Year 3 Newsletter

Year 3 newsletter

This week in RE, we have been exploring the theme of forgiveness. To understand what forgiveness is, we first looked at ways we could forgive ourselves and help to bring about a positive outlook on negative situations.

We then used our knowledge of forgiveness within the Easter story to get inside the minds of Jesus and his disciples and how they may be feeling during the "Last Supper". Using drama, cloth and body language we were able to replicate the story and consider the emotions of our chosen person. 

Year 1 Newsletter

 We've been busy, busy, busy in Year 1 in our first full week back to school after Christmas!  The children have been so excited by our new topic 'Why is Africa is special place?' especially in our art lesson, where we looked closely at African masks and did some amazing observational drawings of them using oil pastels. 

In our writing lessons, we started a story writing unit and began by investigating tortoises!  We went into the immersion room to watch a video and looked closely at pictures on the walls.  We worked together to think of lots of words to describe how they look and how they move, wrote them on post its and stuck them on the walls!  Following that we began to learn the traditional African story 'How the tortoise got its shell', using a story map and actions.  It was great fun!

 

Finding the difference between 2 numbers has been our focus for maths this week.  The children have worked so hard at this tricky concept and we are so proud of them!

In our first ever World Views lesson we focused on bullying.  We acted out some bullying scenarios and thought about why people might bully others.  In RE we are exploring friendship and what makes a good friend.  We have learnt some stories from the Bible where Jesus was a good friend, such as when Jesus met Zacchaeus. 

 

Real life heroes in RE

RE
In RE, year 3 are looking at fairness and equality within the world and how we should treat others.
We wanted to look at people who inspire us to be the best versions of ourselves and understand the difference between right and wrong. Many of the heroes we looked at are people who aim to create a positive impact upon the world.

To understand this topic we discussed some BIG questions such as: 

• What is a personal hero? 
• What makes someone a hero/role model?
• Why might we need them?
• Who are our personal heroes and how can we aspire to be like them?

We had a great afternoon discussing these questions and came up with many characteristics of a hero such as caring, kind, helpful, charitable and respectful.  Many children mentioned their friends and family as role models with these attributes that they are inspired by. We even had books such as "Little Leaders", "Fantastically great women who changed the world" and "100 people who made history" to help us research other people that have helped shape the world we live in today and changed the world for the better. 

We can't wait to explore stories from a variety of religions next week to see how we can use these people as role models!

 

Modern Day Commandments

 In our RE lesson this afternoon, the children in Year 5 looked at the 10 Commandments that the Christian faith follow and we considered how these rules may affect their lives. The children were then given the task to create their own 10 Commandments that are relevant to modern day.

Year 2 newsletter

The year 2 children have certainly had a very busy week! 

In Literacy, we explored a secret garden which was full of hidden treasures. It was amazing!  We used adjectives to describe what we could see. We then focused on an item in the garden and described what sort of character it might have. 

As part of our RE learning, we had Reverend Williams from St Michael’s church come and visit us to tell us all about Christianity. He had some photos which he shared with us. The Reverend began by telling us a bit about Christianity and what Christians do when they go to church, and as a leader of the church what his job was. We discussed all of our ideas about Christianity and Reverend Williams explained how the meaning of light and darkness was very important for Christians. We thought about how we felt in light and darkness. We were able to ask the Reverend all the questions that we had and he answered them. It was a very interesting visit!

In our topic lessons we have been learning about the Great Fire of London, and the possible reasons for its cause. Who was to blame? Was it Thomas Farriner, the baker? Was it the maid? Or was it a pile of wood which caught on fire? We discussed all the possible reasons and came up with arguments for each idea using our oracy skills. We built upon each other's ideas and argued against those that we disagreed with. We then voted with our feet and the results were very interesting! The majority in Kusama class thought it was Thomas Farriner's fault but in Warhol class, the children thought it was the maid!

          

Year 6 Cliff making us proud!

Welcome back after the Easter break Cliff Class! It has been lovely to catch up with some of you over the class email. I have received lots of fantastic work from you and look forward to seeing more!

Not only have I started to receive some of your brilliant writing on the Day of the Dead this week, but I am also very happy to see that lots of you are also tackling the other curriculum tasks including your topic project set before Easter, your science investigation tasks and PSHE activities.

On top of all of this, I am so proud to see lots of you have been enjoying your home freedoms to develop your own skills including sketching, photography and baking.

Please enjoy some pictures below of some of the brilliant things you and your class mates have been getting up to.

I hope to see more outstanding work and other exciting things you have been keeping busy with!

Missing you all, from Miss Christmas

Part of Sofia's 'What makes a great leader?' topic presentation

 Anchen's Day of the Dead Research

 Professional photography and sketching by Hanako

Leon's science project research on Evolution 

Year 3 Newsletter

What a busy fortnight we've had in year 3!  Here are the highlights!

WE FINALLY GOT TO SEE TUTANKHAMEN!

The children were impeccably behaved once again as we visited the Saatchi Gallery for the second time and finally got to see the Tutankhamen exhibition.  It was well worth the wait!

Some of our favourite exhibits were the chair that Tutankhamen sat in when he was made Pharaoh aged 9, his funeral bed with gilded lion's feet and the throwing sticks, very similar to boomerangs, that the Ancient Egyptians used to hunt. 

Investigating Roman aqueducts and how they work

We learnt about the Roman invention of aqueducts, what they were used for and how they improved life in Britain.  We had a go at making aqueducts out of card and tape and tested them with a marble to see if they worked! We think aqueducts are a very clever Roman invention!

A visit from Rev. Sarah from the Holy Trinity Church

As part of our RE unit on Christianity, we invited Rev. Sarah to tell us a story that Jesus told.  She shared the story of The Mustard Seed with us in the immersion room, bringing her special gold story box to help her. The children were captivated by the story and her soothing voice.   Afterwards, the children had the chance to retell the story using the things in the box and also responded to the story in pictures, writing and making.

World Book Day!

We had a fabulous world book day and the children looked AMAZING dressed up as their favourite characters.  We laughed out loud watching Michael Rosen's video of him performing his poem 'Chocolate Cake' and we read some of James Carter's poems.  We then created some art work in response to four of our favourites, using oil pastels, collage and sketching pencils.

Finally... the Poetry Slam!

It was a winning Friday for Year 3 in the key stage two poetry slam!  Klee performed 'The Owl and the Pussy-Cat' and Pollock performed 'Go to the back Rosa Parks'.  Between us we achieved third and first place!  An incredible achievement especially being the youngest children in KS2. 
Miss Wadley and Mrs Smith are so very proud of all the children, especially those who were out of their comfort zones performing on stage.  They were clear, strong, expressive and passionate...and truly AWESOME!

Year 2 RE visit

On Monday, Year 2 had a visit from Reverend Sarah as part of our RE learning about Christianity. We wanted to learn about our local church, why Christians go to church and what they do there.

We began the session underneath a piece of cloth that represented the a tent under the night sky as this is what the very first Christians did. They would gather together to share their worship of God. When they started building houses for themselves, they thought that the place where they worshipped God should also be a house, and so they started building big houses to hold people in. These eventually became temples then Churches as we know them today.

Christians listen to stories of the bible when they go to church, so Reverend Sarah shared some stories with us. We listened to the story of the Good Shepard, which explains communion, which is the sharing of bread and wine in Christian churches. As she told the story, she used figurines to demonstrate it.

We  also asked Reverend Sarah some questions that we had about about Christianity and the church and we discussed what people do there (weddings, celebrations, praying, singing). We then looked at pictures of different churches, and discussed that although they were different, they all brought people together so that they could worship God. We discussed how this was similar for other religions where they have places of worship. We then looked at pictures of Reverend Sarah's church, and we talked about the different elements that make it up, and what these are used for (such as the font, the altar, and the bible). 

Reverend Sarah explained that churches not only bring people together, but it is also a space for quiet reflection. We have created a space in our classroom so that we can have a calm place to reflect about our day. 

Year 1’s RE and investigation work

The children have been learning about Sukkot in RE - a Jewish festival, held in the Autumn. After hearing about how people celebrate within a special ‘sukkah’, the children helped to design their own sukkah shelter.

The children have also been investigating how to get leaves out of frozen blocks of ice. During the children’s child initiated time this week, some children have been attempting to release the leaves and discussing how best to get them out! They tried warming up the blocks with their hands, pouring water over them and even just chipping away at them with cutlery!