Working with the RISE project to explore coping with emotions and resilience.

In English, the children have been analysing the main character, Tomas in the story, “The Boy who Grew Dragons.” The children knew lots of facts about Tomas’ character and personality and recorded their evidence from the text in a life size drawing.

Last week, the children made their own flip books to show a very simple animation. Using IMotion, the children made an animation building on the techniques used previously. 

To start our work on rocks, the children sorted photographs of rocks into natural and man made. We then talked about their ideas and discussed the correct answers.

Using the work of Brazilian artist Romero Britto as inspiration, the children used a picture of King Charles to decorate in Britto’s style.

Summer Term 

The children used iPad's to read the QR codes and work out the hidden message. 

The children cut out animals from clay using templates as a guide. Once the animals were cut out, the children carefully smoothed the edges using their fingers. They then used a variety of tools to add Celtic patterns. 

After designing our sandwiches, we learnt about food hygiene and safety in the kitchen. When cutting vegetables the children practiced using a claw grip to keep their fingers safe. They also grated vegetables and buttered their bread. Once their sandwiches were completed, the children ate them and evaluated them.

Working with an artist

We have worked with an artist looking at the future and history of telephones. We explored the local connection of a telephone being first installed in Ryton mine. The children in groups designed a telephone of the future and in pairs made a string telephone. Then the artist showed us how to make a mould and take a casting. 

In DT, the children tasted different kinds of bread so that they could design their own sandwich.

In DT, the children analysed a variety of sandwiches thinking about the colour, the texture and the taste to help them design their own healthy sandwich.

In English, the children have been using the short film, “The Black Hat” to analyse characters. The children sorted words into the different parts of the circles according to how relevant they are were. The centre of the circle contained the words the children felt best described the boy and the outer circle contained words that weren’t as relevant. 

The children took textured rubbings to create nature-inspired artwork in the style of Max Ernst and botanical artist Maud Purdy. 

Children discussed the meaning of the words, ‘risk’,’hazard’ and ‘danger’. They discussed a variety of pictures deciding how they were risky, hazardous or dangerous. The children then played the ‘Play it Safe’ game.

This half term in DT the children will be designing and making their own healthy sandwiches. In the first lesson, we looked at pictures of packed lunches and sorted them into healthy and unhealthy packed lunches. We then looked more closely at the lunches and listed what was healthy or unhealthy about them.

In Science, we carried out an investigation to see if the length of the femur determined how far we could jump. We measured the length of our femurs and jumps carefully ensuring that we started measuring from zero. We discussed how to make our investigation fair. Some groups found that the length of the femur did determine the length of the jump, however some groups found that those with a shorter femur could jump further. We discussed possible reasons for this. 

The children created two pieces of work using the same focus, using Paint on a digital device to create one piece of work, and a non-digital tools to create the other. The children then compared and contrasted the two approaches.

After feeling the movement of their biceps and triceps when they move their arm, the children made their own scientific model using card and paper fasteners. The children were able to describe how the biceps and triceps work. 

Spring Term

In R.E, the children learnt about the Christingle and the significance of each part. They had great fun making the Christingle in pairs and they resist the urge to eat the sweets and dried fruit! Once completed,the Christingles were given to the Year 5 children at our Christmas Church Service.

We had a fabulous party. We played pass the parcel, flap the fish, stations and musical statues.

In science Year 3 have been finding out about the human skeleton, it’s purpose and learning some of the scientific names of the bones. The children had great fun trying to label the bones and then we labelled the different bones together, talking about the facts.