Half term football opportunity
Here’s a new football venture starting locally during half term.
Living & Learning: Me and my community week 2 November
Our next whole school themed week, based around identity, diversity and community, will be taking place from Monday 2nd November. This is the first of two themed weeks in the year. In our ‘Me and My Community’ week, children will learn about what it means to belong to a community, from family to national or even international communities. Importantly, our children will also learn to respect and celebrate different communities.
Active travel in the community
We encourage children to get out in the community in an active way on their way to and from school. By walking/scooting/biking to school, families will be keeping our community safer and healthier by reducing congestion at the school gate. Maybe even pick up a piece of litter on the way. Even by parking further away from school your child could then travel the final part of their journey by foot, bike or scooter.
Email us ([email protected]) a picture of your active travel, maybe by a landmark in our community on your route to school, for the chance to win one of three vouchers. Entries to be submitted by 4pm on Thursday 5th November.
New school charity
At the end of the themed week, classes will have the chance to discuss our charity shortlist and the Junior Leadership Team will have the final vote for which charity they would like our school to support, replacing our current charity, Martin House Hospice.
Identity day
Friday 6th November will be a non-uniform Identity Day. Children are invited to dress in clothing that represents part of their identity, for example uniform from a club they attend, a team they are part of or support or traditional dress to represent their heritage. There is no donation or contribution required for this day.
SAVE THE DATE PTA coffee morning Friday 6th November 9-10am
As part of the week, we welcome all parents and carers to an informal coffee morning to meet other members of our school community including representatives from the PTA. A whole school community Wake up Shake up will follow at 9:50am in the main playground.
Can you help?
Maybe you speak another language and you would be happy to speak to children about this or you would like to share about your own family culture and heritage. If so, please contact the office to pass on your details. Also, do you have any local community links that may support our week?
Retrieval
This week, we’ve been reading an extract from The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe.
First, we discussed the vocabulary to make sure everyone really understood what was going on. Help at home by asking your child what these words mean: glimpse, glossy and inquisitive.
Today, we let out creativity shine … alongside our very important retrieval skills of course!
We had to read the text and pick out any information that told us how the character of Mr Tumnus looked. Then came the fun part – drawing and labelling it.
The collapse of Ancient Greece
Today, we looked at three reasons for the end of the Ancient Greek civilisation.
- City states Athens and Sparta started to fight amongst themselves, diverting strength and resources away from their defence
- The Roman invasion
- A rebellion led by poor people against the oligarchy
A major theme of this lesson was power. Help at home by discussing how power links to each of the points above.
We created freeze frames to show each of these reasons. Can you match each one to show why Ancient Greece collapsed?
Reading Records
Check out these amazing Reading Records for this week’s activity – Book Wars! Y3 had to prove why their book was the very BEST in the class.
We’ve really got to grips with our new Reading Records and it’s been fantastic to see how everyone has been engaging with their reading at home!
Help at home by reading together every day for 10 minutes 🙂
National Poetry Day
Today was National Poetry Day and we kicked it off with an assembly. The theme this year was wonder.
Miss Wilson and Mrs Simpson shared their favourite poems…
…before we had a go at performing our poem Talking – including actions!
Next Tuesday, we’ll perform our poem for the rest of the school.
Help at home by reading some poetry together. Check out the Book Finder tool from the National Literacy Trust to find some awesome poetry books.
Exoskeletons
In this week’s science, being the intrepid biologists that we are, we went to The Green for a bug hunt!
We’ve been learning about skeletons in humans and animals and how some animals have something called an exoskeleton (a hard outer shell in place of a skeleton on the inside). We also learnt about insects and antennae!
We found loads of incredible creatures with a variety of different body structures. Insects are invertebrates which means that they don’t have a backbone.
Help at home by going on a creature hunt at home and talk about what type of body / skeleton it has.
Living and Learning – rights and responsibilities
This week’s Living and Learning lesson was about rights and responsibilities.
Rights are moral or legal entitlements to have or do something.
“She had every right to be angry.”
“You are within your rights to ask for your money back.”
We have the right to be educated, to be loved and respected, or to relax and play.
A responsibility is an obligation to behave correctly.
We have the responsibility to listen in school, to love and respect others, or to relax and play safely.
Y3 explored rights and responsibilities through drama.
Skeletons
In this science unit, we’re biologists and we’re learning about skeletons.
Today, we looked at animal skeletons and found they were actually very similar to ours.
We worked as scientists by grouping them into different categories. For example, the skeletons which had a large skull vs small skull or animals with femurs and those without.
“We worked hard today and I feel like I’m getting better at science!” said Rayaan.
Laila said, “The lesson today was very fun because I like animals.”
“I have learnt what an animal looks like inside and it was fun!” – Edie.
Handwriting
Today’s handwriting practice looked a little different! We used felt tips and big paper to continue our journey of mastering our writing implement.
We always start with our ready to write rhyme…
…and we discuss the 4 Ps throughout!
Help at home by saying, singing or chanting the ready to write rhyme. Bonus points if it’s when you’re practising your spellings!