Class 3 Blog

 

Year 3 & Year 4

2021-22

Term 6

Week 6

Another busy week , especially so getting the children ready for the long awaited sports day on Friday! They have been enjoying using their PE slots for practising the skills required, but also completing some of the house competitions. They took part in standing long jump, standing high jump, overarm throwing and long distance running. All the children participated, with their usual enthusiasm even when it got very warm! The children will receive the results in the usual way in our final celebration assembly on Monday. 

The obstacle course which the children completed on Friday was designed by our very own year 6s; the bear crawl under the parachute was the most popular by far, although one of our Year 4s decided to 'pop' up in the centre for a sneaky peek !

It has not been all sports this week; the children interviewed both adults and children from Reception and Years 1 and 2 about their exhibition , recording their questions and answers as news reporters. This week they have started their last piece of writing ; a newspaper report about the exhibition with some very interesting headlines  being created.  They also completed their Maths topic of time, looked at the hierarchy of Ancient Egypt and finished the topic of prayer in RE. What a hardworking bunch they are!

 

Week 5

Well, what a wonderful week of great work from Class 3! Whilst we were trying to get 'back to normal', our planned exhibition meant we had lots of preparation to do! The children were very inspired by the MAD museum, so decided that rather than just have exhibits to look at , our visitors from Years 1 and 2 , and Reception deserved an interactive exhibit. 

So the children each had to design an activity linked to their area of expertise; Egyptian cities, Egyptian food, Archaeology generally, Egyptian hieroglyphics , the Pyramids and Egyptian Gods. They did not disappoint!  The visitors were each given a guide, which took them to a table and handed them over to an expert. There they were given an interactive tour of a city, made their own menu for an Egyptian meal ( and smell the ingredients!) , wrote their name in hieroglyphics in flour and then on a scroll, names a god, created a god , made a pyramid or dug out treasure from a tomb.

We discovered new skills in speaking, body language, adjusting how we spoke depending on  the audience, and some also found the job they had wanted what actually not the one they ended up doing and enjoying- a life lesson if ever there was one!

Thank you to all parents who helped at home, and who allowed items to be sent in; the visitors faces were a picture especially smelling cardamom pods for the first time!

I am sorry for the lack of photos for this and last week; there are still IPad related issues and uploading is taking forever! Mr Crouch did place his pictures on Instagram, and I think Mrs Gardiner also has some on her blog. 

In between all this, the children have finished off money in Maths, written headlines in English, completed some of their sports day competitions and generally been absolute stars with everything given to them 

What a special bunch of children Class 3 are! Thank you everyone.

Week 4

Another fantastic week from Class 3. I am a super proud teacher as ever! The children have been grappling with their end of year tests (6 papers in total) , but in true Class 3 style have not moaned once and have embraced the challenge and seen the test as an opportunity to show their strengths, rather than worrying about any questions they could not answer. 

Our class trip mid week was a welcome break for them all, and they were so excited on Wednesday, they insisted on Mr Crouch seeing them off on the bus as if they were going on a long trek, rather than a coach to Stratford! 

The MAD museum did not disappoint. Most groups did not want to leave the Marble Room ; I think we could have camped there overnight and they would still been building marble runs and trying our gravity defying experiments! 

We walked 'crocodile' style through town to the butterfly farm and had a leisurely lunch whilst waiting for our guide , Wil, to show us around. The butterflies were very accommodating, landing on many of the class and causing great excitement when they moved in circular motions around one bench where we were 'camped' for a bit. The children enjoyed the insect area, and were then allowed to stroke Bob the Millipede whilst he left deposits all over Will , much to their amusement.

Class 3 were complimented by all the staff they met, and members of the public on their manners, enthusiasm and general excitement- a real tribute to Ilmington and all our school represents. Well done Class 3 !

Photos to follow, thanks to Mrs T and Mrs H who enabled our trip to happen by coming along with us and taking pictures as we took it all in!

Week 2

Well done to Class 3 for the fantastic work that they have done this week. I have thoroughly enjoyed teaching them while the Year 5 and Year 6 children have been away on their residential. It has been a great opportunity to get to know the Year 4 children in particular, as they begin to think about their transition into Class 4 for September. 

We have been learning about colour-mixing and the children thought about how to make secondary colours from primary colours. They learned to adapt their 'recipes' to make the colour that they wanted. Super work! Miss West

 

 

Week 1

I hope everyone had a great half term. The children were full of tales from their holidays and lived the fact they had ' an extra day  when Mrs Goodwin had to go to school for the day...'!!!

We have had a super start to term 6. The children thoroughly enjoyed our first double lesson of Science on our topic of 'Exciting Electricity', with some coming in to tell me all about the electricity they saw  in the sky yesterday when we had our storm . 

I have given the class a reading challenge this term. if they all jump at least one level in Reading, I will make and bring in brownies and cupcakes. So far 13 have jumped! Great news.

This week we started on out clay sculptures; we chose one detail and used our 2D designs and armature to create one detailed 3D piece. We used coiling, wedging  and pinching techniques and at one point we felt like we were challenging the Great Pottery Throw Down with our creations! In the next few weeks we will be refining our design before creating our finished piece. 

Please keep sending in any achievements outside school; we are filling up our celebration call board and it is great to know what everyone is doing outside school.

Have a great weekend, hopefully enjoying some sunshine!

Friday 27th May

What a wonderful week we have had, both as a class and as a school. Class 3 worked so hard to learn their May Day dances, sometimes in the wind and the rain and sometimes in the brilliant sunshine. Throughout it all  they smiled and brought their special blend of sunny enthusiasm, laughter and mischief- they are such a joy to teach! 

They embraced their History week, showing their superb teamwork as the worked in pairs to create collage/painted Tudor Roses, colourful portraits of Elizabeth I using symbolism and folding and gluing to create Tudor ruffs which turned to be rather itchy! Sadly we had no time to debate whether or not Elizabeth should had executed Mary Queen of Scots, nor to build the Armada as we had planned, but we are hopeful we can come back to that another day.

The children also composed their own presentation to show to the school, explaining what they had learnt and how they created their pieces; it was lovely to see them explore how best to present their work and to witness how their teamworking skills are progressing.

 

Photos to follow- although I know many of you came yesterday and hopefully took many of your own for family histories!

Some examples of our work:

Class 3 History Week

 

Week Ending Friday 13th May

 

Friday 13th May may be considered unlucky for some , but Class 3 ended it off in real style, leading the way in the whole class practice of the Circassian Circle Dance as the lovely Mrs Kemp had taught us this last week in our Dance PE lessons.

What a great 5 days of learning we have had, with the children discovering what a 'terrible' tease' Mrs Goodwin is, but also succeeding in teasing her back , which has been wonderful. Class 3 have managed a 'higgledy-piggledy' week ( in their words!) really well, as we have had to be very flexible to support Year 6 SATS , not least in learning Maths in the afternoons which can be tricky. Class 3 rose to the challenge and I could not be prouder of them! 

We have been progressing our sculpture topic in Art and Design and this week produced a side, back and front view of our Egyptian god. Next week we will be looking into armatures and how they help the sculpting process and we may get messy with some clay if we are speedy.

In RE we had a double lesson this week, when we explored how people pray using objects and their own bodies, and tried to investigate how it can make us feel comforted but also challenged at the same time. This built on our work on the Lord's Prayer last week, when a few of us re-wrote the words of this wonderful prayer and used it in our reflection time. 

The children continue to be enthusiastic about all their subjects; they are working hard on their 'blue paper' drafts of their first set of instructions, with many of the Year 4s choosing to wrote a set entitled' How to Turn Your Teacher into a Christmas Tree'........I cannot wait to see if I will be transformed later this week! The blue paper is to enable them to draft and edit, before they commit to the final version; we are introducing this in Class 3 to align ourselves better with how writing is shaped in Class 4. I am hoping this will aid the children who will be moving into Year 5 in September, although I have already told them I am not sure I can have my Class 3 without them as they are all so lovely! They have promised to wave at me through the glass door and to help the new year 4s step up into their new roles in Class 3.

I am sorry about the lack of photos again- we are having some issues with IT but I will resolve it as soon as possible!

Week Commencing 14th March 2022

 

This week, we were so happy to welcome Beth from Artbase to Class 3 to paint the most amazing Easter bunny with us, supporting our learning of classifying animals in Science and painting animals in Art.  We had an amazing day, learning how to improve our brush strokes and blend colours together to create the most amazing rabbits.  We also learned about creating shadows and how to show some areas of the rabbit would be lighter as they are closer to us, so the light hits them.  We mixed lots of colours with paints and then used oil pastils to add definition at the end.  It was so fun and Mrs Franklin and I also joined in and are rather pleased with our results too! 

 

We have finished our explanation texts on the water cycle which has concluded both our Topic work on this and our English work on explanation texts.  The children did an amazing job with this and they should all be exceptionally pleased with their results to go with the models they made on the water cycle.  We have also been using our knowledge of changing states that we have learned in Science to make soap and lip balm.  The children were so engaged doing this and should be proud of their amazing products.  

 

In Maths, we have found the area and perimeter of shapes and now are ready to move on to fractions and decimals.  

 

This week, the children sadly missed their French lesson as their teacher was ill, but they requested that I teach them some German, so we learned about names for animals and played a game of memory which they seemed to really enjoy.  They have started greeting me in German too, which has been lovely to see.  

 

This week, I couldn’t just choose 2 children for Star Student, so I have been greedy and have chosen 3.  They are: 

 

Lincoln for his excellent engagement and focus during our art session and producing a lovely rabbit, using the techniques Beth showed us. 

 

Theo and Eddie for their amazing explanation texts, including all of the correct features and for demonstrating the skills from our Ilmington Toolkit to be excellent learners. 

 

Well done to all 3 of you. 

 

Week beginning 28th February 2022

We have been so lucky to have a stage combat session on a Monday afternoon for the past 2 weeks.  The children have come back from it, excited to show me exactly what they have learned, and they haven’t stopped showing me since!  They must have loved it. Even Mrs Franklin has said how much she enjoyed it.  I only wish I could have joined the children!

 During World Book Week last week, we looked at the book ‘The Colour Monster’ and thought a lot about feelings and how we can make each other feel better.  We also made the most amazing monsters which are proudly displayed in the hall at the moment.  Our librarians then brilliantly retold the story using our models to Class 1 and 2 which they thoroughly enjoyed. 

 This week, we were also incredibly lucky to have a visitor from the electricity board to inform us about electrical safety.  It could have been a very boring topic, but it absolutely wasn’t.  The children loved it!  Jess came in to give us an assembly and workshop on it and she was fun and engaging and we had a fantastic time, as well as learning an important message.  I was also pleased to learn about why birds don’t get electrocuted on electricity wires which is something I have wondered for a while!

 We have launched Mathletics as a way to do our Maths homework this week which I hope has been successful.  I will print off the children’s certificates for them each week which I hope keeps them motivated.  They have been telling me how many points they have got and what they have done so there definitely seems to be a buzz about it at the moment.

 The children have made some lovely models to show the water cycle and we are just learning how to structure explanation texts.  Next week, we will write our own explanation about how the water cycle works to go with our models.  I’m looking forward to showing you the finished articles.

 Our Art topic this term is animals, and we are currently learning how to paint a fox.  The children’s creations are looking amazing and it’s so lovely to see how proud they are of what they have achieved.  I have even had one child asking if he can sign it so he can sell it and make some money.  I’m loving the entrepreneurial attitude!

 I’m afraid I was a bit late with our star students this week and forgot to choose them before Friday last week so on Monday, I chose Lyla and Benjamin.  Both of these children are working so hard and producing such lovely work.  I am really proud of their attitude and enthusiasm for learning and they absolutely deserve it.  I think they will struggle to pick which piece of work to show in assembly though because all of their work is such high quality!

Week beginning 7th February 2022

This week in Class 3, we have had lots of fun, weighing how much gas is in fizzy drinks.  We had to shake the gas out of the bottles so as you can imagine, there was much hilarity and the odd accident!

We have also been using various mediums to create impressionist art just like Monet.  I have seen some lovely effects with oil pastels, paints and charcoal, and can see there are some budding artists in our midst.

We have now completed our multiplication and division topic and will be moving on to finding the area and perimeter of shapes next week.  I’m sure the children are ready for a change now but keep practicing those tables and divisions as they really are the basis of lots of the work we do. 

I have thoroughly enjoyed reading the children’s adapted Billy’s Bucket stories, as well as hearing them act out the story.  We have also identified some punctuation issues with inverted commas so we have been working on those the past couple of days.  Next week, we will go back to writing our exciting diary entries and reading our book, “King of the Cloud Forests.”

 Our star students this week are: 

Georgie for her incredible swimming and massive improvement so well done to you! 

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  Izzy for her amazing written version of Billy’s Bucket and consistently brilliant effort in all areas of her learning.

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  Isla for her excellent work in all areas of the curriculum and for amazing listening and engagement in class. 

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Well done to all 3 of you.  I am really proud of your superb learning.

 

Are you sitting comfortably? Then I'll begin...

We have had a lovely week in Class 3 for story telling week.  We have had lots of fun making up some really imaginative stories as well as retelling the story of Billy’s Bucket.  It has been an absolute joy seeing children shine with their incredible acting skills.  They have also used some excellent language to innovate and improve the story, looking in the thesaurus to extend their vocabulary further.

 

In art this week, the children drew their own representations of the sea creatures they imagined in Billy’s Bucket using pencil drawing and watercolours.  They worked on making the sea realistic using different tones.  I feel we have some budding artists but most of all, it was wonderful seeing the children’s imaginations coming to life!

 

We are coming to the end of our division topic in maths and the children now have many tricks under their belts for solving multiplication and division problems.  We will just spend a few more days perfecting these before we move on.  Remember to keep practicing multiplication and division at home though, especially the year 4s ready for the times table tests later on this year. 

 

We have been learning about pollution in rivers which leads to the pollution of oceans and the children have become quite passionate about this, so please don’t be surprised if they tell you off for using harsh chemicals or for buying plastic wrapped products.  They tell me off too!  However, this is great that they are so animated by a topic and I’m sure they will all grow into incredibly responsible, planet-friendly individuals.

 

I have been very proud to take the children swimming each week and was delighted when the instructors expressed how well behaved and calm our children are.  They really are a delightful class and I feel very lucky to be teaching them this term.  They are a credit to you all. 

 

Our Star Students this week are:

Mia for always being engaged in her learning and for being incredibly enthusiastic.  She always tries her best and produces consistently excellent work.

Sofia for excellent language when innovating the story of Billy’s Bucket and for the most amazing acting skills when retelling the story.  Sofia is another member of the class who always tries her best and produces some super work.

These children should be very proud of themselves and honestly, I have a hard time picking children each week as so many produce such lovely work.

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Welcome Back!

Our first full week back was a busy week. Because of current events Class 3 had a different teacher each day. The class have been amazing and coped really well with the unsettling situation and managed to continue with their learning in a calm and admirable way.

In maths the children have been exploring multiplication of 2-digit numbers by 1-digit numbers and also 3-digit numbers multiplied by 1-digit numbers. This can be a little tricky but the children have stuck at the task well and are now realising why learning their tables week by week is an important thing.

In English we started looking at writing diary entries and using fronted adverbials. The work that has been produced is very good with the children really trying to use the grammar skills they have learned in their writing.

In science, this week the children started to look at solids, liquids and gases and did an experiment with raisins and lemonade! Although I, Mr Crouch, wasn't in the lesson I did look in and this looked an interesting activity with lots of exciting chatter.

In RE we began to look at the Holy Trinity - a Christian teaching about God being three in one. This was a complicated lesson for the children to grasp but it generated a lot of discussion about belief and faith. We tried to represent this using symbols which again stimulated chatter about their effectiveness.

Our Star Students had to overcome some tricky situations this week and the teachers felt that they deserved to be recognised for their resilience. So congratulations to Ted and Noah.

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"Shhhh, you'll wake the baby!"

This week Class 3 have worked so hard on their Christmas production, "Straw and Order".  

It really was a truly memorable event with every single member of the class involved, including Mrs Franklin and Mr Crouch. We were genuinely so proud of the children and their acting and singing with some superb solos and group singing too. 

We thought you might like to see some pictures of the production. Well done Class 3 and thank you parents for some amazingly talented children!

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Christmas Preparation!

This week has been a slightly unusual week for Class 3. We have spent much of the week completing our termly assessments and practising our Christmas production, Straw and Order, which is coming along well. These assessments are a regular feature of life in Keystage 2 and help to ensure that our learning is as good as it can be.

 

We have, though, managed to squeeze in some Christmas themed maths work by making some 3D shapes relating to the containers the wise men may have bought gifts to Jesus in and also an exploration of number and addition and subtraction built around baubles on a Christmas tree.

On Wednesday afternoon we were treated to a performance by the Keystage 2 stringed instrument players. It was a great performance and inspired some others to consider taking up a stringed instrument. 

In our DT we continued to look at weaving techniques and Mrs Mason has been working hard with the class to look at weaving through the ages and the children have been having a go at producing their own weavings. 

Mr Kemp is continuing to work with our class and his fantastic ability to inspire and encourage the children with music is truly amazing. The children's singing is something to behold and I'm sure that if you come to our Christmas production, you will be blown away. This week the children have been listening to a variety of composers and music and deciding on which pieces they like and why. This has led to some great discussions on what makes an enjoyable piece of music and what mskaes a piece not so likeable.

He's behind you!!

This week our blog is an amalgamation of the past two weeks. We have been continuing to work on our maths looking at addition and subtraction and how we can estimate our answers and also work on real life problem. The children are much more confident using these skills and are able to apply what they have learned over the past weeks in other areas of their maths work too.

In English we have continued working on our myth and legend writing based on The Saga of Erik the Viking by Terry Jones. We have planned our stories now with a protagonist and an antagonist and our next step is to write our first draft and then edit and refine our stories.

In our science we continued to explore sound and this week we thought about how sound travels over distance and how vibrations travel along taut string. We had great fun making string telephones using a long piece of wool and plastic cups. We then took them out into the playground and listened to how the sound travels.

In RE we continued looking at holy writings and were really privileged when Ava brought in a copy of the Quran written in Arabic. The Quran is the holy book of Islam. We were also treated to a presentation by Molly of Taoism where she showed us some photographs of her family at prayer. Thank you for sharing with us.

One of the highlights of the past week was our trip to the pantomime, Rapunzel, at Chipping Norton theatre. The whole school went and were treated to a fantastic afternoon in a beautiful intimate theatre where there was much cheering, booing and singing along with the odd sweet thrown in and a water pistol soaking by the pirates! The children had a great time and came back buzzing!

Our Star Students from last week were Katie, Alice and Charlie and our Star Students this week are James and Lucy. Well done all of you!!

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"We will remember them"

We joined class 4 this week and some members of the village at the war memorial on Thursday to remember those who gave their lives in wars. It was a very thoughtful service led beautifully by Reverend Fletcher who guided us through some thoughts and prayers and told us about the fact that the war memorial is 100 years old this year.

Some of class 4 shared poems and some of class 3 were privileged to share their prayers they had written. We also participated in the 2 minute silence together and listened to the bells sounding over the village as we walked back. It was a very respectful and reverent occasion.

This week we continued thinking about our myth and legend writing and this week we worked on our story settings, having worked on our characters last week. We worked in pairs and tried to describe what it was like using our feelings but also the added sense of what it would feel like to be there using various pictures as a stimulus, from desert islands to snowy landscapes, desolate planets to beach huts.