Week beginning 7.01.19

Take a look at some of the things that the Seahorse class have been up to this week...

Maths 

It's been all about the inspirational maths this week, as we have; investigated, used different strategies, persevered, shared ideas and worked together to solve problems and find patterns. The most important part of the week has been realising that getting things wrong and making mistakes is the most important part of maths, as this is when our brain grows. 

English

In our English lessons we have been looking at the Ancient Egyptian creation story. Learning all about how the ancient Egyptians believed the world began. We have been making living stories, doing some acting and then working hard on our paragraphs and use of conjunctions when writing up.

Science 

We turned into detectives for our first science lesson. Hunting out rocks in disguise around the school and making careful observations. Deciding whether we could tell the difference between man-made and natural rocks.  

P.E

In P.E this week we started another new topic: gymnastics. We already have lots of talented gymnasts in Seahorse class, so we are looking forward to creating our own routines and using equipment to display our new knowledge of the pike, straddle and tuck static positions. 

In other news...

we are looking forward to our trip to Norwich castle on Wednesday 23rd January, where we can get behind the scenes to handle ancient artefacts and learn all about the ancient ways of life in Egypt. So remember to get those permission slips in on time! 

1.01.19

Happy New Year! Before we start a new term, filled with trips, new topics and learning it might be a good time to share some at the highlights from the academic year so far.

English 

We have worked hard on a range of genres, in particular non-chronological report writing where we designed our own dragons with the help of the Norwich Puppet Theatre and wrote non-chronological reports all about them. We included skills such as time adverbials, changing pronouns and coordinating conjunctions. 

Watching and acting out scenes from the model animation series Pingu has helped us create dialogue between characters and start to learn and use all the rules for speech marks. 

We have also been learning how to write five part adventure stories drawing inspiration from the writer and illustrator Simon Murray. We used his technique of using illustrations as a starting point when designing characters, settings and plans to help describe and shape our stories. We made sure they had a clear beginning, build-up, climax, resolution and ending. We used our newly practised grammar skills such as using onomatopoeia, expanded nouns phrases, prepositions, subordinating conjunctions and even used some inverted commas (that's speech marks!).  

During our work on poetic devices, we made moving metaphors and explored similes to help us write some thoughtful poems about World War 1 drawing inspiration and empathetic feelings from war time photography. We mixed this with art work using the marbling technique and silhouettes. 

Maths 

Autumn term has been all about place value and learning new methods for the four operations to help us calculate quickly, both mentally and when using a written method. If you would like more information on these methods, have a look at the calculations policy on the policies section of the schools website or pop in for chat. 

Topic 

Geography has been the main core of our topic work this term learning all about the U.K as we tackle using atlases and digital mapping software to learn all about the rivers, mountains, cities and changing populations of the U.K

Music 

Music has been super tricky, but we are now starting to feel more confident with our skills on the ukulele during our lessons with Miss Furnell. We have been learning chords, different strumming patterns and lots of new songs to showcase our new talents! We have already learnt some songs and tunes for our performance at the end of the year!

Science 

Science has been fascinating this term and jam packed full of experiments from creating super charged paper planes and making our own compasses in our 'Forces and Magnets' topic, to investigating mirrors and shadows during our topic 'Light and Dark'. 

Also...

we have enjoyed lots of visits from people such as Mrs Aide, our local Invictus Games medal winner, a professional poet and even The Dogs Trust dropped by to give us tips on how to socialise with animals safely. 

It has been amazing to see how far Seahorse class has come with their new skills already this year, due to their hard work and positive attitude. We look forward to spring term and our new tpoic 'Ancient Times' where we will first learn all about the ancient civilisation of the Egyptians before moving on to the ancient Greeks. In English, among other things, we will be writing diary entries and sets of instructions. Maths this term will bring lots on measure (capacity, money, length and time) using a wide variety of units whilst all the time practising those core skills. We will also tackle some fractions! If your would like to know more about the learning content of the Spring term, look out for the What's Happening newsletter or check the website for the digital version. As always, you are more than welcome to pop in for a chat. 

Finally, with the blog now fully operational, check back to see what has been happen in the Seahorse class soon. 

Welcome to the New Academic Year!

It looks like it is going to be a fantastic year for year 3 this year. The Seahorse class have come back to school full of enthusiasm and excited to learn. Have a look at some of the topics and subjects we have been starting the academic year with... 

Maths 

In maths we have been getting practical, using lots of equipment to demonstrate and further our understanding of place value. We have been identifying the value of each digit in four-digit numbers, sequencing and finding 10 and 100 more or less than a given number. 

We have also started our weekly Maths Whizz sessions. Remember these games and lessons can also be accessed from home! 

English

In English we have been securing our knowledge of word classes such as nouns, adjectives, verbs and adverbs. We have been playing lots of games to help with our understanding. Ask us, can we give you examples of each of them? 

We also started the day with a surprise as we found some tiny  paint footsteps leading up to a tiny secret door. We used this mysterious visitor as inspiration to learn about time adverbs when writing recounts and write character descriptions.

Humanities

It has been all about developing our map skills in our geography topic about the UK so far, as we locate important cities and rivers using atlases and google maps. We also had a closer look at the place names of our local area and traced the meaning of the names back to historical settlers from the Roman, Viking and Saxon ages. Did you know that the ton in Necton come from an ancient Saxon word meaning farmstead? We do now!

Science

Science has also been very hands on, as we get to grips with the different forces of push, pull and twist in our new topic 'Forces and Magnets' . We identified different types of forces in action and learnt that forces can be increased or decreased to affect the movement of a paper plane.

We have also been doing lots of investigations with magnets. Testing different materials and different shapes and sizes to see what, if anything, affects their strength.

Music

We are also enjoying our music lessons with Miss Furnell, our professional musician teacher, as we learn the ukulele.

Week beginning 4/06/18

It's been another busy start to the half-term in seahorse class. Here is a few of the the things we have been learning about recently...

English/Topic 

In English, we have been enjoying our topic on persuasive writing. We have been looking at all of the techniques used in different medias to persuade us to buy something. We used these techniques to perform adverts that we had created to sell some unusual objects.

Crossing over into our topic of the rainforest, we have been looking at the controversial subject of deforestation. It was sad to learn that many rainforest habitats are being destroyed through deforestation. At first, we could not understand why, but through our topic on persuasion and debate we have been thinking about other peoples way of life and point of view. We are using our ability to write in role and create sentences with persuasive sentence starts, conjunctions and clauses that explain others point of view in preparation for a debate next week. 

Maths 

In maths, we have been learning all about 3D shapes. We have been learning the names of 3D shapes and describing them by their properties such as: number and shape of their faces and number of edges and vertices. We enjoyed using our technical skills to make monster models of shapes by recognising their nets and making skeletons of their shapes using straws and pipe cleaners. 

Geography

One of the highlights this week was our visit to Amazona zoo. It was great to see all of the animals we had been learning about and have the opportunity to talk with experts. 

Finally, it is the Seahorse class assembly on Wednesday 13th June. The doors open at 2.35pm ready for a 2:40pm start. It would be lovely to see as many people as possible to come and share some of the subjects we had been learning about this term.