W/C 16th July

Our last full week in Willow Class has been spent researching, designing and building elevators. As we approach the end of the year, and the end of our Roald Dahl topic, we took some time to focus on DT. 

On Monday we spoke about what a structure is and researched famous structures from around the world. Using this, we created fact files in literacy and spoke about how our structures were made, where they were located and what they were used for. 

We then split into 7 groups and were able to design a new elevator for Mr Wonka because his was about to go through the roof! We spoke about our designs and whether they were realistic, we were going to have to make them after all! We decided that automatic doors and working buttons were slightly too advanced given our limited time and resources and stuck with some simple, yet intriguing designs. 

Finally, we got round to the fun stuff! We were given our wood and carefully measured out our pieces. We were then taken in groups to use the saws to cut our pieces out. We were surprised at how hard it was to cut, but we persevered until the end. We then investigated which material would be best to join our wood together and settled for PVA glue, reinforced by card triangles. 

We then set to work! 

W/C 9th July

As we approach the end of term, we have been working super hard to show off what we have been learning all year!

In Literacy we have been writing stories based on Roald Dahl's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. We have been using fronted adverbials, similes, conjunctions and some amazing adjectives to make our work more interesting. We have all tried really hard, with some of us writing over 2 pages of work a day! Miss Smith was so impressed. 

In maths we have revisited perimeter. We started off by using shapes on squared paper and had to remember do not count the corners! We then moved on to working out the perimeter of shapes by using our adding up the lengths of every side. We use our column addition skills to solve difficult problems and embraced the challenges we were set. 

On Friday we were lucky enough to visit Cadbury World! We loved pointing out the Aztec people and knew all about the making of chocolate from our production. It was great fun and hopefully the chocolate wasn't too melted by the time we all got home. 

W/C 2nd July

In Literacy this week we have been finishing our planning for our stories. We have almost finished reading Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (just in time for the end of term!) and have been creating our own stories based on this. We have been looking at using powerful adjectives and have loved using mesmerising, dazzling, gargantuan and flawless. 

In maths we have been learning all about money and giving change. We have used our column addition and subtraction skills to work out challenges. Take a look at us at work!  

In the afternoon we have been focusing on developing our computing skills. We started the week by creating our own bars of chocolate using paint on the laptops. We then used powerpoint to create our own pitch to sell our bars to Miss Smith. We presented them well and used our knowledge of persuasive language to really sell our products. 

We then had to create a new advert. We wrote our own scripts and practised hard before using the iPads to film them. We used Imovie to add music, sound effects and writing. They were amazing!

W/C 25th June- SCIENCE WEEK! 

What an exciting week we have had!! 

Thinking it was an ordinary Monday morning, we walked down to assembly to find Mr Rix, a science teacher from Cromwell school, waiting for us! He taught us all about acids and alkalis and how to test for them using different indicators. 

After this, we went back to our classroom to find out that all of our work was going to be about The Twits by Roald Dahl. We read about a disgusting and dirty man called Mr Twit who had food all over his beard! We thought about what this food would look like and decided to conduct an experiment. 

We created a beard using wool (unfortunately all of the dark wool had gone so we used purple and blue), and put bread, banana, pear and apple slices into it before placing our beards in bags. We then decided that we wanted them outside and on the window ledges in our classroom. We have been observing them every day and are pleased to announce that our bread has gone mouldy and the fruit is black, we are all very excited! We then spoke about microbes and how bacteria, viruses and fungi can spread. We made some to go on the marketplace using different materials. 

On Tuesday, Miss Smith showed us a concept cartoon where 4 children were discussing gummy bears. They were saying that if you placed them in water or fizzy drink they would grow, and they would shrink in salt water. We were NOT convinced!

We designed an experiment to test the children's theory and put gummy bears in water, salt water and lemonade overnight. When Miss Smith came into school on Wednesday morning she thought the gummy bears had been taken because the liquids appeared clear. Upon further inspection, she pulled out a giant gummy bear and couldn't wait to show everyone! 

We measured our gummy bears again and found that all that soaking had made the water and lemonade bears grow! The salt bears were yet to change much, however you could see they were slightly smaller when compared to the control bears. By Thursday they were much smaller! We loved getting the bears out and watching them jiggle in our hands and couldn't quite believe we were wrong in thinking anything would happen.

W/C 18th June

It's production week! We have been working hard in Willow Class to create a fantastic performance about chocolate and Mexico and it was finally time to showcase this to our friends and families. We shook off our nerves and really enjoyed our time on the stage. 

In maths we have been looking at measure. We were set a range of challenges on Monday to explore measure and enjoyed sharing our work with others. Whilst the production was on, Miss Smith set us even more maths challenges which made us think about our written methods and combined this with adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing units of measure (cm, kg, ml, and so on!). 

This week we had our RE topic where we were learning all about Judaism. We explored a range of artefacts and tried to work out what they were. Here were some of our ideas. 

"A special candleabra" 

"Something to hold lots of candles"

"For light, or a light celebration" 

"A candle used on special occasions"

"It's a plait, so it must be special"

"Food eaten on a special day"

"For ordering ingredients in a recipe"

We have also looked at the celebration of Passover and the story of Moses. We then had a debate about which of the 10 commandments we felt was the most important. All of the teachers soon found out we are excellent at debating! 

W/C 11th June

With the production looming we have been working extra hard this week. We were given our lines on Monday and have been working hard at home and in school to learn them. We have been practising on the playground with a chalked out stage. But on Thursday we finally got to take all of our rehearsals onto the stage. Miss Smith can only apologise for the constant singing and hat dancing that she has seen and heard about this week, those songs really do get stuck in our heads! 

In maths we have been looking at multiplying by 10, 20 and 30. We have used these skills to multiply larger 2 digit numbers using the grid method. It has taken some practice but we are becoming more confident in using this method in our work. 

In literacy we have been writing character descriptions for an exciting new version of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. We have been using similes metaphors to describe our characters with our favourite being he is a bundle of joy with eyes like the ocean waves at dawn. We have also been using our words of the day to improve our vocabulary. 

W/C 4th June

In Literacy we have been writing fast poems to help us with our grammar terms. We have used nouns, fronted adverbials, adverbs and similes to create some wonderful work! 

Having struggled with subtraction before the holidays, Miss Smith decided that it was time for a change. We started to learn how to use column subtraction and mastered it! Most of us are confident in using this new method and loved showing off our skills!

W/C 21st May

This week we have finished our learning about the Aztecs and the history of chocolate by making our own Aztec masks! We discussed how the Aztecs used obsidian as their base and created mosaic patterns to represent the gods using stones, gems and gold. 

In Literacy we have been writing stories and ended the week by writing some excellent pieces of work! We tried hard to use speech and correctly punctuate this using inverted commas. 

In maths we have been learning how to subtract on a number line. This is something we have all struggled with so any help over the holidays would be brilliant! We came up with some key steps to using the number line:

1. Draw a line. 

2. Put the largest number on the right. 

3. Subtract the ones. 

4. Subtract the tens.

5. Subtract the hundreds. 

We all tried exceptionally hard and managed to teach each other when we were stuck! 

Have a great half term Willow Class! We can't wait to get back into our final half term being in Year 3!

W/C 14th May. 

In maths this week we tackled column addition, a new method for most of us in Willow Class. We discussed the hundreds, tens and ones columns and were able to carry numbers confidently by Wednesday! We were given a range of challenges to work through and could identify hidden numbers by discussing how the carried numbers would affect the calculations. 

W/C 7th May

In maths this week we have been looking at using partitioning to add. This is in preparation for learning to use column addition next week. Miss Smith was very impressed when we all showed that we could add 3 digit numbers! Some of us were even able to go into the thousands! On Friday we played a game with the dice to try and get the closest to 100. 

This week we received a letter saying that a new Marvellous Medicine factory was going to be built on our new school field. We were outraged and started work on a response straight away! 

We spoke about why the factory could be a good thing and why it may not be before performing a live debate. Finally, we wrote balanced arguments back to 'Mrs Abbott' to tell her how we felt. 

On Friday we were lucky enough to have a visit from Exotic Animal Encounters! Check the weekly news page or click here to see more! 

W/C 30th April

This week was our last week of science for the term! We have enjoyed learning all about states of matter and the water cycle and are able to regularly explain where the puddles on the playground have gone and where the rain may have come from. 

This week we explored gases through reacting vinegar and baking powder. We recorded our observations and were surprised to see that the balloons inflated! We also looked at water changing state. On Wednesday we mixed water with salt and created ice cubes (one salty and one not). We then put them in the freezer and checked them every 6 minutes using the thermometers. 

Our results showed that the salt water got colder quicker than the water and that they froze at around -2°C. On Thursday we then melted the ice cubes and investigated where in the room they would melt the fastest and the slowest. 

In maths we have been looking at capacity. We used coloured liquids to measure out the correct amounts for George's new medicines. We measured carefully using the cylinders and added the ingredients into the jugs. After carefully mixing we recorded the total capacity as  well as the colour of the new medicine. 

W/C 23rd April

This week we have been writing our own poems based on George's Marvellous Medicine. We found that Roald Dahl included rhyming poems in the story. We analysed his work and highlighted the rhyming couplets. We then discussed similes and metaphors as well as onomatopoeia which we then used to create our own poems ready to go on the display.

In the afternoon we have been learning about the water cycle. We filled up little petri dishes with water on Monday morning and by the afternoon they were empty! We knew that no one had tipped the water out, so where had the water gone?

We soon found out that the water had evaporated and had become part of the water cycle. We explored evaporation and condensation and we made our own water cycle bags, you can see them on the windows of our classroom! On a warm and sunny day you can see the condensation at the top of the bag showing that the water has evaporated. 

In maths we have been learning about right angles. We have made shapes with right angles in, found right angles in the classroom and helped an alien escape from a maze by directing him using directional language. 

Our homework seems to be going well and there have been some fantastic experiments, cakes and pieces of art shown in class. Please remember to do one activity a week as we show them off on a Wednesday morning to the class! 

W/C 16th April

On Monday and Tuesday some of were luckily enough to go on a 1 night residential trip. We had loads of fun working the cameras and equipment in the television studio and performing in front of the green screen. We took part in a variety of team games, our favourite seemed to be the Burwell Fox where we enjoyed getting covered in stamps!

Those of us who stayed in school enjoyed creating their own news reports on the iPads. We used different sound effects and transitions to make them look really professional. We also took part in a Dragon's Den activity where we made different pieces of equipment to defend ourselves from the dragon that visited before half term. 

In literacy we have created some amazing blackout poems using our new class text, George's Marvellous Medicine. We read the page of the book, scanned for interesting vocabulary and created some beautiful pieces of work which are ready to go on display! 

W/C 26th March 

On Monday morning Miss Smith came into school to quite the shock! There were footprints leading from the doors up into the classroom and the room was in quite a mess! Books had been tipped onto the floor, pencils tipped from their pots and chairs strewn over the carpet. But what had happened? 

We investigated the scene to start with and created an evidence log. We measured the footprints and deciphered that we had 3 creatures of some sort visit us in the night. An email from Mr Lenton gave us more clues. A strange egg in the woods, something flying over Manea and an odd looking creature perched on the power lines. 

The final clue was a video from the CCTV cameras outside. A dragon had landed! There was only one thing to do. We got into groups and started to create a news report to warn others of the dragon. We will be filming these after Easter, as long as no more dragons return. 

W/C 19th March

In maths this week we used repeated subtraction to solve division problems. We worked using number lines to count back in jumps of 3,4 and 8. We have been practising counting forwards and backwards in multiples of 3,4, and 8 to help us. We are getting very good!

In Literacy we have been writing recounts. We have focused on using fronted adverbials and different conjunctions. Our favourite fronted adverbial was In the blink of an eye. 

We read our work aloud and found that most of us used 'and' a lot in our work so it was our target to change this. We found that using so, but, if, while and because were effective.

W/c: 12th March 2018 

Residential meeting

This week, we had our residential meeting to discuss our upcoming visit to Burwell house. 
Please see the Powerpoint and kit list below if your were unable to attend. 

In maths we were learning how to use the grid method for multiplication. We created a checklist which helped us to remember the steps. We worked so hard all week and managed to work out questions such as 26 x 4 and even 76 x 9! 

In Literacy we started our non-fiction unit by looking at non-chronological reports. We researched the water cycle and flooding following our Geography lessons and created our own information booklets. 

W/C 26th February 

This week we continued to look at electricity in science. We were given various pieces of electrical equipment and the chance to explore what we could do. We tried and tried to get the bulbs to do something before one group worked it out! We needed two wires to connect the battery to the bulb. 

We then went outside where we had to stand in a circle pretending to be the inside of a wire. We collected some electricity from the battery and continued around our human circuit, but nothing was happening! We spoke about how the electricity was in the wires but wasn't being used for anything in particular. 

Then we introduced a bulb which pinged when we dropped off our electricity into it. We found that it was important for their to be no break in the circuit else the electricity cannot get to the bulb and light it. 

Despite the cold we still ventured outside this week. On Wednesday we wrapped up warm and braved the snow to collect leaves for a secret task only the adults knew about. We enjoyed searching in the snow for different leaves. Once back in the classroom, we shook the snow from our boots and from the leaves and left them in trays and in newspaper under the radiators.

We had a great time on World Book Day. We read a different version of Beowulf the Brave and acted out the battle between Grendel the monster and Beowulf, the brave warrior from overseas. 

After lunch we received an invitation from the King to his annual warriors feast at Heorot! But we needed to bring our own bowls. We spent the afternoon creating our own bowls from the leaves we had foraged. They look great and are ready to be seen on the marketplace. 

W/C 19th February.

This week we started reading our new book, Beowulf. Miss Smith showed us the front cover and read the blurb and we had to predict what we thought would happen. We knew that a hero called Beowulf would come and that he would fight the monsters. We had some great ideas involving dragons and ships and the Vikings.

We were excited to start reading and met the monster Grendel who was terrorizing the Danish Moors and Heorot, the King's palace. We all needed a hero to save us!

In pairs we were given post-it notes and had to label the features of our great hero. We had been learning all about superlatives and so we had the fastest runner, the strongest fighter and someone with the most dangerous stare.

At last it was time for the hero auditions. We presented our heroes to the King on the throne and then voted on which hero would save us all. The heroes that came included the Greatest Friend, the one with the laser eyes and the fastest runner. Our class hero was the Fierce Fighter. We hope to find out how they get on next week!

In maths we tackled time, something we struggled with to start off. By the end of the week Miss Smith was constantly asking us to tell her the time and I think we've cracked it. There has been some great home learning this week about time and Miss Smith has been very impressed with everyone!

We also have been introduced to our Mrs Wordsmith project. We work on a word a day to improve our vocabulary and writing and what a difference it has made!

Words of the week:

• Bloodshot
• Bulging
• Expressive

We have tried so hard to get these into our work and look forward every morning to looking in the orange books to find out what it will be today!

W/C 5th February.

In Willow Class this week we finally finished writing our Viking myths and legends. After 3 weeks of learning, reading and planning we were able to sit down and write. Most of us managed to write a whole 2 pages of work! We used similes to describe our characters and the settings and created new Viking Gods, Goddesses and mythical creatures. 

In maths we tackled fractions and impressed Miss Smith with our work! Not only were we able to understand and use tenths we have been able to find fractions of numbers up to 5/12 of 96! We started the week using practical resources (including sweets) to explore fractions before moving on to creating our own jottings and drawings to help us. What a success!

With so many people off ill this week we decided to head outside to get some fresh air. We used the knots from last week to create boats fit for a Viking. 

Our challenge was to create a boat which had at least 4 knots, would float and was made of natural materials. We were allowed to use string to attach everything together.

We worked well in our teams to forage for materials. We discussed how big our sticks needed to be in order for us to be able to take our boats back to school and helped one another to tackle the clove hitch knots. 

W/C 29th January.

What a wonderful week! 

Thank you to everyone who came along to watch our performance of Mighty Thor and the Stolen Hammer on Thursday, we had a fantastic time! After many weeks of practising at every available opportunity we were so excited to perform to the school and to our families and friends. We had been working so hard on it and were really proud. For pictures of our performance please click here.

Once we had finished our performance we put on our coats and our wellies and took the muddiest route possible to the woods. Here we foraged for different natural items to work on in our literacy lesson. 

We were told to find at least 2 sticks and some materials to create a setting with, the rest was up to us! 

Back at school we were shown how to tie two different knots. We practised on pencils at first before using our knots to join two sticks together. Once we had (almost) mastered this, we joined with a partner to create a frame. 

In Literacy we have been writing Viking myths and legends so we used our natural materials to create the scene for our stories and then came up with similes and adjectives which we could use in our writing. 

W/C 22nd January

In maths this week we have tackled money. Once we had realised that adding and subtracting money was the same as numbers we started to fly. By the end of the week we have been able to add and subtract money confidently. 

In literacy we have been preparing to write our own myths and legends. We have created some fantastic setting and character descriptions using similes and adventurous adjectives. We have been learning all about Asgard (the land of the Gods) and Misgard (the land of the humans) and discussed the difference between the two. This gave us a great starting point for some of our settings. 

In science we have started to plan our own enquiries. We tested how cars moved on different surfaces by making our own ramps. We can't wait to see if our predictions are correct next week.

Miss Smith is hoping that her voice makes a return by Monday, although we are finding it most amusing! We are also hoping to go to the woods next Thursday (1st February), fingers crossed!

W/C 15th January

In Literacy we have finished our focus on poetry by writing our own narrative poems. We discussed rhyming couplets and came up with group poems about different pictures relating to our Viking topic. By the end of the week we were able to learn and perform different poems to the class, focusing on using expression. 

This week we braved the wind to start out 6 week forest school project. 

First we surveyed the area for potential risks. We discussed how the high winds the night before could have caused branches from the trees to break and we took some time checking that we were safe. 

After learning about where Vikings come from in Geography last week we decided that we were currently based in some woods out in Denmark and were planning our route to England. We had heard of a monastery over there with some treasure that we had our eyes on. 

We chose an area in which to build our Viking longboats and set to work. We were learning all about foraging and we were able to find materials which were natural in the environment to build our longboats from. We spoke about how we should only use materials found on the floor as we didn't want to damage any of the trees. 

Once our longboats were complete we posed with our best Viking faces before setting off to British shores. We made sure that we covered our tracks in the woods so no British Viking 'spies' could see that we were planning an invasion. 

W/C 8th January.

We have continued with our topic of poetry in Literacy this week and have been creating shape poems. After researching Viking artefacts we were able to draw and write our own poems about helmets, longboats and axe's. 

In maths we have been using number lines to solve addition problems. We struggled at first but persevered and now we consider ourselves to be number line experts. We created a set of instructions to help us to remember to partition the smallest number before adding on jumps of tens and ones. Some of us even practised at home which helped to develop our confidence in the lessons! 

In music we have started our new unit on water. We looked at pictures of rivers, waterfalls, tributaries, stormy seas and dripping taps and tried to create a piece of music all about the picture. We discussed how we could change the pitch and volume to tell the story of our image. 

Next week we are planning a trip to the woods so please remind us to bring waterproof shoes and a coat!

W/C 3rd January

Welcome back! What a busy week we have had back at school. 

We have started our new topic of the Vikings this term. In Literacy we have looked at Kenning poems. We have written some fantastic poems which are going up on our Literacy display this week! 

In maths we have revisited place value through learning about bar models and through playing a game of draw it, write it, say it, build it. We had great fun. 

We have also started our new science topic, forces and magnets. We were able to explore the magnets and magnetic materials this week. 

Take a look at some of the pictures of what we have been getting up to this week. 

W/C 11th November

We have made it through our first full term in KS2 and to celebrate we have covered ourselves in glitter, glue and paint ready for Christmas. We have had great fun making hats, decorations, cards and calendars this week which we couldn't wait to take home and share. 

In Literacy we have been focusing on Grammar. We have written letters to Santa using 'a' and 'an' and stories using conjunctions and fronted adverbials! We even managed to find some in our guided reading sessions. 

We have been focusing on our handwriting and presentation this week to work towards getting our names in the brand new presentation book in assembly. We have worked really hard to join our writing and to keep our work neat. 

We hope you have a great Christmas and a lovely New Year and look forward to seeing you back in January!

W/C 4th December

What a busy week here in Willow Class! Christmas is nearly upon us and so preparations have started. Our Christmas Nativity was a success and we thoroughly enjoyed walking down to the church to sing the songs we have been practicing since back in October. 

On Thursday we also had the chance to watch the pantomime Goldilocks and the Three Bears. We were so excited to be able to shout and sing and dance along and had a great time.

In maths this week we have been learning about measure. On Monday we took the trundle wheels out onto the playground to measure in metres and gradually we have worked our way to measuring in millimetres. We are even able to convert between metres, centimetres and millimetres! 

In Literacy we have been looking at persuasive writing. We have designed Stig a new den to live in here in Manea since his dump is SUCH a mess! We have produced TV adverts and posters to convince him to move. Sadly, this was not enough and so we had to perform debates and write Stig a letter. Here's hoping he gets into his den before Christmas. 

W/C 27th November. 

In maths this week we have been looking at shape. We started the week by learning all about 2D shapes. Miss Smith drew a 5 sided shape on the board which looked like a pair of shorts and we were surprised to learn that this was still a pentagon, even though it didn't look like one. We discussed how these were called irregular shapes. We had a go at drawing these, remembering to use a ruler. 

We then moved onto 3D shapes. We got to make our own using nets which we could take home. 

We then went outside to draw and make our own shapes. We were really good, despite the freezing cold, at drawing pictures using different shapes and recognising shapes in our outdoor environment. 

Miss Smith also found that we have a love for the game 'Guess that shape!'. We have spent lots of time discussing the properties of shapes in this way. We are very good!

We have finally finished our stories using Stig of the simp this wek. We have worked really hard and can't wait to write them up in neat so that they are altogether and ready to read!

W/C 20th November. 

This week started with Stone Age Day! On Monday Year 3 and 4 arrived in school not as themselves,  but as Stone Age boys and girls! We started the day by making our own Stone Age names, we had plenty of Ug, Dug and Om children which really confused Miss Smith. 

Being hunter-gatherers we had moved to Manea after following bison and woolly mammoth tracks which we followed into the woods. We decided that here was a good position for catching the animals for dinner and so we set up shelter. We used our imagination to pretend the tarpaulin was animal skin and built out shelters in our ideal positions ready for the arrival of dinner. 

Once our shelters were complete we needed something to hunt down the animals which we knew would soon be arriving at our settlement!

Use used knives to whittle wood to create spears. Some of us found it difficult at first and we wondered how people from the Stone Age could have done it with just a sharpened piece of flint! 

In the afternoon we were split between our year 3 and 4 classrooms. We made necklaces by hollowing out willow and adding shells for our currency. We even had some maths problems to work out using the shells. 

We also wrote diary entries in the style of people from the Stone Age using pictures and symbols. We discussed our day and what we had enjoyed. Finally we created our own Stone Age language to tell other people about our time during Stone Age day. 

We had a great time and were all very tired by the end of the day! 

In history this week we looked at Stonehenge. Instead of Miss Smith teaching us about it she put up the work and facts around our outside area. It was our job to learn as many as we could in 10 minutes before the quiz! 

We were excellent at learning and exploring the facts and nearly all of us got all of our answers correct and got a merit! 

We were then able to create our own Stonehenge using resources in our classroom. We used everything we possibly could from shapes to dice and even beads and cubes. Our classroom was such a mess but we had great fun! 

W/C 13th November. 

This week we have been celebrating differences as part of Anti-bullying week and Children in Need. 

On Monday we looked at how people in our class were different as part of our PSHE lesson. We discussed our likes and dislikes, our hobbies and any interesting facts about ourselves. We found that whilst we were similar in many ways, we were also very different and that was what makes us such a great class! We designed our own unique hand print and wrote some of the qualities that made us special and different. 

On Tuesday we watched the Free DVD which followed Emma, a young girl with 2 mums and 2 dads. We discussed what made a family and decided that a family was a group of people who loved and cared for you, it didn't always have to mean you were related. We discussed how families were different and how no one family was the same and why this was good. Miss Smith thought that we had some brilliant ideas.

We rounded off our celebrating differences week by looking at Andy Warhol, a pop artist we have been researching. We looked at his portraits and discussed how each section said something different about the person. We thought hard about what was different about us and designed our own Andy Warhol inspired image. They look brilliant! Take a look at some of the pictures or come along to come and read this week to see them displayed. 

We also managed to earn ourselves the golden broom this week, something that was awarded to Fir class back in the first few weeks of term for a tidy classroom. After a fabulous, but messy, art lesson we worked so hard to tidy up the room whilst listening to the Mission Impossible timer to spur us on. Miss Smith was happy to finally have the well deserved prize in Willow Class and we couldn't wait to tell everyone about it. 

As a quick note, Miss Smith has noticed the lost property bag of unnamed jumpers, cardigans, shorts, shoes and coats has grown at an alarming rate recently. She would really like to find the owners of these as they are doing no good in the bag in this cold weather!

Please feel free to ask to come in and have a look if anything of yours has gone missing recently, some of them have been here since September!  

W/C 6th November.

What a busy week!  

In maths we have started to learn about multiplication. We have been using resources around the classroom to create arrays. Some of us chose to use beads, others cubes and some of us found the drawer of coins and decided that these made interesting arrays. 

We have since moved onto solving word problems with some of us getting nearly 4 pages of questions completed! WOW! 

We are working really hard this term so far. Take a look at our pictures to see some of our arrays.

We have been working really hard this week in Literacy. We have started looking at a new book, Stig of the Dump and we are really enjoying it. We have been looking at describing a setting and characters. 

We used our outside environment to come up with different similes. 

We have had some fantastic home learning this week! We have had children practicing their spellings, some amazing roman numerals work and a cave made out of cardboard, stones and wool. Well done everyone!

W/C 30th October

We have now settled back into our school routine after having a week off for half term. 

In Literacy we have started a new book called Stig of the Dump by Clive King. We are really enjoying it so far. We have been looking at describing a setting using adjectives and have found that Stig's cave in the dump is very interesting. 

In Maths we have been revising place value, addition and subtraction which we were doing last half term. We have worked really hard using practical resources to explore these. 

We hope you enjoyed our harvest assembly on Thursday, we have worked really hard on it and were really excited, yet nervous, to show you all what we had been doing. We are all so proud! 

W/C 16th October

We made it! Our first half term in Key Stage 2 has been a success and we are all ready for a well deserved break! 

This week we have been learning all about Stone Age food and farming. We were surprised to learn that farming started back in the Stone Age and is still around today! We discussed how the farmers began to grow cereals towards the Iron Age. Once we got the picture of a Weetabix tree out of our heads we wrote all about how the  grain could be used to make bread! 

In maths we have had a great time recapping our learning by creating games, completing maths challenges and working together to solve reasoning problems. After half term we will be learning about multiplication. It would be a great help if you could help us at home to learn some of our times tables. We are getting really good at our 2's and 3's! 

In literacy Miss Smith gave us some time to explore our writing. We took on the theme of the Stone Age and could write whatever we wanted! We now have some amazing stories, comic strips and play scripts! 

Have a lovely half term holiday and enjoy a well deserved rest! 

W/C 9th October

In PSHE this week we discussed what it meant to be a good listener. We sat back to back with our friends and tried to talk about our favourite foods and found it very hard not to shout. We then tried to talk to our partners about our favourite TV shows with our eyes closed and our favourite outfit whilst sitting on our hands. We found that it was difficult to talk to another person without making eye contact and using hand gestures.

We spoke as a class about how it makes us feel when someone listens to us and shows us good listening behaviours, for example giving us eye contact, sitting up straight and paying attention. This made us feel happy and encouraged us to talk more. We also thought about how it could make someone feel if someone wasn't listening to us and how we could make sure we were always good listeners. 

In maths we have been learning all about inverses. We found that addition and subtraction were inverses and we could use these to check if our calculations were correct. We played games of connect 4 with a partner to practice using the inverse to check whether different calculations were correct or not. We found that using the inverse would work as the answers to both calculations would be different.

W/C 2nd October

In Literacy this week we have been using Ug to learn about play scripts. 

After enjoying Ug so much during DT week we have been able to explore it further in our lessons this week. We started the week off by discussing the difference between a play script and our reading books and we found that a play script was set out rather differently! We used Ug to write our own play script scenes which we swapped with another pair to act out!

We have been writing different scenes from Ug and then acting these out in our drama lessons. We have been working really hard to look at the character descriptions and work out how we can show how our character is feeling. 

We have used our facial expressions and body language to show emotions such as angry, happy, sad and tired. But it was harder to show emotions such as disinterested, bored or hurt. 

We used our Go Noodle class champion, Rad Chad, to help us to read with expression (and not read like a robot!) and we have found that changing our tone of voice works well. Why don't you take a look at our pictures and see if you can work out how our characters are feeling. 

In art this week we were transported back to the Stone Age! We discussed the materials available to people in the Stone Age and some of us used the research we completed for homework to discuss what they made their paint out of. 

We worked out that stones were available in the Stone Age and our science topic of rocks helped us to decide that chalk would be a good art resource to use. 

We designed our own cave paintings used to tell the stories of our new Stone Age life before we went outside to complete our drawings stuck to the 'cave  walls'! 

We then thought hard about whether people in the Stone Age completed their own drawings and decided to create a HUGE cave painting using our chalk on the playground floor! We drew our new Stone Age houses, which we had explored in history, the animals that we could see from our caves and we drew ourselves! We hope you saw our paintings when you came to pick us up! If not, here are some pictures. 

DT Week 25th September

What a busy week we have had! For DT week we decided to focus on our topic of the Stone Age. 

On Monday we read the book Ug by Raymond Briggs. We were excited to read a comic book in class and discuss how this was different from our usual reading books. After learning that people in the Stone Age had to travel around on foot we decided that Ug needed a new method of travel. 

We used inspiration from Ug's newly invented wheel to design a brand new car. We were then excited to learn that we would be making these! 

We were able to use the saws to cut our wood to the correct length before joining the pieces together using glue. We all got very messy! We chose our own wheels and a method of joining these to our cars. 

We were so happy when our cars could roll across the carpet and we were very proud to see them on display in our classroom!

Our next task was to design Ug a new meal. We learnt all about Stone Age diets and found that a lot of their food came from the animals they hunted. We researched different meals and created a new meal plan to give to Ug's mum. We then learnt all about the 5 food groups where we discovered that Ug's meat only diet is not healthy or balanced!

With the help of our peers we were able to make a food mobile which can be seen hanging in our classroom. This tells you all about the 5 food groups and some examples of the food in each group. 

Using this knowledge we discussed how Ug needed some different foods in his diet and it was essential that he started eating his 5-a-day! We had found that stewed fruit was a popular Stone Age meal and this would provide Ug with some well needed vitamins and minerals. 

We wrote instructions for Ug and his mum to follow before being told that we could make this meal for ourselves. On Wednesday morning we measured out blueberries, blackberries, strawberries, raspberries and plums based on our instructions and took them outside in the cauldron. 

Mr Lenton helped us to start a fire in the outdoor area and we watched our stewed fruit being cooked. We really enjoyed cooking our food on the fire, however, our favourite part was getting to eat it afterwards. 

After reading the book Ug we discovered that his biggest problem with living in the Stone Age was his stone trousers. We discussed how stone trousers would be uncomfortable, would probably give us blisters and would stop us from running around!

We completed some market research by asking members of our class what their favourite trousers were. We found that jeans came out as the most favourite. 

Our next task was to design some new trousers for Ug. We thought of a new name for them, the material we thought would be the most comfortable and then we added some patterns and colour, they looked amazing!

Unfortunately we found out that Ug could not afford to buy all of our trousers so we had to create a persuasive advert to persuade him to buy ours. We think our buy one get one free, half price and a free pair of saber tooth tiger socks might have won him over! 

Finally we had to make the trousers. We had a model of Ug for size and we used our maths work of measuring to draw a template. We then cut out the fabric in a colour we thought Ug would like before joining them in a way we thought was best for our product. 

W/C 18th September

In art this week we have been exploring natural art. We discussed the materials available for artists in the stone age and then searched for these on the playground. We used sticks, leaves and even soil to create fantastic artwork and then we told the stories of our art to our class! They included a Stone Age wedding, a campfire song and even people meeting at a waterfall.

In literacy this week we have been learning all about newspapers as part of our non-fiction focus. After reading Stone Age Boy we reported on the discovery of new cave paintings using headlines such as 'PREHISTORIC PAINTINGS MADE PUBLIC' and 'SUPER STONE ART SEEN'. We then used drama to explore the style of news reports and even conducted interviews with Om and the little boy! 

W/C 11th September.

This week we have been looking at place value in maths. We started the week by using base 10 to make different numbers up to 100. We then moved on to writing numbers up to 1000 in numerals and in words! We had great fun setting each other challenges outside and writing our numbers with chalk. 

In topic this week we have been learning all about cave paintings. We listened to the story of Altamira, a cave in Spain where archaeologists discovered ancient cave paintings, and thought hard about what we would include on our own paintings. We were set the challenge of painting with our hands and explored mark making and how to create different textures in the paint. In history we researched how cave paintings were created, one of our key questions for this topic. We discovered some really interesting facts which we would be happy to share with you. 

Our first week in Year 3!

We have had an excellent start to Year 3 this week. We have been settling in to our new daily routines and working hard in our new lessons. 

This week we have been revising our four operations in maths. We have worked really hard using our maths bags and resources to add and subtract numbers up to 100 and to multiply and divide by 2, 4 and 5. 

Our topic this term is the Stone Age. In Literacy we have been using drama to explore a picture of people in the Stone Age. We have used freeze frames to capture a moment in time and used speech and dialogue to bring them to life. 

We are hoping to find out more about what people in the Stone Age eat and where they live as this is something that we found out interests us. Hopefully we will learn this soon and will be able to tell you all about it!