians. We also spotted several of the Gods we have been learning about!
We had a visit from the bug man, who talked to us about different types of skeletons. We looked at animals with endoskeletons, exoskeletons and hydrostatic skeletons. We talked about how different animals have evolved and the timescales involved. We even got to hold some of the minibeasts!
We have lots of budding poets in Year 3! Following the theme of ‘Quiet, Calm and Silent’ the children created some fabulous poems with great vocabulary, rhythm and similies. Here are a few extracts from some of the wonderful poems …
'As quiet as a snail slithering along the path'
'As silent as a shadow racing across the playground'
'As calm as a raindrop falling from the sky'
'As quiet as ice cube melting into water'
WOW! Well done Year 3, keep writing poems!
This term, year 3 had a chocolatier come in to talk to them about chocolate! During the session, the children were taught about where chocolate comes from and it was brilliant to see them putting their knowledge from their school lessons to use. Our chocolatier spoke to the class about the different stages that it takes to create chocolate from seed to chocolate bar. The children were surprised with just how much work is required! Then, in groups, the children had to put the stages in order and even got to mash up some cacao seeds and taste them (dark chocolate). Once done, it was time for the children to impress with their chocolate creating skills! The children used melted chocolate from the cacao seeds and decorated the chocolate using sprinkles, marshmallows and raisins. Then, the chocolate had to set before they were allowed to take them home to devour. It was safe to say that there was no complaints from the children in regards to eating the chocolate!
As part of arts week, we have been looking at an artist called Henri Rousseau. He was a French post-impressionist artist who was best known for his jungle fantasy pictures. We decided to do our own. We started off using water colours for the background. Then, we added the rainforest.
In class, we spoke about what makes a great friend. We discussed positive ways of being a friend and negative ways of being a friend. It was really interesting when we discussed if friends could be friends forever. We discussed what factors could impact friendships like moving school.
As a task, the children were asked to design a poster putting forward tips about being a good friend.
In class, we continued our journey learning about Ancient Egypt. During this lesson, we had to put events in order that they happened using our knowledge of BC and AD. It was really interesting to see where roughly the Ancient Egyptians were compared to other events that have happened in the world.
We love practising our times tables in class. Not only do we do our times tables booklets but we also participate in fun activities. Today, we looked at our 2x, 5x and 10x tables and tried to create emojis from the answers. It was really fun to use our times tables knowledge in this way.
During science, we looked at how our muscles work. We learnt that our muscles can contract and relax. We tested this by placing our hand our arm muscle to feel it contracting and relaxing. It was really interesting to see that as our bicep contracts, the tricep relaxes and vice versa. We created our own muscles using card, sellotape and an elastic band cut in two. This helped us to visualise how the muscles work.
Class 8 really enjoyed National Poetry Day. Firstly, we watched some poets perform poetry, which we found really funny. After that, we discussed the word ‘refuge’ and what the word actually means. We looked at a poem from the resource page called ‘My Treasures’. We decided to write our own version of it. We first looked at the ‘treasures’ |(special things) that were valuable to us. Then, we looked at why and finally drew what our special things looked like.
During maths, we looked at a problem. We drew it as dienes, wrote it using words, drew a part whole and then a number sentence. We were allowed to solve our own problems. It was really interesting to see how each way looked different.
During Health and Relationships, we learnt about mindfulness. We learnt about how we can do mindfulness and why it was important. We took part in a mindfulness session where we listened to beach sounds whilst closing our eyes and concentrating on our breathing. When asked how we felt at the end, it was clear that we felt happy, relaxed and calm. We also did some mindfulness patterns.
As part of our science curriculum, we were privileged to have Nick the Bugman come and visit us. He came in to talk to us about vertebrates and invertebrates. During the session, he showed us a range of creatures, which we could hold and touch. We had to figure out whether these creatures had an endo, exo or hydrostatic skeleton. We really enjoyed the session with him!
During arts week, the children were inspired by an artist called Henri Rousseau. He liked to create paintings based on rainforests. We decided to create our own Henri Rousseau paintings. We also did some sketching of flowers and used the stimulus outside for inspiration.
In maths, we have been studying our new topic which is fractions. Before doing this, we physically explored what a fraction was using paper. Firstly, we were told about the key vocabulary such as the numerator, denominator and the vinculum. After learning about this, we looked at the paper as a whole looking at the different ways that this could be represented as a fraction.
As part of the Health and Relationships provision, we looked at the different jobs that adults can have in the world. The children also spoke about the jobs that they would like to do in the future. As a task, we looked at job professions and tried to rank them based on importance. We found that all the jobs were important to our society.
To promote reading for pleasure, class 8 visited the Yeovil Library. Whilst there, a kind staff member spoke to us about the library and how we could sign up. She told us what the library had to offer. We were surprised that you could loan out 20 books!? Once the staff member had finished showing us the library, we were allowed to go into the kids section to find and read a book. We really enjoyed this visit!
As part of our science topic, we explored the strength of magnets. Before we did this, we made predictions exploring why we felt one magnet would be stronger than another magnet. We then tested them.
During basic skills, we looked at questions which required children to answer in a systematic way. We spoke about why it was important to do it in a systematic way and why we couldn’t just put forward random answers. The children worked very hard putting forward answers in a systematic way and we ended the lesson by thinking of other questions that we might come across where we need to be systematic in our approach.
In geography, we have been studying about rainforests. We decided that we would have a debate around whether logging should be done to rainforests. We split the class in two (for and against) and had a passionate debate about it. We used stem sentences to form our arguments such as ‘after listening to your views, I feel…’ or ‘I disagree with you because…’ The children enjoyed debating and have asked for more debating opportunities in lessons.
One of our main priorities this year is to improve reading fluency. To do this, we use A.P.E (accuracy, pace and expression). The children were given a playscript and in partners, we read it out using A.P.E. Once done, we acted it out. We really enjoyed this and feel that we are getting better with our reading fluency.
One of our main priorities this year is to improve reading fluency. To do this, we use A.P.E (accuracy, pace and expression). We were given a poem to read in partners. One child practised reading the poem using A.P.E whilst the other child listened to them. We really enjoyed the poem!
During science week, we did many experiments. The first one was the dunking challenge. We had to see which biscuits were best for dunking and yes… we did eat the biscuits afterwards! During the week, we listened to a range of people including a science teacher and a STEM ambassador. We loved the experiment where we had to study how sugar could absorb liquid. We tried to use materials to block the sugar absorbing the liquid but only a few were successful. As part of our connecting activity with another class, we made lava lamps.
During Wellbeing Week, we studied the theme of connection. We spoke about how connecting with people makes you happy. We completed a connecting task using a puzzle template and then linked with another class to do a treasure hunt. We had to get clues which spelt a word at the end.
World Book Day
This week, we celebrated World Book Day. We spoke about the importance of reading and how we can encourage each other to read. We created bookmarks, leaflets encouraging children to read and designed our own illustrations based on the inspiring book of The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse. During the afternoon, we connected with another class. This was very exciting as we got to discuss our favourite books and we were able to read to each other.
How muscles work – As part of our science topic, we have been looking at how muscles work. We have been learning that whilst one muscle contracts, the other one relaxes. We build our very own muscles using card, elastic bands, a pin and a few bits of sellotape. We really enjoyed this!
We had the pleasure of having the Bugman to link with our science topic of humans including animals. The Bugman showed us a variety of different creatures and we put our learning to the test thinking about whether they were a vertebrate or invertebrate. We also had to decide whether they had an endo, exo or hydrostatic skeleton. We were able to hold some of the bugs which we really enjoyed!
We were very fortunate to have visitors in to discuss the effects of the deforestation and how humans are having a negative impact on animals in our world. We watched the David Attenborough TV show called A Life on our Planet and we were shocked by how much our forests have decreased over the years. We came up with ideas in the class as to how to help our beautiful planet.
We visited our local Methodist church to take part on a carousel of activities based around the nativity play.
During our topic of rainforests, we have been learning about the different layers of a rainforest. We created the different layers of a rainforest by using sheets of paper and drawing each layer on them. We wrote about each one of them.
We had some lovely visitors pop in to talk to us about road safety. We were taught about the different types of crossings and how we should cross the road. He was very impressed that we remembered it from last year!
During this session, we looked at how to stay safe online. We designed posters to put forward how we should behave and what we should do online.
As parts of ‘Art Week’, we have been looking at Pop Art and Andy Warhol in particular. We looked at the colours that he used within his work and discussed which combinations were effective.
After this, we took pictures of our faces and traced the outline of the key features of our face onto a see-through laminated paper. Once done, we photocopied this and coloured them in using bright pastel colours.
We really enjoyed using our own bright colours! Once completed, we photocopied these to get the effect that we wanted.
During our reasoning lessons, we had a go at taking part in a game. It was a game where we had to use strategy and think very carefully about what we were doing. It involved having a set number of counters and taking turns taking a certain amount of them away. The person who could take away the last of the counters won! It was really interesting working out the different steps for being able to in the game.
After spending lots of time, using the dienes to exchange, we moved onto the column methods. We were very clear to make sure that we continued to refer back to the dienes when we were exchanging.
During one of our sessions, we looked at adding and subtracting using the dienes. The dienes allowed things to be very visual and we could see the adding and subtracting being done. This helped us to reconise what the numbers in the place value represented.
We looked at a guide reading text in the form of a play. In order to understand the directions of the play, we acted it out in small groups. We made sure we followed all of the instructions carefully.
Year 3 have been learning how to tell the time to the nearest minute. We found this quite tricky at first, but have been making lots of progress. It would be helpful if we could practice this at home over the holidays.
In year 3, the children have been enjoying learning about the Ancient Greeks! The children have been learning about where Greece is in the world and they have been taking a closer look at Athens and Sparta in more detail as they were both very different! They have also been learning about the different Greek gods and goddesses and how democracy dates back to the Ancient Greek times! As a new topic in year 3, the children have really enjoyed taking part in the pick n mix homework leading their own learning!
It was lovely to see so many children taking part in the Science experiments! As a class, we looked through all the photos that were sent and each individual was able to put forward what they did and what happened! It is very clear to see that science is a very popular lesson within the class!
One of our activities in Year 3 on World Book Day was to create a bookmark to celebrate the event. Some of us made corner bookmarks out of folded paper on an ‘animals and monsters’ theme and some of us even honed our sewing skills to create a lovely embroidered page-saver! Some children produced ‘Reading Rivers’ illustrating the things they read in the course of a day and we received some great ‘Shelfies’ from home! Your bookshelves are bursting Year 3!
At Huish Primary School, we had Earth Day looking at how we can waste our beautiful planet in a better way. We looked at 'reduce, reuse and recycle' and we made pledges putting forward how we could make changes to help our planet.
During our Science lesson, we looked at different products and their traffic light information ,which put forward the calories, fat, saturated fat, sugar and salt in each product. The children really enjoyed understanding about these and how they can affect what we purchase when we go to the supermarket.
In maths, the children have settled in really well experiencing lots of challenges during each lesson. At the end of our place value topic, Mr Andrew got the children to come up with their own fluency and reasoning questions in maths. Then they got their partners to complete them. The children enjoyed this a lot! Hopefully, they took them home to test on their parents.
A massive thank you to everybody who did their Egyptian pick n mix homework. It was lovely seeing so many different things that the children have created. We have made a small display in the classroom of all the children's work.
I continue to be impressed with the participation and effort that children are going to with their home learning! They have really enjoyed the tasks that have been given to them and you can see this from the wonderful work that they have done!
I have been really impressed with how the children have got to grips with home learning! It has been lovely getting so many messages, pictures and videos of their day to day learning. Children have been working hard in their English and Maths lessons, getting creative making things, finding out about new things in our foundation topics and keeping active with Joe Wicks. I am been impressed with the positive mindset of class 8 who continue to put forward such positive learning attitudes! Below are some of the pictures that have been sent in! I’ll continue to update the blog each week with new photos and videos! Mr Andrew
In year 3, we did our annual Victorian day and we were so impressed with the costumes that the children came in with! They looked the part so thank you to the parents! The children were taught by a Victorian teacher (Miss Jones), they did some sewing and then they learnt about the mines, shops and living conditions for the rich and poor. They also learnt a few new games such as Pickup Sticks.
For internet safety week, we created our very own E-books based around the story of Tek. Children were asked to draw and write their own stories. We also learnt a song about internet safety using the theme of the song ‘Dance Monkey’.
Year 3 have been very busy this week learning how to make a variety of different marks using a range of pencils. They have learnt to copy patterns and textures accurately and learnt to draw a more realistic face with the correct proportions. They have been mixing primary, secondary and tertiary colours, experimenting with shades. They have used all of this knowledge to produce some fantastic paintings of William Shakespeare ahead of Shakespeare Week next term.
To link with their Geography topic, ‘Where does the food in our lunch boxes come from’, the children learnt about the production of cheese and chocolate at two local companies: Cheddar Gorge Cheese and Cheddar Chocolate. They also got to do lots of tasting – and had a chance to buy some of the produce too!. The children loved wearing their blue hair nets!
Every morning, we practise our handwriting. We look at the joins and try our best to put these joins in our writing. Since September, the children have shown a great improvement in their handwriting.
I was very impressed with the children's responses from the Viking pick n mix homework. The children bought in some great pieces! Well done!
We were very fortunate to have the Bugman in to link with our science topic. We looked at the different types of skeletons that humans and animals could have and the children were able to touch some of the creatures! They children acted really sensibly and they were an edit to the school.
During maths, the children were given a challenge to represent a number in as many different ways as possible. The children were amazed how numbers could be represented and they enjoyed the challenge of doing as many as they could. Afterwards, we looked at even larger numbers!
During our health and relationships sessions, we looked at the effects that a positive and negative can have on someone. The children were tasked with going around the class writing positive comments about each other but they were not allowed to write who the comment was from. The children loved reading their positive comments!
As part of our Viking topic, the children went on a raid for information. Scattered around the school were key questions for them to answer and they did well locating the majority of them! I was very impressed with their teamwork and the way they helped each other out!
The children had settled in really well to class 8 and are getting to grips with the expectations of year 3. They have enjoyed their new reading books with all of them having completed AR quizs already. A massive well done to the majority of children who regularly hand in their reading records each day.
As part of our curriculum, class 8 made their very own pasta bakes, which they greatly enjoyed doing! Mr Andrew was very impressed with the range of products that the class brought in including the wholewheat pasta, a wide range of meats and vegetables, basil and some spicy pasta sauce to name a few! From the pictures, it’s clear to see that they enjoyed cooking and tasting their wonderful creations!
The year 3 children were very lucky to visit a live quarry this term to link with our rocks and fossils topics. The children got to visit a live quarry and they were given a tour around the place! They got to watch rocks being crushed and they were told about the different levels of the quarry. We also learnt about sustainability and what would happen once the quarry had used up all of its resources. In addition, they were given the opportunity to learn how fossils were made over many…many…many years ago and looked at the different types of stone found in the ground. It was a great trip and the weather certainly helped on both days!
The children really enjoyed their maths session today and it wasn't because of the Smarties that they were using! Although it probably did help. The children were asked to investigate if there was always the same amount of Smarties in each tube and the same amount of colours. They worked out the averages of each colour. By the end of the lesson, they found out that each tube had a different amount of Smarties with difference colours! The children really enjoyed the lesson and they were able to eat their Smarties at the end!
The children really enjoyed China day! They made their own dragons and took part in a Chinese Dance. The children learnt about the different animals that are celebrated each year. They really enjoyed the day!
This term, year 3 have been learning about the Victorians and they were fortunate enough to get a guest into the school to help make their topic come alive! During their Victorian day, the children took part in a 20 minute live Victorian lesson with their guest acting as a Victorian teacher. Straight backs, polite manners and being presentable were on the agenda as our children tried to please the teacher. The children also learnt about the dreaded mines, school life and living conditions for the rich and poor children and the shops that were around during this interesting time. The children really enjoyed the experience and learnt many things.
During the half term, we set the children the challenge of producing something based around our history project of the Vikings. I was very impressed with what the children brought in!
We also asked the children to bring in items based around WW2 and Remembrance Day which they their family might have. It was pleasing to see so many children participate and bring something in!
To tie into our science theme of animals including humans, we learnt about the skeletons of humans/animals and whether they have endo,exo or hydrostatic skeletons. The children enjoyed having the bugman in and we learnt about some new animals including their skeleton features!
In class, we know how important our times tables are! We practise them most days to become proficient in them.
In Maths, we have enjoyed learning about place value and have used many different ways to represent numbers. The children have represented it in both number form and visual picture form. The Maths lessons are going really well with the children learning many new things!
As part of our Viking topic, the children dug up artefacts and used their detective skills to depict what the item could be and where it was from. The children are very much enjoying our Vikings topic and have found out lots of wonderful information about the subject.
