Nature in Art

Year 3 had a wonderful day at Nature in Art in Twigworth, near Gloucester, today!

The weather was incredibly kind to us as we visited the tranquil Georgian mansion and its fabulous, sculpture-filled grounds for a hands-on day of art and creativity.

The children took part in three different activities during the day: making tissue paper bowls; making butterflies from wire and resin, and a visit to the museum and art gallery, including meeting the artist in residence, who was a specialist in Batik silk art.

All the children thoroughly enjoyed the day and their behaviour was exemplary: both the staff and members of the public who were visiting the gallery commented upon how respectful and polite the children were during our time there.  They were a real credit to the school.

Take a look at our photos...

Symmetry

In our maths lessons this morning, we have been looking at symmetry.  A line of symmetry is an invisible line which cuts across a picture or shape.  If the shape or picture is symmetrical, then it will look exactly the same on each side of the line, as if reflected in a mirror.

We have been designing flags which have different lines of symmetry, and using mirrors to check that they are really symmetrical.  We also had a look at an online 'symmetry artist' game, which was great fun.  If you would like to have a go, you can find the link here.

Looking for the Right Angle...

In our Maths lessons this week, we have been starting to look at angles, shapes and symmetry.  Today, we have been learning all about angles.  Angles occur when two straight lines meet: if the lines never meet, or if one or both of the lines is curved, then this does not form an angle.

We have been looking at angles today: right angles (which have 90 degrees), obtuse angles (which are larger than 90 degrees) and acute angles (which are smaller than 90 degrees).  Mrs Vaqueiro showed everyone how to make a right angle checker, and then we moved around the classroom trying to find as many different right angles as possible.  There were surprisingly many!

Poetry Week

This week in our Literacy lessons we have been focusing on poetry.  On Monday, we were lucky to receive a visit from a real, live poet - James Carter, who led our whole school assembly and then came to work with different year groups.

Mr Carter helped us to write some super poems all about animals, concentrating on the syllables and rhythm in each line.

At the end of the school day, the whole school met in the hall again, and some of the children from each class shared the poems that they had written.

We thank Mr Carter for sharing his knowledge and experience with us, and also Mr Batts for organising the poetry day for us.

Desert Debates

Imagine that you are travelling across the desert with a group of 100 people.  You have plenty of food and water for everyone, and you have tents to shelter in at night.

What kinds of problems might your group face?   What rules might you need to ensure that everyone arrives safely at their destination?  What might happen if we didn't make rules for everyone to follow?

This was our challenge this afternoon in 3V...  The children worked small groups to come up with five different rules to help the group cross the desert safely.  There was a lot of healthy debate about what the rules should be!

In our RE lessons this half term, we have been looking at Right and Wrong.  This afternoon, we looked at the Ten Commandments, which the Bible tells us were given to Moses as he led the Israelites on their exodus from Egypt.

Having devised their own set of rules, the children compared these with the Ten Commandments, before trying to put the Commandments into order of priority.  There was a lot of very interesting discussion as they tried to agree which rules were the most (and least) important.

Quentin Blake

In our art lessons recently, we have been working hard to update the artwork for our corridor displays.  The theme for this term is British Artists.  In Year 3 we have enjoyed reading a number of different Roald Dahl stories, which are famously illustrated by Quentin Blake.

We therefore decided to recreate one of Quentin Blake's most iconic images - The Grand High Witch from Roald Dahl's 'The Witches.'  We were lucky to have the ladies from Art Base to help us with our work.  

First, we made a pencil sketch of the witches, taking care to get the shapes and positions of the heads right.  Then, we blended watercolours to match the original painting, and coloured in our drawings.  After that, we made a simple blue colourwash for the background, trying to avoid too many harsh edges.  Finally, we picked out the outlines in black ink, which really made our drawings come to life!

Here is a selection of our finished pieces, which are now decorating the corridor outside Year 3.  We hope you enjoy looking at them!

Welcome Back!

Hello and welcome back to school for our final half term of the year!

We have lots of exciting activities planned for this half term, including our visit to Nature in Art, a poetry workshop and plenty of different sporting events.

In literacy for the next two weeks, we will be focusing on our new Harry Potter theme: in Big Writing we will be describing Hogwarts as a setting, before writing our own Harry Potter story for our Unaided Writing on Friday 14th June.  

Mrs Vaqueiro