Author: Miss Wilson

Last week’s Living and Learning theme was I know we’re all the same and we’re all different. We used Our Rules that we created last week in our discussion of the pros and cons of being the same and different to everybody else. We decided it would be really boring if we were all the same all the time! In teams, we wrote a recipe for success for teamwork. Some ingredients we thought of were ‘problem solving attitude’ and ‘good listening skills’.

We took on the role of detectives in English this week, spotting features of an instruction text in cookery books. We had competitions to see whose text contained the most features – but we had to give evidence of each feature to win the point!

Maths has revolved around multiplying and dividing by 3! We’ve looked at finding groups of three and finding three equal groups which is tricky because they sound similar but are very different. There are lots of ways to represent one number sentence. For example: 5 x 3 =  could be expressed as ‘3 x 5′, ’15’, ‘five threes’ or shown by fifteen counters. We played Snap to test our knowledge of this in a fun way.

Some of us had more luck than others. You had to be quick!

To round off our Explorers topic in a creative way, we went on a Smell Journey around school, after discussing artwork by Kate McLean: NYC’s Threshold of Smells.

This inspired us to write a descriptive recount of a walk to school where we were bombarded with stinky stenches and awesome aromas. We also wrote a class Pongy Poem, which we displayed in the style of a smell.

Next, we experimented with colour and shape using watercolours to represent what the smells might look like if we could see them. (There were some interesting discussions about certain smells!)

This week’s Creative Homework task was to show understanding of addition and subtraction and I was absolutely bowled over by the quality of the submissions! The children had clearly gone to so much effort to show what they had learnt over the past few weeks and they were so proud of what they had done, which sparked some great conversations between pupils. It was fantastic to see. There were lots of board games with their own rules using addition and subtraction at their core, there were online quizzes and mazes and puzzles, there was even a video presentation (see the bottom of the post)! We all thoroughly enjoyed discussing each and every one, so I would like to say a massive well done from me, once more. Check out some of their brilliant learning below:

Starring pen and paper…

Well done to certificate winners Hifza, for a fantastic contribution to this week’s Living and Learning theme and her understanding of how we are the same and different, and Henka, for an unbelievably good piece of descriptive writing and your handwriting has come on leaps and bounds, too! Keep it up!

This week, our big topic highlight was the highly-anticipated den building! After lots of fantastic contributions to our construction resources, Thursday arrived and we couldn’t wait to get started.

First, in class, we discussed what a den actually was, and all the equipment we would need to be successful. Our first task was to group ourselves into teams of four, which was easier said than done!

We divided our building resources between our groups and found an area in the hall. Thank you so much to everyone who contributed something!

One of the hardest parts was tying our resources together and making everything secure, but we worked together in our teams to make our dens as strong and sturdy as possible. There were a few times where an emergency evacuation was needed to rescue children from inside falling bed sheets, but we lived to tell the tale…

Some of us had the brilliant idea of having strength in numbers and decided to band together to form larger teams! What a great idea! (This came in very useful when it came to packing away some very confusing clothes horses.)

Once our dens were assembled, we walked carefully around the hall to give feedback to each group and to note ideas for how to improve our own!

Next, to enjoy the fruits of our labour, we all relaxed inside our dens with our books, using torches, and listened to music. We think we have the explorer life cracked!

We even invited other classes to come and see our hard work, and we escaped with only one collapsed den!

Finally, it was time to clear up. This was probably the most tiring part! We had to work together really well to make sure everything went back to how we found it.

We had a brilliant, but exhausting, day and we couldn’t have done it without your generosity, so thank you very much for sending in your supplies once again. We do, however, send our apologies to the fallen pegs that didn’t make it home.

Please look through our pictures from the day below!

-Mrs Burgess and Miss Wilson

 

This week’s Living and Learning theme was: “I know I live in a democracy.” Children were tasked with writing a speech to run for School Councillor or a Talk Time about the importance of voting. I was bowled over by the quality of these speeches and the passion and confidence each candidate showed.

There were some fantastically creative campaigns!

A very exciting part of our week was our long-awaited trip to the Forbidden Corner!

Although the excitement seemed to get a bit much for some!

When we arrived after our long journey, the first thing we did was eat our lunch. We were starving and it was only 11:45!

We were even joined by two visitors (but we didn’t let them steal our quackers).

As we begun our journey into the unknown, we felt a little nervous, but we trooped forwards, just like real explorers would!

We even managed to spot Mr Catherall hiding in the trees!

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The Forbidden Corner was a very strange place with bizarre twists and turns. We didn’t know what was coming next!

We were worried we might never get out!

Spot the real statues.

Our explorations proved truly a-maze-ing!

Here is photographic evidence of Year 3 breaking the rules!

We were the kings and queens of the castle! What a lovely view.

Our trip gave us chance to show our teamwork and map reading expertise.

It felt lovely to be outside with nature.

There were some impressive sculptures. This giant woodcutter inspired us to complete some brilliant artwork as you will see below.

His axe was pretty heavy!

This week, we tested our rafts to see if they would float with the weight of five marbles. First, we predicted what would happen and jotted down our method. Some of our rafts successfully floated!

While some of our rafts had a slightly soggy end…

But the experiment was a great learning experience as we discovered which materials floated and which unfortunately sank!

We also tried our hands (or feet) at football, this week.

Of course, we had to practise our celebrations!

To round off our diverse and creative week, we used a photo taken at the Forbidden Corner as an art stimulus. We drew the same picture four times but changed the media used each time: graphite pencil, wax crayon, oil pastel or pencil crayon.

After each drawing, our partner gave us a star and a step for us to improve in the next picture.

This allowed us to experiment with different materials and find out which we liked best; exploring happens in art, too!

What an all-round fantastic half term for Year 3. We’ve made massive amounts of progress in only seven weeks and I look forward to seeing what else is in store.

I hope everyone has a lovely week off. Make sure you keep on exploring!

Miss Wilson is reporting for Moortown Magazine.

Moortown Primary School, set in picturesque North Leeds, was where ground-breaking learning took place this week. Experts claim that Moortown Primary is home to some of the most hardworking pupils in the country.

This week, Year 3 has enjoyed: brilliant raft building, a confusing code breaker, phenomenal physical education, resilience in reading sessions, and fantastic fact files.

After being presented with the challenge of designing and creating a raft in order to save Mr Owen, who was stranded on a desert island, the students worked in pairs to meet the design criteria.

Will, a member of the class, said: “It was really exciting and fun.”

Jessica commented: “I liked using our own designs.”

On Monday, the students’ creations will be put to the test to see if they actually float and can save the poor Y4 teacher.

Problem-solving has also appeared in maths this week, where children were faced with a code-breaker situation. Number sentences were given to the young mathematicians, who had to use column addition to work out the answer. Their resulting number translated to a letter which formed a word. This is what the code breakers had to say:

Rayn, who enjoyed the task despite its difficulty, stated: “I found it really tricky to match the number answers to the letter codes.”

“It was hard because it was a race against other teams,” fellow classmate, Emma, said.

    

The class will apply this knowledge to their subtraction studies next week.

Year 3 were visited once again by local gymnastic experts. The focus, mirroring previous weeks, was balance and coordination alongside lots of elements of fun.

“I liked it because it was fun sliding on the benches using our bodies!” a visibly excited Yusayrah purported.

Leo claimed: “It was tricky bending down on one leg with the other one sticking out in front of you.”

Check out these epic slow-mo videos captured at the scene:

Stretching tall and jumping high
Balancing on the benches
Bunny hops

During reading this week, Year 3 has sampled a variety of tasks. One of these challenges was ‘Draw and Label’ where students listened to a description from their class novel and had to sketch out how they imagined the scene to look.

Hifza, who is soon to turn 8, said: “I thought this activity was interesting because I’ve never done it before.”

Meanwhile, Musa alleged that it was fun because he enjoyed labelling the drawing.

Continuing their geography theme in topic lessons (‘LO: to know about global regions’), Year 3 worked collaboratively to build a country fact file in pairs.

Regarding the task, Jemima remarked: “It was hard because some of the words were really tricky.”

“I enjoyed searching on the iPads,” said Mr Laverick, aged 7.

If you haven’t already guessed, this week and next week’s English theme is newspapers! We have discussed the features of news reports and learnt about the punctuation required for quotes and speech. (Ask your child what a colon means! “Hang on…”) This has been tricky for many, as it may be completely new, so when we did succeed with our learning, it tasted even more sweet!

It was great to meet lots of parents at the homework review on Thursday and I hope you enjoyed looking at and hearing about our amazingly creative homework! Here are some highlights:

I look forward to seeing you on Monday or Tuesday for parents’ evening.

This week’s maths has been all about giving context to our calculations by telling a story and asking a question. For example: “Talha had 452 cookies. Kashif gave him 30 more. How many cookies did Talha have altogether?” We used our place value grids to tackle these calculations and these will help us with our column addition next week.

Collaborative learning has been a recurrent theme across the week, where we’ve given feedback on each other’s learning in English and worked together to find facts in a newspaper article…

… and used our sketching skills to draw a new species of animal we found on our exploration (Emily discovered a Decapolagest!). We did this by drawing its head, eyes and mouth and passing it to the next person. Next, we drew the body, arms and wings and passed it on. Then, we drew the creature’s legs and tail. Finally, we drew the animal’s feet!

It certainly produced some humorous results!

Our wacky pictures helped us plan a descriptive piece of writing.

  

Continuing the team work theme, in groups we have also researched our continents in our topic lessons, and presented our findings to the class!

   

Using our drama skills, we recreated a scene from a short film. When Miss Wilson shouted, ‘Freeze frame!’ we had to hold our positions whilst the audience discussed how each character would be feeling and why, using what we knew from the clip.

Here are some action shots from our PE lesson, where we practised our ginormous jumping and our huge handstands.

 

 

We even got the benches out for some balance and stretching, for the first time! It was very exciting!

Sadly, this week, we had to say goodbye to two of our classmates: Maya and Setayesh. You will both be deeply missed and we wish you lots of luck for your new schools, but we’re sure you will both be fantastic!

A humongous welcome to our new friend Talha, who joined the Year 3 team on Thursday! Already, you are a valued member of the class and I look forward to getting to know you better.