Be mindful
At this busy time of year, mindfulness can help children to take control of their emotions.
During our recent themed week, all children took part in mindfulness workshops to learn a variety of techniques to use at school and at home. Here’s a reminder of a few of them that might be useful for over the holidays. A mindfulness newsletter/parent guide will be sent out in the new year.
Breathing hug
Start with both arms in the air. Put one hand across your tummy and the other on your shoulder. Breath slowly in and out.
Breathing tree
In a standing position, raise your arms as you breath in and release your arms back down as you breath out.
‘Ok’ breathing
Make an ‘o’ sign on your tummy button to represent that it is ok to feel different emotions. Slowly breath in and out.
Mindfulness bottle
This is a bit like a snow globe. Shake it up and watch it. Simply watch the disturbance as it begins to settle – as does our mind.
Take a bottle, add glitter and food colouring and seal tightly.
Looking to Christmas and beyond…
This week we’ve been feeling both festive and creative whilst making our Christmas cards and 2018 calendars! Check out our artwork below:
We’ve been inspired by Frosty the Snowman…
… and the Chinese New Year! Did you know, 2018 is the year of the dog?
Merry Christmas and a happy New Year to all!
Year 3/4 new class novel
Next term, Year 3 and 4 will be diving into two class novels.
The first will be a Fighting Fantasy novel, which is the title given to a series of interactive books, also known as gamebooks, that were developed by Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone. This book will certainly be intriguing and memorable because the children’s participation and the choices they make directly affects the outcome of the story!
The second will be Akimbo and the Elephants, written by Alexander McCall Smith. Here’s the blurb for a sneak peak:
Ten-year-old Akimbo lives on a game preserve in Africa. His father is the head ranger, and Akimbo is eager to help him whenever he can—even if it means getting into some pretty dangerous situations.
In Akimbo and the Elephants, ivory poachers are killing grown elephants for their tusks and leaving the calves to die. When the authorities fail to turn up new leads, Akimbo sets out to save the elephants by posing as a hunter himself.
Festival fever!
This week’s homework was to show what I know and think about something cultural or to show what I know about a festival.
Here are some of our fantastic submissions!
As usual, the children were so enthusiastic about sharing their ideas and asking each other questions. Well done, everyone!
Party
Just a quick reminder that the children can bring party clothes, in a carrier bag, into school tomorrow. They can put on their dancing shoes after lunch and get ready to strut some moves!
Road Safety Pantomime ‘The Gift of Life’
Yesterday, all pupils watched this lighthearted show that delivered important road safety messages.
Pupils joined Santa and Rudolf as they travelled back in time to prevent young Neil Downe from being knocked down. Whilst being fun and interactive, the pantomime covered the following road safety themes:
- the Green Cross Code
- seat belts
- be bright, be seen
- safer cycling
Ask your child about the performance and what messages they took away.
We are homework heroes!
Week in week out, we are so impressed by the quality of the homework. This week’s task was to demonstrate our understanding of instructions.
We discussed what made our homework successful, including drawing illustrations, making booklets and taking photos of our recipes in action!
Phoebe included all her spellings in a poem. Brilliant! There were some other very creative examples of spelling practice, too. Jemima decided to draw her spellings to help her remember!
Well done everyone!
We are rock detectives!
Continuing our What’s The Matter? themed mini topic, today we have been observing rocks! (LO: TBAT compare and group rocks.)
First, we watched a video about the different types of rock around us and noted down some key words to help us later.
Next, we decided how to compare the rocks. We thought of things like colour, texture and weight.
As a class, we talked about how to present our findings. We thought a table would be a good idea, so we walked through a class WAGOLL to help.
Here’s what we came up with:
For a class challenge, we discussed:
Geology rocks!
We respect communities and their members.
In yesterday’s Living and Learning session (L&L theme: I respect my community and other communities) we looked at the story of the Hueys and the New Jumper.
First, we discussed what’s good and less good about being a part of a community where everyone is the same.
We talked about our own experiences:
“I felt nervous joining Y3 but everybody made me feel welcome.”
– Ethan
“I didn’t feel nervous because there was no need to.”
– Talha
Next, we watched the short story by Oliver Jeffers.
We explored how the characters in the story would be feeling as Rupert decided to set himself apart from the group with a new jumper.
Finally, we decided that you shouldn’t judge someone on their appearance. It’s more important to get to know the person to make them feel welcome and respected as part of the community.
We Are One Cool Class!
After many weeks of earning numerous cool class tokens but narrowly missing out, Year 3 are finally victorious!
We caught up with a few of the amazed pupils as they returned to their classroom to let the news sink in.
“I feel proud!” – Yusayrah
“I’m really happy. We’ve waited quite a while.” – Nryan
“I feel proud because we haven’t won before.” – Jasraj
“I was shocked because we’ve never won in Year 3.” – Safiya-Mishal
“We’ve tried to get lots of class tokens to get the cup.” – Adam
“We tried to be kind to all the teachers and the dinner staff and the cleaners.” – Jemima