St Adrian's Catholic Primary School
To learn, to love, to live
On Tuesday of this week Year 3 celebrated St David’s Day, which they did in style with their red white and green outfits. We even had a very spectacular dragon! They learned to say Happy St David’s Day in the Celtic Welsh language, Dydd Gŵyl Dewi Hapus!
On Ash Wednesday Y3 joined in receiving The Ashes with the rest of the school in a whole school Ash Wednesday Liturgical Assembly led by Brother Nelson and attended by parents. They will be thinking about and making their Lenten promises soon.
This week in Design and Technology, year 3 have begun to learn about pneumatics and how the idea of pressurised air being used to make machines work goes all the way back to ancient Greece! Many of them knew that their bicycle and ball pumps use air but they were surprised to learn that the drills used to drill holes in the road are powered just by by air, and that it can provide enough power to create that amount of force! They watched as just air, powered a small rocket and are excited to be making their own pneumatic toys.
They are going to be using a mixture of new and recycled items to create their moving toys, which may look something like this:
In History, Prehistory is in the air… as the children have just begun to learn about the last part of the Stone Age and the children will be going on to learn about the Bronze and Iron Ages too. They have been imagining what their life would be like if they lived as Stone Age farmers up in Skara Bray on the Orkney Islands and wrote a diary entry for a day in their lives, as we compared just how different life was, then to now.
Year 3 celebrated Wellbeing Week on Friday by reflecting – and dancing about – growth. The amaryllis now on the classroom window-sill is a metaphor for the growth which everyone experiences. We asked the question “Can all growth be seen?” We’ll see how the amaryllis grows taller (quickly), but it will also grow in other ways which we won’t be able to see, resulting in a beautiful flower. We discussed how growth is exciting and leads to fantastic new skills, but it isn’t always quick or easy. To think more deeply about this, we considered a skill we’d already learnt, such as swimming. We thought about the steps and breakthroughs taken along the way to gain this skill, as well as the things which went wrong. It’s these little steps and mistakes which, over time, lead to success and pride. This goes not just for the subject learning at school, but the growth we experience in our relationships with family members, friends and other people at school. Everyone in year 3 is growing, in lots of ways; and has much to be proud of. Here are some of the fantastic records the children made to show their understanding. A great motto for life which the children in year 3 shared is “Practice makes progress”.
Year 3 have had another busy week! They had a lovely visitor in the form of Mrs Hayes to lead an in class assembly from Galatians on the Fruit of the Spirit. The children then updated or wrote a plan to lead their own in class assemblies each week and I look forward to assisting them as do so.
For Safer Internet Day they created their own, named, Gaming Guide, instructing him or her as to what advice they should give gamers, and then designing an avatar for their gaming Guide.
In Art and design they finished their water colour paintings in the style of pop art to great effect.
As you can see they have worked carefully and precisely to create colourful images of everyday items, not forgetting to include the iconic Ben Day dots.
This Friday, bones and numbers featured highly. Year 3 practised their times tables by playing a “four in a row” dice game. They all looked great in their number-themed home clothes
We also played a quick game of “The product is…. what’s the equation?” You had to find at least two multiplication equations (excluding 1 x ….!) to make the answer. Products used included 24, 36 and 30. How many possibilities can you find at home?
We continued to learn about skeletons in science, this time the human skeleton. On seeing an image of a human skeleton on the whiteboard, a very astute member of the class asked, “Is that an adult or child skeleton? Because an adult has more bones than a child.” What a fantastic science question to ask! We learnt the Latin, or scientific versions of the names for different bones. Can you remember which one is called which name?
We also practised the mostly commonly mispelt words from the spelling assessment, so well done everyone for learning these as home.
As well as snowing, there were cakes at the end of the day. What a fantastic Friday!
Year 3 have been studying the Pied Piper of Hamelin by Michael Morpurgo and the rather drastic action he took when, having rid Hamelin of the rats, the Mayor and his councillors refused him the payment he was promised. Year 3 then acted as the councillors and debated if the Pied Piper should be paid. They then wrote their final answer as a correctly punctuated sentence, with their reasoning. For instance; ‘If we pay him, what’s to stop him bringing the rats back?’ or ‘If we pay him and the rats come back, then we can ask him to get rid of them again.’
Year 3 then wrote their own stories based on this version of the pied Piper of Hamelin, and they all show what great imaginations the class has…
What a day we had! We really enjoyed Sports Day yesterday and made the most of the all activities organised for us. From rocket javelin to a quoit toss, we really embraced Sports Day this year, even if it was most unlike any usual Sports Day. Here are a few photos from the event:
Miss Battams 🙂
What a busy few weeks it has been in Year 3! From Holy Communions to mummification, we have packed a lot in.
In History, we have been focusing on Ancient Egypt and the process of mummification. Did you know that the brains were removed from the body from a hook through the nose as it wasn’t seen as important to the Egyptians! We learnt more about the other stages of mummification and then acted out the process, all completed with wrapping each other in toilet roll!
In Science, we have enjoyed looking at plants and growing cress heads. We placed our cress heads in different places to see where they would grow best. We found that the cress heads grew best in the fridge, rather than in the cupboard under the sink!
We are also looking forward to our Sports Day today, even though it will be more like a sports hour. Please don’t forget to come to school in your PE kits to get that Sports Day feel!
Congratulations to all the children who have recently taken their first Holy Communions. Please feel free to bring in any photographs from the day for show and tell on Fridays.
Miss Battams and Ms McCarthy 🙂
This half term, we will be ofcusing on Special Places in our RE learning. For many people, some places in the world are special. For others the whole world is special. We all feel a need to look after what is special to us. Sometimes it is easy to explain why things are special. At other times it might be difficult to put into words why something is special.
Christians believe that the diversity of the world and its people is God’s gift. Jesus in his life and gospel, challenges people to appreciate diversity and to create with it a harmony that reflects the unity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. This is reflected in the work of CAFOD.
Catechism of the Catholic Church
“God created the world to show forth and communicate his glory: that his creatures should share in his truth, goodness and beauty – this is the glory for which God created them.” (CCC319)
“The Church is the people that God gathers in the whole world.” (CCC752)
Word of God
“See, the body is one, even if formed by many members, but not all of them with the same function. The same with us; being many, we are one body in Christ, depending on one another. Let each one of us, therefore, serve according to our different gifts. Do you have prophecy? Let the deacon fulfil his office; let the teacher teach, the one who encourages, convince. You must, likewise, give with an open hand, preside with dedication, and be cheerful in your works of charity. Let love be sincere. Hate what is evil and hold to whatever is good. Regarding brotherly love, have love for one another. Regarding respect, judge others as more worthy. Regarding your duties, do not be lazy.
Be fervent in the Spirit and serve God.” (Romans 12:4-11)
Prayer and Reflection
Creator God,
in your hands you hold the depths of the earth
and the heights of the mountains,
for all creation belongs to you.
Grant us grace to cherish your world
and wisdom to nurture its resources.
Save us from the desire to control what is not ours
and the impulse to possess what is not ours
and the impulse to possess what is there to share.
Amen.
(Annabel Shilson-Thomas/CAFOD)
What a busy first week back after the half term break! We have enjoyed continuing our learning about Ulf the finger eater in English. We are planning to rewrite chapter 4 of the book to detail how we would have out smarted the pesky troll.
In Computing, we continued with our learning about being presenters. We filmed a series of short clips, in pairs, of ourselves performing a skill or trick. We were mindful to capture a range of different shots from a number of angles. Next week, we will editing these clips to create a short video and exploring voice overs.
We also started out new PE learning this week, Outdoor and Adventurous (OAA). OAA involves problem solving and working as a team. We had to arrange ourselves in height order without talking to each other. We found this tricky as team work is all about communication!
We rounded off the week by starting our learning about plants in Science. We started by discussing what we already knew about plants and then examined a real flowering plant. We then labelled different parts of a plant and described each of their functions. After that, we created a leaflet to help us remember these functions. Have a look at your leaflets below:
Have a great weekend and enjoy the long overdue sunshine,
Miss Battams and Ms McCarthy 🙂
