World Book Day

We love World Book Day! Before the day itself, we were lucky enough to be able to join an online event with authors Michael Rosen, Sandra Agard, Emily Hanna-Grazebrook and illustrator Allen Fatimaharan for origin tales about mountains, forests and skies. We heard about nature-related mythology and traditional stories from around the world.

The workshop focussed on ‘Why Stories’, exploring the ways in which people from ancient cultures used storytelling to explain the mystery, chaos and beauty of the world around them. 

The class enjoyed the story-telling as well as the draw-alongs, with a final challenge of creating our own nature tales. We also had the treat of hearing and joining in with Michael Rosen's 'No Breathing!' poem! 

For World Book Day itself, we had a cafe with drinks and biscuits where we created a menu about our favourite book. We shared our menus with others and discussed what made us choose these as our favourite books. 

Art - Sevenoaks School 

Whilst half the class are computing at Sevenoaks School, the other half are doing some art! Children have done some printwork and looked at proper printing machines, as well as done some pottery. 

Computing - Sevenoaks School

For the next few weeks, Year 3 will be visiting Sevenoaks School to do some computing work with them using TinkerCad. This is a 3D design software and designs can even be linked up to a 3D printer! The objective of our sessions is to think about how to make a city that is sustainable - that has resources that will last a long time. Groups are working on green spaces, buildings, transport and energy. 

Science - How much sugar is in our food? 

We have been thinking about different food groups and the effects each type has on our bodies. This week, we looked at fats and sugars and how it can lead to rotten teeth, obesity and diabetes. We took many foods that we like, such as biscuits, Yoyos, syrup and cereals and looked at how much sugar was in 100g of that food. We then weighed this amount out in sugar and compared it to the 24g that is the total amount we should have in a day. We were shocked to see how much sugar was in our food! 

DT - Creating 3D characters inspired by the rainforest

In DT, we have been thinking about how to create texture in clay. We first started by looking close up at different rainforest animals and sketching different patterns or strokes depending on the animal being drawn. We then thought about how we can transfer these effects, as well as the expression of these animals, across to a clay sculpture. We used objects like pencil pots, shells and lego to create different textures in clay. We painted a background for our sculptures using Henri Rousseau as inspiration, and displayed our finished animal on our backgrounds. 

Wild Science

As part of our rainforest topic, we had Wild Science visit us and bring along some of their animals. We learnt different facts about each animal such as where it would live in the rainforest and what its diet is. If the animal did not come from the rainforest, we looked at reasons why it would not be suited. For example, the leopard gecko would not camouflage well in a rainforest, but is better suited to a desert or savannah. We had an amazing time and loved being able to touch the animals. 

Weald Heights Care Home - Owl Visit! 

We were invited to spend the afternoon with the residents of Weald Heights Care Home and learn all about owls. After the choir sang here at Christmas, it was nice to see familiar faces and share in such an amazing opportunity. We learnt about how the colour of an owl's eyes can determine whether it is a dawn/dusk hunter and learnt that they can eat surprisingly large prey! At the end, we were lucky enough to hold and stroke an owl. 

Science - Shadows

We have been looking at shadows this week and understanding how they are formed. When an object blocks light, a shadow is formed. Some objects let no light through it and create dark shadows - opaque objects. Some objects are translucent or transparent, letting a little or all light through. We also did an investigation to see how the size of shadows changed depending on how close a light source was. 

Geography - Biomes

We have been thinking about the different biomes around the word and the characteristics of them - are they wet/dry? Hot/cold? Fertile/non-fertile?