Forest School Fun

3V braved the elements this afternoon for their first Forest School session of the year.  Wrapped up warm against the chilly autumn weather, the children enjoyed an afternoon playing in the Forest School area under the watchful eyes of Mrs Vaqueiro and Robbie, the Forest School leader.

The children began by reminding themselves about the rules of Forest School, and then shared a few minutes' mindfulness listening to the different sounds in the woods.  Then, we shared the story of 'Owl Babies' and the children spent the afternoon building nests for wildlife, creating pictures of owls using natural resources, and bug hunting using the magnifiers.  Luckily, the weather stayed fairly dry for us!

Our second and final Forest School session will take place next Friday.

Klub Polski (Polish Club!)

Dzien dobry!

After school on Monday afternoons, some children (and teachers!) from Year 3 have been attending the school's new Polish Club, which has been organised by Mr Davies.  The classes are led by a qualified Polish teacher, and are aimed at both Polish speakers and non-Polish speakers.

The club is a great opportunity for the Polish children to brush up their written language skills, while helping the non-Polish speakers to learn the basics.  We've all enjoyed learning something new!

Even Mrs Miller and Mrs Vaqueiro joined in the lesson!

Rock Hunting Rocks!

3V braved the late autumn chill this afternoon for a bracing stroll around the school grounds in search of different rocks.  We didn't have to venture far from the classroom to find a number of different specimens - there was a huge variety to be seen and collected.  

We found limestone, granite, sandstone, flint, slate and a number of other less easily-identifiable rocks.  We even found a fossil lodged in a block of composite rock!

If you look very carefully, you may spot the fossil!

If you look closely at this rock, you can see the layers of sediment from which it was originally formed.

Volcanoes!

For our Big Writing this week, we are going to be writing a report all about volcanoes, echoing some of the work that we have been doing in our geography lessons.  Whilst researching all about volcanoes, some of the children have been inspired to create some amazing volcanoes of their own!  

Look how fabulous these models are!  

Thank you, as always, to parents and carers for supporting your children's learning (and being prepared to put up with all the mess from these crafty endeavours!)

Mrs Vaqueiro

Chocolate Rocks!

In 3V this half term, we are learning all about rocks and soils.  We have been looking at the three different ways in which rocks are formed.

Igneous rocks are formed deep underground, where the temperature is extremely hot.  Pockets of magma (molten rock) form under the earth's surface.  When these cool and solidify, igneous rock is formed.

Sedimentary rock usually forms under the sea.  Layers of dust and grit become compacted over many thousands of years, eventually solidifying to create sedimentary rock.

Metamorphic rock is created when heat and pressure affect an existing rock to such an extent that its structure changes, creating a new type of rock.

We recreated these different processes using a very popular ingredient... chocolate!  

First, we broke a bar of delicious chocolate into pieces.  Mrs Miller took it away to melt it carefully in the microwave.   This would be our igneous rock! 

Meanwhile, we layered several different chocolates and sweets in a baking dish.  These represented our sedimentary rock.  After the melted chocolate had been cooled and crumbled in (representing the erosion process that takes place over hundreds of years), Mrs Miller took it away again to be heated in the oven.  The heat from the oven represented the metamorphic process.  

Once the dish was cool enough to handle safely, it was brought back into the classroom, where we looked at the changes that had occurred to our chocolate rock.

Finally, Mrs Vaqueiro broke the chocolate rock into bite-sized pieces for us to enjoy!

It was a delicious way to finish a Friday afternoon!

Parliament Week

Schools across the UK are marking Parliament Week this week with different activities to promote children's understanding of democracy and the role of the government.

At Swan Lane, children have been involved in their own democratic election.  Some money has been set aside for improvements to the school facilities, and Mrs Roberts has asked for the children's help in deciding how the money should be spent.  There are three possible projects to choose from: 

• to update the adventure playground with a new piece of equipment; or
• to create a brand new nature trail in the school grounds; or
• to replace the stage lighting with something a little more state-of-the-art.

Teams of older children in Years 4 and 5 have helped to bring the electoral process to life by holding 'hustings' during assembly, promoting their chosen project with gusto in the hope of attracting votes for their preferred option from the rest of the children.

Today was election day, and every child in school was able to cast their vote for their chosen project.  The votes were counted, and Mrs Hurst confirmed that the winning project was...

The adventure playground!

(Almost nobody was surprised!)

With the results announced, the children spent time in their PSHE lessons creating their dream design for the winning project.

Here are the votes from 3V being placed carefully in the ballot box!

Hour of Code

As part of the Year 3 curriculum we are learning all about the language of computers, which is called code.  Most of the class are huge Minecraft fans, so we had a look at the coding skills necessary to build commands in the Minecraft game.

We visited https://studio.code.org/s/mc/stage/1/puzzle/1 to complete our very first Hour of Code.  By the end of the lesson, all the children were able to put together complex commands using code, and were beginning to solve problems independently.

If you'd like to have a go at coding, click on the link above and follow the instructions to help you get started!