Year 3 – St Peter – Page 8 – St Adrian's Catholic Primary School

Year 3 loves science!

We celebrated the growing theme in this year’s Science Week in year 3 by comparing the elasticity of different objects – in other words, what is the stretchiest – a sock, an elastic band or slime? This meant making slime, a task year 3 were more than game for. They combined the materials which combined irreversibly. We were fascinated to find out that some slime stretched for metres – and could have gone on longer, if that had been practical – and some broke very quickly. We also found that if you carefully kneaded and pulled the slime, that made it more elastic. Strict health and safety guidelines were followed throughout. Well done, year 3, like all good scientists, you stayed safe and observed very well. Also, you all learnt collaboratively very well.

Another aspect to science week in year 3 is to “ask a scientist a question”. I showed the children a picture of a real scientist – my son, who recently started his career in a Biochemistry lab. As I explained to the class, everyone in year 3, who would like to, could do the same, by doing your best at school in science, taking opportunities to explore the world around you, remaining curious and open-minded. Never stop asking questions! Already one class member says he would like to become a palaeontologist, which is a fascinating field to work in. My son would love to hear of any questions year 3 might having about being a scientist, working in science, or studying science after school. Please email me any questions, or post them on Google Classroom or tell them to me at school, by the end of this week. Friday morning is going to be busy already, so we’ll share any answers next week.

The photos show some of the enthusiasm in year 3 this morning.

Experimenting with the consistency…

We found out the most socks were much less elastic than slime.

Alistair doesn’t make slime at his lab! But he does enjoy his work as a scientist and would be very happy to answer questions about studying science after school or working in science.

Celebrating World Book Day in Year 3

Year 3 looked fantastic today, particularly the Mr Foxes! One of the particularly great things about their outfits was that many of them were made from home things, which had been carefully selected so the children could play a character they found very interesting or admirable. Like other classes, year 3 is in the process of revamping the reading corner. The children played a part today by making bunting about their favourite books. Emphasis was put on spelling every word correctly, starting every proper noun with a capital letter and also describing the book in a “strapline” or three key words. I shared my favourite book – “Little House on The Prairie” which I described as “girl’s adventurous life-story”. One piece of bunting describes “George’s Marvellous Medicine” as “funny, energetic and weird” – I quite agree. Another says for “Fantastic Mr Fox” – “Looking for food, What a disaster that’ll be soon!” Here are a few other pieces, to give you an idea of the care the children took with them…

As Mr Haynes said in his email yesterday, the class library could really do with some more, up-to-date texts so children can really benefit from the wealth of literature around now. If you would like to contribute, here is the link from his email: https://amzn.eu/bXpVAyq . Thank you.

Here are the children in their marvellous outfits, showing their bunting and focusing on book reviews they wrote. They also did well, collectively, to answer questions in our “literary quiz”.

The range of books the children brought in was wide – fiction, non-fiction, adventure stories, stories about school. Roald Dahl and JK Rowling featured quiet strongly. We talked about reading being the single-most important activity you can do for yourself: not just for knowledge, academic achievement and vocabulary building, for also for imagination, creativity, enjoyment, mindfulness and to share with others. Keep reading, everyone!

Y3 celebrate St. David’s Day in red, green and white style

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.

The power of pressurised air

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.

Practice Makes Progress

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”.

Class Worship Visitor

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.

Numbers Day in Year 3

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!

Promises should be kept….

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…

News for Year 3 – Sports Day!

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 🙂

News from Year 3

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 🙂