Parliament Week Activities

In 3V recently we have been learning all about the role of Parliament in the United Kingdom, and how the electoral process works.  This afternoon, we held a mock election.  

Each of the children designed their own manifesto with election pledges - there were many inventive ideas, including promises to limit plastic waste, introduce compulsory swimming lessons, promote kindness to animals and abolish wars and homelessness. 

Each table group acted as a constituency, with each child promoting their own party in a brief election hustings.  At the end of each debate the children in the rest of the class had to vote for their favoured candidate, who was duly elected MP for their constituency.

We then held a final contest between all the MPs, with the winner elected by secret ballot as Prime Minister for the class for the rest of the day.  

Although this isn't quite how a real general election works, it gave the children a flavour of the election process, and an insight into how political parties promote their policies and achieve election success.

New Board Games!

Parents and carers may recall that, just before Christmas, the Friends Association organised a Festive Fun Run at school, with children seeking sponsorship for their participation in the event.  

Some of the money raised has been used to enable class teachers to purchase some brand new board games for their classrooms, to make rainy playtimes more interesting for the children.

Here are our brand new board games - and whilst we might not exactly wish for bad weather, the children are certainly looking forward to trying out their new toys!  

We thank the Friends Association and all those who kindly sponsored children to take part in the fun run for their generous donations.

Roman Mosaic Display

Over the past few weeks in 3V, we have been working hard to update the artwork for the corridor display boards outside our classroom.  The whole school theme was Design and Technology, and we therefore decided to link our work with our recent studies of Ancient Rome.

We began by researching Roman mosaics using the internet and library resources.  We wanted to know how the Romans used mosaic tiles in their homes and public buildings, and what materials they chose for the tiles (known as tesserae).  We learnt that many Roman mosaics have survived until this day, so they must have been incredibly durable as well as beautiful.

Then we looked at how mosaics are still used today.  We looked at modern mosaic art (including the Swan mosaic which decorates the reception area in school) and compared mosaics to pixel art used by computer programmers in games like Minecraft.  We had a go at making our own pixel pictures (it's trickier than you might think!).

Finally, we were ready to design our own individual mosaic pictures.  Taking inspiration from the Romans, we decided to follow a marine theme, as many Roman mosaics feature sea creatures.  Using different fish and seahorse templates as a guide, we planned and evaluated our own designs.  

Then it was time to make the artwork.  We used sponges to print the background, choosing pearlescent silver and blue acrylic paints to represent the sea.  Then we used collage to recreate our sea creature designs.

We all worked together to make a large collaborative picture.  With the larger piece, we collaged different blue stripes to make the background, representing ocean waves.  Then we applied the sponge printing technique to colour the fish, blending different blues, greens, silver and gold to create the shimmery scales.  Last of all, we collaged a black and white paper border around the fish to make it stand out from the background.

We are really pleased with the finished pictures, and we hope you enjoy them too!

Voice Training Workshop

The children in Key Stage 2 were lucky to have a visit today from drama teacher, Mr Tombs.

Mr Tombs worked with each class to help them understand how our voices work, and how to project our voices well without shouting or straining the vocal chords.

I'm hoping that we will be able to put our new vocal skills to use in our class assembly next week!

Mrs Vaqueiro