Winchester Science Museum Visit for Year 3 and 4

Dear Parents/Carers,

On Friday 21^st November, the children will be lucky enough to have a visit from a specialist Science teacher from Winchester Science Museum.  She will be spending the morning with the Year 4 children who will be taking part in the ‘Sounds interesting’ workshop.  In the afternoon, she will be working with the Year 3 children on the ‘lights and shadows’ workshop.

In both workshops, the children will be able to have a hands on experience using the resources provided by Winchester Science Museum. The workshops are designed to be investigative and will support the curriculum covered this term in both Year groups.

We would be grateful for a contribution of £2.00 for your child’s workshop.  If you are able to pay online this would be greatly appreciated as this is a more secure way of paying.  If not, please send your contribution into your child’s class teacher in a named envelope.

Year 3

We had a fantastic day on Friday dressed up and experiencing life in as a Celt!

In the morning we did some cave paintings on the walls outside, in the playground.  We used chalk to do this and tried to use earthy and natural colours.  We also had a tour of a Celtic village including the remains of a roundhouse; the readily available nettles for soup; the wheat grinding equipment; and even the luxurious outside toilet facilities! Unfortunately, one of the prize sheep was stolen and we had to invade a neighbouring tribe to retrieve Flopsy! It later emerged that the person responsible for the theft was one of our own tribe members.  We dealt with the culprit accordingly.

In the afternoon, we made amulets, from clay, for the children’s new Celtic names.  We also had the chance to do some weaving using paper.  It was very tricky and took a lot of commitment and collaboration to get them finished.  Some children had time to make some bread. The rest of the children will get the opportunity to make bread on Monday afternoon with Mrs Chapman.

Thank you for all of the support from homw with the costumes.  The children all looked great and really helped to make this experience come to life for the children.

Pictures to follow!

Miss Turner and Miss Shaw

Year three have had a busy week  completing their Stonehenge information pages and refreshing their memories on their 3D shape knowledge.

In our topic work this week, we have been looking into the Bronze Age and we have created pottery similar to those from this period of time.  We were very impressed with the standard of the pots and know the children are very excited about taking these home at the and of the half term.

A highlight of the week was learning to dance to the Ice Age ‘…Do the Sid!’ The children thoroughly enjoyed joining into this dance and I’m sure would love to show you their new moves.

http://vimeo.com/75923805

We have Celtic Day coming up next week on Friday.  Dress warmly with layers.  Oversized t-shirts/jumpers, dark colours, trousers and a belt will be sufficient.

Have a lovely weekend.

Miss Turner and Miss Shaw

This week, the children have demonstrated commitment towards learning to tell the time.   Telling the time is a difficult concept for many children to grasp and so it is important that they are given as much experience as possible at telling the time.  We have been using the clock through the day and telling the time together.

If you are looking for ways of supporting your child this week at home, encouraging them to tell the time across the weekend using an analogue clock would be invaluable.  Some children are ready to move onto thinking about what the digital clock would look like and so this could be a next step. For example; ‘I know that 20 minutes to four is 3:40 on the digital clock.  This is tricky and takes ‘time’ to conquer fully!

In other news, a huge well done to Hippo class for winning the Golden dustpan award in assembly today as well as being the class with the highest attendance in KS2.  Keep up the good work.

Have a lovely weekend telling the time!

Miss Turner and Miss Shaw

We have been very impressed with the current display of home learning adventure books that we have seen already. Thank you for supporting your child with these tasks.  Remember, you do not need to do all of the pyramid and it might be that some weeks the children would prefer to do their own line of enquiry. Here are some of the models we have had so far:

Home reading: Thank you for taking the time to complete the reading records for each day.  We find it very useful in school to see how their reading is progressing through looking at these records.

Abacus Maths:  We have been learning division and multiplication facts for the times tables this week.  Below is an example of the language that we have been using in class and a bead string showing the different multiplication and division facts:

Have a go at some of your quick recall of the times tables through the treetop challenge game on Abacus Maths.

We understand that some people are experiencing difficulties accessing the game online at home.  This could be due to blocked ‘pop ups’. There should be an option on your internet browser to allow ‘pop ups’ for this site only.  Keep us informed if there are still difficulties.

Thank you again for your support with the home learning!

Miss Turner and Miss Shaw

We hope that all the children have had a good holiday and feel rested ready for the upcoming year. The children have settled back into school life very well and they are all keen to learn!

Thank you to everyone who was able to attend the welcome meeting on Tuesday night. It was pleasing to see how many people were able to come along and we hope that you found it informative. If you were not able to make it on this occasion, you should have received the powerpoint used and the ‘welcome to year 3’ leaflet this week.

Please find below a copy of the home learning pyramid for this half term. The children can pick activities from the pyramid each week for their home learning. Children are not expected to complete all the tasks (although they can if they wish). The pyramid is for use over the first half term and so there is no expectation for it all to be completed immediately.

Don’t forget to go onto Bug club, My Maths and Purple Mash and record these into your diaries.  We are looking forward to looking at the home learning, next Friday 19th September!

Key dates for the diary for this half term:

* Friday 17th October – Celtic Day (Come to school dressed as a Celt from the Iron Age).

Please do not hesitate to contact your child’s class teacher or Diane Price should any issues arise.

Miss Turner and Miss Shaw