Design and Technology: TechCard
During our Design and Technology lesson last week, the children were set a task to build a bridge.
The design criteria (what makes a product successful) for their bridge were:
- It has to be strong.
- It has to be able to hold a vehicle.
- It has to be long enough to stretch from one desk to another.
The children used TechCard for this! TechCard is a building system that uses simple card components to create working models.
I gave simple instructions and let them be as creative as they liked. I saw fantastic teamwork skills. They brought their own ideas together and every group built a successful bridge!
Here’s some images of us testing each bridge. The most successful ones had more than one layer of TechCard to make it strong and secure.
Help at home: What would children’s climbing frame need to be a successful one?
Can you list at least 3 design criteria?
1.______________________
2. ______________________
3. ______________________
Orienteering
Recently, as part of the Leeds Well Schools Partnership, some of our Key Stage 2 children participated in an orienteering event at Roundhay Park.
After being briefed on the rules and how to complete the orienteering challenge, they set off with their partner armed with a map of the site to find the first check point. Then, it was back to the start to hand over to the other pair in their team for them to find check point two and so on until all twelve markers had been found.
The children worked brilliantly in their teams encouraging and supporting each other.
Well done to all the children for representing the school so well and developing these great skills.
The event was led by Airienteers and they have permanent orienteering courses across Leeds locations. Here’s the course for Roundhay Park.
Food Technology: savoury scones!
Today, Year 3 completed their final Food Technology session. This time, they made savoury scones! Some of us had never eaten a savoury scone before, let alone made them.
They had courgettes, carrot and sweetcorn in to make them filling and a part of our balanced diets.
We worked in groups of 10 to make a batch of scones so we all had to share the jobs. The two main skills we learned and practised were grating and kneading.
Grating the vegetables was tricky as we needed to keep the slippery grater up-right! The courgette was the most difficult.
Kneading our dough was interesting as the dough was quite sticky. We needed to make sure our surface and hands had enough flour on to stop it from sticking everywhere.
Overall, we did a fantastic job and ALL of the children loved the flavour!
Help at home by using the recipe to remake the savoury scones using different vegetables! They’ve been sent home today. The children thought that pepper and tomatoes could be tasty…
Living and Learning: RSE
Over the last 3 weeks in Year 3, we have explored relationships and change.
We’ve discussed that we have relationships with lots of people. For example, our family, friends, people we meet through clubs, like leaders etc. These relationships should be happy and healthy. We talked about this might look like:
- We trust each other.
- We are kind to each other.
- We listen to each other.
- We try to help each other.
But what happens if this becomes unhappy and unhealthy? If you can’t resolve the problems between you in a respectful way, then you can ask a trusted adult to help!
Sometimes we might need a change and change can seem scary when it’s new. We looked at the different stages of human life and the class discussed how our lives change over time.
For example, when we are born, we have no responsibilities and our grown ups look after us constantly. As we grow older, we have more freedom and we realised that with freedom comes more responsibilities like cooking for yourself, having a job and learning to drive.
We decided that change is good because it takes us outside our comfort zone and lets us try new things!
Help at home by discussing a change that is coming up soon. How do you feeling about moving up to Year 4?
Living and Learning: exercise!
Our latest Living and Learning sessions have been all about the importance of exercise and how we need to keep active to keep our bodies and our minds healthy.
During the school day, here’s some ways we move our bodies:
Travelling to and from school by walking, bike or scooter
Wake up Shake up
Running around at playtimes
PE: netball
Swimming on a Wednesday
The NHS guidance states that children and young people should ‘aim for an average of at least 60 minutes (30 minutes in school and 30 minutes out of school) of moderate or vigorous intensity physical activity a day across the week’. We know that the exercise we need to do to achieve this, should increase our heart rate.
We spent part of our lesson moving our bodies! We followed this yoga video which also helped us to feel calm and centred: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gBYhgQnVRGw
Help at home – try a new physical activity out of school – maybe a local junior park run, tennis lessons or have a look at our local physical activity guide for more ideas!
T3.2 – group reading
Hello!
This week, we’ve begun our final group reading!
The class have been divided into groups and each group has been given a book to read at home. This will last for this half term.
During our Book Club sessions each Friday, each group will discuss what they have read so far and share their reading record activities related to their book. This will be a fantastic opportunity for the children to explore characters and storylines more than they might do normally!
Every Friday during Book Club, each group will be given a new page to read to for the next Friday.
What to remember:
- Your child has a book that they need to read every week (up to a chosen point marked with a post-it notes).
- The reading record activity needs to be completed using their new book.
- A comment from a grown up needs to be written in their reading record.
- Group reading books and reading records need to be brought in every Friday.
Help at home by listening to your child read their new book and asking them questions about the book to help prepare them for class discussions.
I look forward to hearing the children’s discussions next week!
Thanks, Miss Birch
Waterstones!
Yesterday, 9 children from Year 3 and 4 went on a trip into Leeds city centre to visit Waterstones!
The children had a look around and all chose a book to take home. We had great fun looking at all the different choices that were available. It was hard to choose just one!
Your children chose a mixture of books – graphic novels, narratives and non-fiction books.
It was a lovely afternoon out!
Brownlee Triathlon
This week, a group of our Key Stage 2 pupils took part in the Brownlee Foundation Mini Triathlon event at John Smeaton. This is always a popular and oversubscribed event and it introduces the children to the elements of triathlon – a swim, a bike ride and a run.
Well done to all the children for taking part, showing great determination and supporting each other.
If your child is interested in triathlons, please see more details in our physical activity guide or have a look at the bike and run opportunities at the Brownlee Centre.
Some children are also competing in the upcoming junior aquathlon taking place at Leeds University on 1st June. More details can be found here.
Topic and Writing: Leeds West Indian Carnival!
What is journalistic writing?
Journalistic writing is like a newspaper report.
The purpose is to tell the news.
We’re going to be writing an online news article about the Leeds West Indian Carnival. We’re learning about the carnival in our History topic at the moment so we know loads about it! A carnival is a festival that is made up of processions, dancing, music and costumes.
Help at home: Ask your child who founded the Leeds West Indian Carnival? How old was this person when they immigrated to Leeds? How did they feel when they moved here, welcome or unwelcome?
Our news article is going to include:
- a headline
- subheadings
- main facts
- history of the carnival
- quotes
Visit this website to research more about it: https://leedscarnival.co.uk/
Check back here to see how the children get on with their news article…
Living and Learning: hydration
This week during Living and Learning, we’ve learnt about the importance of hydration.
Our body is nearly two-thirds water, so drinking enough fluid to stay hydrated is important. Water is essential for life, and it is important to get the right amount of fluid to be healthy.
We can get fluids from many different liquids:
- Water is a great choice because it hydrates us without adding sugar or potentially damaging teeth.
- Milk is a useful source of nutrients like protein, B vitamins and calcium, as well as being a source of water.
- Fruit/vegetable juices and smoothies provide water plus some vitamins, minerals, fibre and natural plant substances from the fruit. However, they are also high in sugars!
Hydration is especially important this time of year because of the warmerweather (which we’ve been very lucky with lately!) We’ve been bringing our water bottles out with us during lunch times for this reason.
We then did a Kahoot quiz to test our knowledge…
See how you get on with these questions!
Help at home by tracking how much water you have in a day. Children should have around 1 litre of water!