Springtime at Sandfield Farm

3V enjoyed a wonderful spring day at Sandfield Farm today.  The weather was very kind to us as we spent the day exploring the farm in the glorious sunshine.  

Sandfield Farm is a dairy farm, and the young cattle, who have been staying snug in their barns over the winter, were being let out to graze the fresh grass in the pastures for the first time this year.  We watched as the year-old calves emerged into the sunshine.  There was some initial hesitation, but they were soon leaping and capering across the fields at quite a pace!

After a safety briefing, we then took a short stroll to the farm pond for some pond dipping.  We saw a huge array of wildlife and minibeasts, including dragonfly nymphs, water spiders, tadpoles, water boatmen, pond skaters, water lice and water snails (and their eggs).

Afterwards, we had a tractor ride back to the classroom for lunch, before heading out to the Forest School area to play.

We had a super time and would like to thank Mr Johnson for organising the trip for us, as well as Emma at Sandfield Farm for inviting us back for another visit!

Coding with Logo

As part of the Year 3 computing curriculum, 3V have been learning more about the language of code, which is used for computer programming.  We have been using the simplified language Logo in order to control a cursor and solve different challenges.

If you would like to have a go at coding using Logo, you can follow the link here.

Red Nose Day!

The staff and children at Swan Lane made a super effort for Red Nose Day by coming to school wearing red in return for a small donation in support of the Comic Relief charity.

We had a special assembly, led by Mr Bowkett, and then in the afternoon, 3V took part in a Danceathon for Comic Relief alongside 3F and the two year 2 classes.  It was great fun and a good way for the children to burn off some energy!

Ancient Egyptians Assembly

After weeks of preparation, it was finally time for Class 3V's assembly this morning.  The children performed brilliantly and I am reliably informed that their voices could be heard loud and clear by the audience both at the back of the hall and upstairs in the gallery.

We thank Mrs Green for her help with creating props (especially the amazing Rosetta Stone, which I will be squirreling away for future assemblies!), Mr Forrester for his technical help with the music, and Mrs Hyatt for organising all the costumes for us.

Thank you also to parents and carers for your support in helping the children to learn their lines, bringing them into school a little earlier this morning to get ready, and for cheering them on at the performance.  Your support makes a huge difference, and is, as always, very much appreciated.

Mrs Vaqueiro

Marvellous Magnets

In science lessons this term, we are learning all about Forces.  Today, we explored the amazing world of magnets!  

We learnt that magnets have an invisible force field around them, which pulls certain materials in and makes them stick.  We enjoyed watching paper clips jump across the desk to stick to our magnets!

We then watched an amazing video clip showing how magnets affect iron filings.  You can watch it here.  We were fascinated!

Then, we looked at how magnets are used in the real world.  We discovered that electro-magnets are often used in recycling centres to sort different materials.  

Finally, it was our turn for a 'Scrapheap Challenge.'  Each table group had a tray of different materials to sort into magnetic and non-magnetic materials.  Most children predicted that the magnets would attract metals - but then some of the results turned out to be quite surprising!  

Can you guess which metallic objects didn't stick to the magnets - and can you work out why?

Dazzling Diversity Display

In our Art lessons recently, we have been working hard to update the display boards in the corridors outside our classroom.  The theme for this term is 'Multiculturalism and Diversity' and each class has been creating their displays with this in mind.

Our class is a diverse place, with staff and pupils having family links in many different countries around the world.  We created a display board showing all the different flags associated with those different countries.  How many of them can you identify?

For our larger display board, we worked collaboratively to make a 3D world using modroc, which we then painted.  Each of the children created a painted hand to represent the children of the world working together.  We hope you like the finished result!